(Don’t be evil – 2 minute read)
Boy meets Google, you know how it goes
I was 16 when I set up my first Gmail account. This was back in 2003, when Google was a scrappy startup, making a name for itself. Most of my friends at that stage had hotmail accounts, with their crappy 100mb storage (or some stupidly small amount, even by 2003 standards). Being the little nerd I was, I quickly jumped onto Google and never looked back.
Apart from the 1gb of storage you got for free, there was something about the Google ethos that resonated with me. Yes, there was the innovation and inventiveness that Google is famous for. But beyond that, Google had a cool ‘Don’t Be Evil’ motto that really appealed to me as an idealistic teenager.
For years, I fully bought into the idea that Google was the one big tech company that prioritised people over profit. I even ignored the warning signs when Google started tracking users’ search history and internet habits circa early 2010s. It’s ok – I told myself, I’ve got nothing to hide anyway, besides, Google is working hard to give me, the user, a better experience. Yay Google!
Google is good enough for me, it must be good enough for my business!
When Google Chrome launched in 2008, I, like many other Google-heads quickly migrated onto Chrome. Chrome was my browser of choice all throughout the 2010s. It was around this time that Gmail also started edging into the business market with Google Workspaces.
Google Workspaces was awesome. You had one corporate account that tied together the functionality of Google Drive, Photos, Gmail, Google Docs, Notes and all Google goodness in one login. Wow! I recall working for an accounting firm in 2019 and experiencing Google Workspaces for the first time. The ease of interoperability! The speed of email searchability! Fancy widgets!
The company I worked for then wasn’t even using Google’s ecosystem to the fullest. So I took notes. When I setup my own business in 2020, the first major software investment I made was a Google Workspace subscription. When I hired team members, everyone got a Google workspace access.
We were going to be Aotearoa’s finest online, paperless accounting firm for small businesses! And Google was key to our technical plan to achieve that!
Here’s how much we bought into ‘don’t be evil’
This part may sounds familiar to you if your business is heavily dependent on Google. But if you’re wondering to what extent Google was powering our business, here’s how it worked:
Gmail powered email
Gmail formed the basis of our customer communication. Emails were easy to sort, categorise and search through. Most importantly, Gmail worked with most third party plugins. This means that it linked to Hubspot, our CRM platform and we could use it to update our contact list, send templated emails and monitor our sales pipeline.
Google docs for collaboration
I’m obsessed with knowledge capture and sharing. In fact, I thought about setting up an internal wiki for my company so that team members could easily share knowledge with each other. What I found is that by creating a series of internal Google Docs, I could chart workflows and add links which link to other Docs within the Google account. This meant that team members can effectively utilise our company’s Google Docs as our easy to learn repository. Editing was easy as well since no technical knowledge is required to edit Google Docs.
Everything is backed up to Google Drive
Google Drive really impressed me when I was in Uni. I could work from any computer, anywhere in the world as long as I had access to my Google Drive. In setting up a paperless accounting firm, I used Google Drive to provide 30gb of storage for my little start up. This meant that all team members had access to all company documents, client information and accounting templates from anywhere in the world (with internet access). Updates were made in real-time and since I was using Google Docs to work with my team, we could even make changes in real-time.
Google Meet is better than Zoom
Ok, maybe not ‘better’ per say. But Google Meet is certainly more bug-free and easier to use than Zoom. Clients can just click the link and have meetings with me in the browser. Plus bonus for times where we need to record the video and save it to the cloud. Simple, easy and shareable. Google Meet is the marmite toast of the video call world. Simple, filling and unoffensive.
Then Google stopped ‘don’t be evil’
What is evil? Philosophically speaking, evil is subjective. We live in a morally grey world where a lot of issues can be seen from multiple perspectives. That being said, most of humanity can agree that some things are just morally and objectively evil, like:
Well, over the past 2 years, Google has managed to do all that (links above). Sigh. At this stage its become very hard, even for a Google-head like me, to justify supporting Google.
And so I’ve broken up with Google
Goodbye Google. It was nice knowing you. Thank you for introducing the internet to me. But you’ve changed. You’ve become evil. I can no longer in good faith continue giving money to a company that allows their tech to be used to harm innocents.
Over the past few weeks, we’ve de-googled our business (Read all about it here!). Over the next few months I’ll look at de-googling my personal and family life (I’ll write about this later). The damage has been done. Even if Google were to suddenly change their ways and revive the ‘Don’t be Evil’ ethos, I won’t come back.
I’ve moved on and have grown stronger for it. If anything, my experience with Google has taught me that you can’t trust Big Tech. My next personal goals are to de-Microsoft and de-Facebook my life. Wish me luck. Here I go.
Stay positive!
Sam
Sel