Do No Evil Unless It Makes Money

"I use Google. I use Google products. I use Google a lot. I use Google, but I don't like the company."

This may sound strnage, but its true. I use Google and its associated products and services on a daily basis (Google, Gmail, GoogleMaps, Froogle, Piasca, Hello and more). Usually this would be a sign that I have some kind of loyalty, conscious or otherwise to the company itself. Many users of Yahoo! don't just use the search engine to find the receipt for chicken-pot pie, but rather they have entire Yahoo! identities. They use Yahoo! Mail to keep up with friends and family, find dates on date.com and post pictures using Flickr. And Yahoo! customers / users tend to have the sort of loyalty to the company that other internet companies only dream of.

But Google is strange. People love Google's services, but don't have much loyalty for the company itself. At least I don't.

I find that they are a bit like Apple on this front. While I love to think about how cool it would be to use a Powerbook I hate how Apple pushes its way of doing things on the user. Any experience should be customizable by the user. We should get the power to decide how to use the system and not have the system decide how to use us.