Define "excitement."

Joy touts Apple as an example of a highly proprietary company being "innovative," as opposed to Open Source. Apparently he never heard of Darwin OS...

Is this kind of ambivalence to open source yet another example how, once you acquire something, you stop desiring it so much?

In principle, YES Google crossed the line, clearly. (Reasons are already espoused in other threads, too tiresome to repeat.) In practice, it probably depends on whether end users perceive a clear change in the performance of their PCs.

If the app isn't visually intrusive and doesn't hork throughput, I would guess most won't care one way or the other. Problem is, if the updater causes problems, the simplest option is to uninstall the software -- and who will reinstall it later?

What ticks me off is that with this choice Google seems to be catering those with a surfeit of bandwidth... I never have enough bandwdith, never; now you want to steal a slice of what little I have for your own purposes? Bad Google, bad, evil Google!

I envision a conversation between two typical users:

"Hey, you seen that new Google Earth? Looks cool."

"Yeah, but if you install it nothing else on your computer will work right."

"Oh, dude... screw that."

This reminds me of a survey I read about somewhere... can't seem to find it. One question read (something like), "You pay ten dollars for movie tickets but, halfway through the feature, you decide the movie really stinks. Do you (a) stay for the rest of it so as to get your money's worth, or (b) leave immediately?" According to the source which I have not yet found, people who were fiscally successful tended to answer (b).

Time to leave the {insert your favorite software here} Movieplex, people!