"Who's more foolish? The Fool? Or the fool who follows?" -- or maybe Vizzini from The Princess Bride, "...Plato, Socrates, Sam Altman? Morons, all of them." Well, something like that. How about, "Burn, baby, burn, Token Inferno..." No? Well, maybe you were just born too late.
So Google's mouthpiece responds with Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD) as a matter of course because that's what they always do. Google is just one great example of why The European Union needs to worry about it's own digital sovereignty. Too bad a billion-dollar fine won't make much difference in their "Be Evil" product strategy. Late-stage capitalism at its finest, where "growth at any cost" is not just the ethos or logos of a cancer cell. Go Euro Commission. American companies pretty much suck at this point and they're not afraid to act up, even internationally. You do what you gotta do.
Microsoft has been bilking, milking, and threatening for about 40 years now by my count. This company is not interested in the commomwealth, the general welfare of man, or preserving any data or status quo unless it has a price tag attached to it. They're in it for the cash, nothing more to see there. I've lost count of the software competitors (like soft PCs and emulators, for example) that they've bought and put on a shelf and forgot about, litigated to death, or just plain unfairly priced out of existence. Everyone just needs to assume that Microsoft won't be preserving jack-squat for posterity. That said, Apple, Adobe, Meta, bullsh-X, Google, Samsung and pretty much all of the other "big tech companies" are all cut from the same cloth. Don't hold your breath that they're going to come to the aid of the human race anywhere, ever. Not even Bill Gates' philanthropic outreach or "pick your favorite ex-googler" are really going to help that much. You're just gonna have to create a future without them. (Because that's really the only way the human race is going to survive.)
Let us all take a moment to reflect that this was a thinly-veiled proxy war on Linux started by Microsoft back in the day, and it went on for entirely too long. Let us also remember that FreeBSD was vetted against AT&T waaaaaaay back in 1994 and that, as they say, was that. No insanely long-tailed legal maneuvering. I can only hope that they keep Hell hot for the new round of greedy morons pushing this effort. Or, at the very least, they also get to endure two decades of value destruction in their own lives, dying broke and penniless in some locked senior ward somewhere.
I dropped Facebook several years ago (2022) when their "community standards" moderators went all douchy/Trumpy on me and I've never looked back. Best move I've ever made in my life for my own mental health. And any projects I take on in the future will explicitly avoid/deny/lock-out Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and other big social media just because I don't see any value there anymore, for anyone. The collective "we" burned that village down to the ground. Oh well. Moving on.
Negligent. Big Tech has been negligent in their characterizing AI, influencing business leaders, destroying jobs anyway because of the negative zeitgeist, and now they're saying that they may have been wrong. In the mean time we all know that AI isn't going to wash our cars or plant a garden or mow the lawn for the common man, nor is it necessarily the best solution for lots of jobs out there, but they're going to push it anyway. In the mean time the institutional investors are going to continue to push the AI hype so that they can foist off all of the so-far-accumulated debt to the smaller investors because the big boys already know that they want out. They're also starting to realize that spending millions of dollars on "AI tokens" may not have been the smartest move for their companies and clients, but they still want out, and they'll still lie through their teeth to make sure that someone else buys their AI "junk bonds" so that they can be made whole again. Garbage in, Sam Altman out. But my key point here is negligence. They have been negligent and they are still untrustworthy.
BMW wants to charge you a monthly subscription for seat warmers for a car you already bought once. Maybe Meta can charge you for wearing pants as sort of a "protection racket". Zipper access will cost you an extra $7 per deployment when you need it though. "Nice pants you got there. It would be a SHAME if they were to get wet." -- Utterly ridiculous, decidedly unneeded and definitely unwanted.
The ENTIRE AI ECOSYSTEM is FOUNDED on MASSIVE COPYRIGHT THEFT AND FRAUD! How dare they?!? (That was satire for the humor-impared.)
And this is yet another example of why data sovereignty is so important for Europe, Australia, Japan, and pretty much the rest of the world. Even CloudFlare knows the AI leader-wannabees are less than reputable, less than honorable, and not worth trusting.
So..., pay three times as much for less capable brains that are assisted by AI for about the same tangible output than your regular software engineer? Sounds like The American Way.
I remember Volkswagen doing pretty much the same thing back in 1973-74 with the VW Thing. "Customize it. Make it your own." I hope it finds its niche.
Why can't Yves be more like Claude?
It was good while it lasted, but you can't "enshitify" any more efficiently or completely than the Fox brand enshitifies. I wonder how long it will take before I have to start buying different hardware?
Google says it won't be evil. Will renege later when it becomes too expensive to carry out their initial stated intentions....
Douchy BSA wonk doesn't like the EU guarding the golden goose a little bit more carefully these days. Problem is, they need to. Most American businesses are not trustworthy and dont subscribe to any sort of legal framework or ethos that MAKES them trustworthy, so here we are. You do you, EU.
American big tech is untrustworthy at its core. In the boardroom, in the back room, and in the data center. They have no guard rails, no good law (at the present) that makes them play nice. I think that not just Europe needs to be looking at digital sovereignty. Japan, Australia, Canada, are you listening? Most of the big tech companies CAN'T be trusted, so now it's time to start rolling your own, so to speak. Good luck.
It is contrary to reasoning to say that there is a vacuum or space in which there is absolutely nothing. -- Descartes
