Googler... ex-Googler

To me, the shock from this blog post was about seeing a Chrome developer relations engineer whom I have grown to admire and who has been doing a stellar job educating web developers on new html and css features, get the sack. He was one of the best remaining speakers on web topics at the Chrome team (I am still sad about the departure of Paul Lewis and Jake Archibald); and produced a lot of top-notch educational materials (the CSS podcast; the conference talks; the demos).

What does this say about Google's attitude to web and to Chrome? What does this say about Google's commitment to developer excellence?

I understand that this is a personal tragedy for Adam; but for me personally, this is also a huge disillusionment in Google.

I think the position your take re. Google and Chrome is an extreme one. It always surprises me that such black and white opinions about big tech companies are commonplace even on HN. Yes, Google have done things around privacy that I strongly disagree with, but the idea that Chrome is simply a trojan horse for advertising/surveillance is absurdly reductive and ignores the history of Google as a company.

Google was, originally, a web-first company. Their business success relied on the web being an open, competitive platform. And, at a time when Microsoft were still trying to maintain monopoly control of personal computing, Google's development of Chrome did a huge amount of good in maintaining and enhancing the web as an open alternative. And they employed a lot of people who were genuinely believed in that mission, such as Adam.

Make no mistake, the death or spin-off of Chrome will not be a win for privacy or openness. Building a web browser is a hugely expensive and difficult endeavor, and it has to be paid for somehow. Yes, Google has leveraged Chrome in some ways to collect data, but far less than they could have done, and far less than any successor will have to do, just to keep the lights on. Look at what has happened to Mozilla and Firefox if you need proof.