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How's that? To search the web, I'd go to DuckDuckGo or Bing or whatever. Other companies also provide web mail, maps, office document solutions, etc. Google's d

by jad 11y ago

How's that? To search the web, I'd go to DuckDuckGo or Bing or whatever. Other companies also provide web mail, maps, office document solutions, etc. Google's definitely better at those things, but using a worse version of those products would not cause the world to "screech to a halt." Probably the most disruptive thing if Apple vanished would actually be every tech company suddenly needing to figure out how to use Windows or desktop Linux.

sdrothrock 11y ago
We could probably think of alternatives for most of these things, but there are a lot of people who just use what came with their phone/browser. Additionally, think of all of the Google-backed services out there provided by other companies. How many companies use gmail heavily that would lose all kinds of records? Normal people would lose their e-mail too, and businessmen would lose a lot of their calendars. The actual solution doesn't matter as much as the data already invested in Google's solutions that would be lost if Google just vanished.
- tedmiston 11y ago
  And Google Takeout continues to ensure that won't happen.
  - Thirdegree 11y ago
    Only for people that proactively use it. Speaking of which, I should probably backup again.
- latj 11y ago
  The world wouldnt screech to a halt though. We're talking about what would happen if Google disappeared and its not a hypothetical situation. It happened in China for a five year period starting in 2010. People who used Google services were very upset. Replacements sprung up and quickly improved. They never caught up to Google but they were good enough, along with propaganda and the threat of prison, to keep people from making more of a commotion. The biggest loss to humanity (in my opinion) would be all the translation data they hold privately. But Google really just people and money. If Google the entity disappeared tomorrow all those people who still know how to do the work will just start working on it elsewhere and catch up quickly.
  - sdrothrock 11y ago
    > We're talking about what would happen if Google disappeared and its not a hypothetical situation. It happened in China for a five year period starting in 2010. My bad. I was thinking about what would happen if Google disappeared as in, one day their servers and services just aren't available for whatever reason, rather than a staged transition/fade out.
- smileysteve 11y ago
  Critically 20 years ago, nobody could have pictured living without AOL, they had search, the directory, email, Aim - and connectivity. 15 years ago, few people could have seen a world without Yahoo. 3 months ago Dorsey said Twitter is an essential part of the internet.
JesseObrien 11y ago
As far as "screech to a halt." is concerned, it's maybe a little on the exaggerated side, but I'd believe it. I've worked for 5 different companies of varying sizes from 5 to 1000 employees. All of them have used Google Apps to run their business. Email, Calendars, Docs, Basically the Apps suite in it's entirety is the core of communicating and information storage. There's arguments for backups, etc but in reality if the common business person working at these companies sits down and none of their Google products work, their day will halt.
- hammock 11y ago
  Google Apps has 50 million users, iCloud has 125 million Edit: to clarify, my source[1] said 5 million orgs with 50 million individual users. Not counting Gmail obviously [1]http://blog.bettercloud.com/google-apps-stats/ http://blog.bettercloud.com/google-apps-stats/
  - tempestn 11y ago
    iCloud users are mostly individuals. Google Apps users are largely businesses with users of their own.
  - itcmcgrath 11y ago
    Having worked on the Drive team, I can assure you Google Apps (which includes GMail, the Docs editors, and Drive) has much more than 50 million. A quick search on public figures for these services will give better numbers. Edit: Those are Apps for Work numbers, excluding consumers - obviously you can't compare just a subset with a total.
    - toomuchtodo 11y ago
      Why does Drive lack where Dropbox has succeeded (efficient, reliable syncing)? (Honest question, since you mentioned you're on the Drive team)
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
funkyy 11y ago
None search engine comes close to Google atm. Also Google marketing and SEO employs a much, much bigger number of people than people working as a freelancers related directly to Apple I assume. (not employees, the freelancers and companies that use the Google/Apple as platform to run their businesses)
taoeffect 11y ago
Seriously, I don't need anything Google related. Not search, not devices, not email, not even analytics (thank you Piwik)! But if Apple disappeared I'd be screwed.
jhuckestein 11y ago
DuckDuckGo uses Google search results
- jacquesm 11y ago
  Please don't spread information that is factually incorrect, especially not if it concerns a small company trying to compete with a much larger one. "In fact, DuckDuckGo gets its results from over four hundred sources. These include hundreds of vertical sources delivering niche Instant Answers, DuckDuckBot (our crawler) and crowd-sourced sites (like Wikipedia, stored in our answer indexes). We also of course have more traditional links in the search results, which we primarily source from Yahoo!, and in some regions and scenarios, Yandex and Bing. From: https://duck.co/help/results/sources https://duck.co/help/results/sources
- firloop 11y ago
  I thought DDG used Yandex for search?
pavanky 11y ago
Every tech company is a bit of a stretch. Get out of california more.
toxican 11y ago
I love the idea of DuckDuckGo, and I used them for a year or so before I realized every other search resulted in frustration and me appending a !ge to it. So yes, there are alternatives, but I don't find them to be nearly as good.
ant6n 11y ago
I once went to China, without Google. My online life screeched to a halt. On the other hand, there were a few Chinese people there, and most of them seemed to have a non-halted life.

by jad 11y ago

sdrothrock 11y ago

We could probably think of alternatives for most of these things, but there are a lot of people who just use what came with their phone/browser. Additionally, think of all of the Google-backed services out there provided by other companies. How many companies use gmail heavily that would lose all kinds of records? Normal people would lose their e-mail too, and businessmen would lose a lot of their calendars. The actual solution doesn't matter as much as the data already invested in Google's solutions that would be lost if Google just vanished.

tedmiston 11y ago
And Google Takeout continues to ensure that won't happen.
- Thirdegree 11y ago
  Only for people that proactively use it. Speaking of which, I should probably backup again.
latj 11y ago
The world wouldnt screech to a halt though. We're talking about what would happen if Google disappeared and its not a hypothetical situation. It happened in China for a five year period starting in 2010. People who used Google services were very upset. Replacements sprung up and quickly improved. They never caught up to Google but they were good enough, along with propaganda and the threat of prison, to keep people from making more of a commotion. The biggest loss to humanity (in my opinion) would be all the translation data they hold privately. But Google really just people and money. If Google the entity disappeared tomorrow all those people who still know how to do the work will just start working on it elsewhere and catch up quickly.
- sdrothrock 11y ago
  > We're talking about what would happen if Google disappeared and its not a hypothetical situation. It happened in China for a five year period starting in 2010. My bad. I was thinking about what would happen if Google disappeared as in, one day their servers and services just aren't available for whatever reason, rather than a staged transition/fade out.
smileysteve 11y ago
Critically 20 years ago, nobody could have pictured living without AOL, they had search, the directory, email, Aim - and connectivity. 15 years ago, few people could have seen a world without Yahoo. 3 months ago Dorsey said Twitter is an essential part of the internet.

JesseObrien 11y ago

As far as "screech to a halt." is concerned, it's maybe a little on the exaggerated side, but I'd believe it. I've worked for 5 different companies of varying sizes from 5 to 1000 employees. All of them have used Google Apps to run their business. Email, Calendars, Docs, Basically the Apps suite in it's entirety is the core of communicating and information storage. There's arguments for backups, etc but in reality if the common business person working at these companies sits down and none of their Google products work, their day will halt.

hammock 11y ago
Google Apps has 50 million users, iCloud has 125 million Edit: to clarify, my source[1] said 5 million orgs with 50 million individual users. Not counting Gmail obviously [1]http://blog.bettercloud.com/google-apps-stats/ http://blog.bettercloud.com/google-apps-stats/
- tempestn 11y ago
  iCloud users are mostly individuals. Google Apps users are largely businesses with users of their own.
- itcmcgrath 11y ago
  Having worked on the Drive team, I can assure you Google Apps (which includes GMail, the Docs editors, and Drive) has much more than 50 million. A quick search on public figures for these services will give better numbers. Edit: Those are Apps for Work numbers, excluding consumers - obviously you can't compare just a subset with a total.
  - toomuchtodo 11y ago
    Why does Drive lack where Dropbox has succeeded (efficient, reliable syncing)? (Honest question, since you mentioned you're on the Drive team)
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]

funkyy 11y ago

None search engine comes close to Google atm. Also Google marketing and SEO employs a much, much bigger number of people than people working as a freelancers related directly to Apple I assume. (not employees, the freelancers and companies that use the Google/Apple as platform to run their businesses)

taoeffect 11y ago

Seriously, I don't need anything Google related. Not search, not devices, not email, not even analytics (thank you Piwik)! But if Apple disappeared I'd be screwed.

jhuckestein 11y ago

DuckDuckGo uses Google search results

jacquesm 11y ago
Please don't spread information that is factually incorrect, especially not if it concerns a small company trying to compete with a much larger one. "In fact, DuckDuckGo gets its results from over four hundred sources. These include hundreds of vertical sources delivering niche Instant Answers, DuckDuckBot (our crawler) and crowd-sourced sites (like Wikipedia, stored in our answer indexes). We also of course have more traditional links in the search results, which we primarily source from Yahoo!, and in some regions and scenarios, Yandex and Bing. From: https://duck.co/help/results/sources https://duck.co/help/results/sources
firloop 11y ago
I thought DDG used Yandex for search?

pavanky 11y ago

Every tech company is a bit of a stretch. Get out of california more.

toxican 11y ago

I love the idea of DuckDuckGo, and I used them for a year or so before I realized every other search resulted in frustration and me appending a !ge to it. So yes, there are alternatives, but I don't find them to be nearly as good.

ant6n 11y ago

I once went to China, without Google. My online life screeched to a halt. On the other hand, there were a few Chinese people there, and most of them seemed to have a non-halted life.