I love you Google, but you are breaking my heart.
PS, I am leaving Google “Helpouts” before they even get a chance to start…
I’ve been known to stump for certain platforms over which I can geek out. In many ways, the role of an evangelist comes naturally to me because of my American Baptist upbringing — I enjoy sharing good news of any variety. Yet I hold no particular allegiances when it comes to spreading any kind of gospel. If it works, use it. If it works well, use it and pass it along to someone else who might benefit.
Pragmatic if nothing.
Unfortunately the pragmatism of youth can easily slip into the ritualized habituation of maturity.
Google, for most of my adult life, you have been a logical source for useful digital tools; this is true to such an extent that looking out for the next useful tool from you has become a kind of ritual, methodical and seasonal. Yet, despite what the trolls of YouTube comments might have you believe, I have never pictured myself as any kind of die-hard Google acolyte.
If anything, Google, you are like that girl (or guy) one meets in college one doesn’t really want to get serious with but with whom one has established a sort of “treaty of mutual eradication of loneliness” because neither could muster any other serious options. There was a need and you, Google, were there to offer a mutually beneficial solution. At the time, that was very innovative of you.
As a media professional, Google tools enable me to do what I need to do on a daily basis. As an educator, I use these tools to train new generations of media professionals. There are some really awesome things you do, Google, and they make me want to root for you.
Regardless, I can still know where to draw the line should the line need to be drawn, can’t I?
There was a time when loving you was daring, Google. There was a time when you were the counterculture.
Don’t be evil was the rule. You made it cool to be a geek. You made Revenge of the Nerds a reality — the popular kids now PRETEND to be nerds. I’ll always love you for that, even though it did give birth to Facebook.
Right now you are breaking my heart and making me believe that perhaps my use of your tools is more about habit than pragmatism — or increasingly because you have eradicated any sense of adequate competition.
Which brings me to the reason I am writing this: I’m leaving Helpouts today, despite only just being let in.
I was, of course, pleased by the utilitarian benefits of the Hangouts feature in Google+.
I’m also a bit of an entrepreneur, so when I discovered that there may be a way for me to use Hangouts to get paid as a consultant using a Google product, of course I was in line.
Thankfully, I was one of the few who were allowed past the initial “velvet rope” and into the initial “Helpouts” roster at launch. After a few emails with your Helpouts approving team and some editorial notes from you on building a Helpout, and a practice Hangout with a Google team member who had the job of giving me a stamp of approval to move on, my Helpouts are now live.
Like I said, I’m a bit of an entrepreneur (and an intrapreneur and an extrapreneur) and tend to favor the underdog (which, believe it or not you once were) so my radar is often filled with blog posts and tweets from the world of startups.
That’s when this post from another budding entrepreneur in Florida crossed my path — another open letter to Google:
Dear Google,
Today is the day and you finally released “Helpouts” to the public. Congratulations.
Just the other day my team and I at LiveNinja were wondering what was taking you guys so long.
I believe it was much earlier this year when we noticed your employees signing up for LiveNinja and then after TechCrunch leaked your plans it all seemed to make sense.
I’m really happy a small team based out of Miami was able to inspire you in the way that we did and it’s really great to see you guys publicly in the mix at last.
However, I gotta say, now that the veil has been been lifted off of your product and you made your big launch — I’m pretty underwhelmed.
I won’t lie, as a father of two, any additional income into my house is rarely turned away. That’s part of what drew me to Helpouts in the first place — a nearly free, seemingly easy way to earn compensation for advice I was already routinely giving on a platform powered by a service I use everyday.
Reading about Will Weinraub and LiveNinja made me realize something profound: There I was — a multi-preneur traveling in startup and tech circles — unaware that the Google product I just waited in line for was likely going to kill off an offering of similar services already in place from a smaller shop — almost suspiciously so.
Suddenly, I am faced with a choice — stick with the Google powered product or stand in solidarity with the startup Google will likely crush or absorb instead. I’m reminded of my choice to buy groceries from a large chain or to support a local economy of smaller private vendors.
In the end, I know my value to you is so small that my leaving will likely go un-noticed. This makes the choice to leave and stand in solidarity seem futile. After all, who am I to stand up to the mighty Google? What difference does my leaving Helpouts really make in a world full of poverty, digital inequality, and tragedy?
But in my heart of hearts I know that what is best for the future is innovation and that the “absorb all competition” operational practices of you, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, and many of the other “big” players does a disservice to innovation in the long run. By taking the “easy” road and playing along out of habit, I’m killing off the very ecosystem of innovation I’m hoping to take part in.
Big companies need to stop innovating through acquisition.
Small companies need to be able to succeed and become decently successful medium companies, otherwise there will be no sustainability to the “innovation economy” and innovation will ultimately suffer. What does that mean? It means that even if you HAD financially compensated LiveNinja via acquisition prior to launching Helpouts, innovation is still at risk. You have the tools and resources to innovate, but often, as Weinraub points out about Helpouts, you miss the mark. I don’t blame you, your mind is elsewhere. You have a different battle ahead of you than when we first met.
I don’t claim to know the full circumstances of your product launch and the relationship it has to LiveNinja. I’m not leaving because I think you stole the idea. This is more about my relationship with you than the need for some kind of consumer justice.
I love you Google, but you are blinding me to the truth — I habitually look to you to provide the next useful tool and in the process make it harder for people like me to earn a buck and solve problems on a bootstrap wing and a prayer — even when the tool you’ve provided me is ostensibly a way to earn a buck solving problems.
I love you Google, but you are too big to root for anymore — You are no longer the underdog and have lost touch with much of that spirit. You do so many amazing things the world remains in awe and fear of you. If you want me to root for you again, take time out of your battle for world domination to consider and develop your future competitors rather than absorbing them and you’ll be all the better for it. Don’t be evil.
I love you Google but you are breaking my heart — and now I have to leave this newest venture, Helpouts, before it even has the chance to go the way of Buzz or Wave. Will I still use other Google tools? What choice do I have?
I do this publicly as an act of solidarity not because I think I can change you, but to feel I am doing my own part to encourage others to actively pursue where to draw the line for themselves.
This is my line.
I’d like to say “It’s not you, it’s me” but I know that isn’t true. I am who I have always been, pragmatic and loyal in the right circumstance. It is you who has changed too much. Were you ever what we thought you were at all? When did you become a monster to be feared?
Perhaps absolute power really does corrupt absolutely after all.
So, despite the risk of offending “the provider,” despite the risk that doing so is a career mistake, I’m going to put my digital content where my mouth is and take my services over to LiveNinja — the digital equivalent of “shopping local.” I’m not doing it because they paid me to (though I could have placed an affiliate link here,) or because I’ll necessarily get more traffic on their site, but because it is what I may want someone to do for me one day when I develop a product or a service that might get lost amid the myriad options available from the ritual de lo habitual of Google, the Abzorbaloff. I’m doing it because I think it is time for us, Google, to get some perspective on our relationship.
