Google’s FLoC Is a Terrible Idea

There is no scenario in which Google should be trusted.

They’ve squandered that trust over the years. Frankly they should be broken up.

Genuine, honest question. Are posts like this written by bot or bought propaganda? Nonspecific, knee-jerk overreaching generalizations, inspiring fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Who aims to gain, if it's the case? It's that incentive enough to warrant a smear campaign. I can't prove it. It just feels off. That's my hunch.

Even if it is astroturfing (my hunch is no), it taps into a genuine, honest zeitgeist that gets plenty of air on HN. Google is practically a cliche for bad-faith acting these days, and the apostasy of abandoning its nobler founding sentiments (the "don't be evil" hypocrisy) rankles many. Knee-jerk it may be, but it's closer to war-mongering within a sympathetic circle than it is to smear-campaigning.

I'm reasonably certain I'm not a bot, and I'm 100% certain no one is paying me for my unpopular opinions.

So: who aims to gain from my comment? Well, if Google were to be broken up, and some amount of privacy restored to all of us, I'd say society would gain.

No one needs to mount a smear campaign against Google. Their own actions are damning enough.

Perhaps if you existed outside your karma coma, you'd see it. Perhaps if I existed outside the anger and rage that makes me comment as "srswtf123", I'd take your point of view. But I doubt it. That's my hunch.