1) Is Google more evil than a hypothetical benchmark company producing similar products?
2) Is the product space Google works in fundamentally bad?
(1) is a pretty clear no, Google is about the best we could hope for given that a single corporation is in the product spaces that they are in and trying to sell ads. (2) is much less clear, there are many historical instances where the existence of a Google would have magnified the damage done. Realistically it isn't just them either, the radical dropping cost of surveillance was raised the other day and Google's work is only a small component of that.
1) Is Google more evil than a hypothetical benchmark company producing similar products?
2) Is the product space Google works in fundamentally bad?
(1) is a pretty clear no, Google is about the best we could hope for given that a single corporation is in the product spaces that they are in and trying to sell ads. (2) is much less clear, there are many historical instances where the existence of a Google would have magnified the damage done. Realistically it isn't just them either, the radical dropping cost of surveillance was raised the other day and Google's work is only a small component of that.