The Triumph of Mediocrity

Driverless cars and a YouTube based music streaming service - two apparently unconnected developments at Google which, for some commentators, serve to underline how disparate and incoherent the company's technology initiatives have become.  However, they are both indicative of the way Google views both the web and how human beings interact with it.  The music streaming initiative hit the headlines earlier this week with independent producers complaining about the poor terms and non-negotiable contracts Google was trying to force upon them, raising the possibility - if agreement isn't reached - that a large swathe of innovative music will not appear on the proposed service.  Now, Google bullying content providers in order to maximise their own profits from someone else's work is nothing new, but what people seem to be missing here is the fact that Google can afford to take this risk because it doesn't care whether or not these artists feature on their music streaming service.  They've already got the major labels signed up, with their rosters of mediocre, middle of the road but hugely popular artists.  Which is all that matters.  As far as Google is concerned, the majority of people who buy music in any form only want these tried and tested major music stars.  They aren't interested in the experimental or innovative.  Consequently, that's what Google will focus on serving up to users of its service.

This simply reflects its corporate view of the wider web and web search: most people just search for products and most of them just want to buy them from big name brands - so they focus their web results on returning Amazon, Ebay or Google-related brands for any given search.  Smaller sites are pushed down the rankings and starved of traffic - they are too niche for the masses, as far as Google is concerned, so tough, they'll have to take their chances with the crumbs of traffic left by the 'popular' sites.  It doesn't matter that they might offer better service, more expertise, more innovative products or original, challenging or offbeat content - as far as Google is concerned they aren't what people want, so they won't let people even see them and decide for themselves.  Even if they might be the most relevant results for a given search.  Basically, Google, via its near-monopoly on web search, is intent upon turning the web into the equivalent of our bland, brand-dominated, choice-free high streets.  As for the driverless car, this is another aspect of Google's obsession with removing the 'human factor' from technology.  We humans, you see, aren't perfectly logical and rational and therefore make the 'wrong' decisions.  By removing decision-making from us, they render the world a safer, (not to mention more Google-friendly) place.  We've already seen this in web search, where they are obsessed with trying to second guess what you are searching for through 'innovations' like auto-complete, and in removing 'spam' from the search results, (because we aren't capable of using our own critical faculties to decide on the quality and relevance of the sites returned in a search), which has simply led to many legitimate sites being wrongly penalised as Google keeps tweaking its search algorithm to try and identify the features which might signify 'spam'.

So, there you have it - as far as Google is concerned you are the problem with your human frailties: it's your fault that the search results are so shitty because you keep searching for the wrong things.  The sooner you are removed from the equation and just accept their recommendations through those AdSense ads which are becoming ever more prevalent on search results pages, the better.  The sad thing is that if Google didn't dominate web search as it does, this would just be a bad joke and utterly irrelevant.