Sure, google is a for-profit. But this keeps happening: someone pipes up that either apple is 'just a company' and nobody should stop whining about how they go about it, or, in this case, the reverse.
That's missing the point _entirely_. by whining about apple's closedness, we're changing the economic cost/benefit of keeping that garden walled off. Google's decision to open up gmail like that made it the web-based mail system of choice for the first-line computer users, the one that recommend stuff to other people. A significant part of why this happened is because those first-liners tend to be tech-savvy and realized that gmail's POP3/IMAP support (something missing from other populars at the time such as hotmail) meant they could move far easier if the time to move comes. Apple, on the other hand, makes this harder. They are running a fantastically profitable business nevertheless, but that is only all the more reason to campaign against their policies. If a company cares only about the bottom line (and lets be honest, most companies do!), then affecting the bottom line is a fair strategy, and that's exactly what's been happening in many markets: Those doing the recommending have gained power due to amongst other things more reliance on word-of- mouth advertising around the world, and these primary recommenders care about this sort of thing. As a result 'nice' companies are winning more fights. The fact that these companies might well have chosen to be nice just because it ends up being good for the bottom line is not a good reason to stop extolling the virtues of said company. On the contrary - it means the technique is working as designed. On Mar 17, 6:31 pm, mkpapp <[email protected]> wrote: > While I agree that GMail is not by any means a "walled garden" or any > such nonsense, GMail was certainly NOT the first webmail service to > allow POP3 access. In fact, several webmail services allowed at least > POP3 access, and even IMAP access, before GMail even came into being. > > As for corporate motives, "evil" or not, none of these corporations > are operating on altruistic principles. They are in business to make > money - if not, they would/should be non-profits. That said, they do > what they think they need to do to achieve business goals. Some are > ruthless, some try to pursue reasonable means of doing business, > others believe they are being reasonable (really!) while in fact are > just ruthless. Obviously, discussions of corporate agendas is fair > game in a discussion forum such as the Java Posse forum. But the > notion that any of these guys are "morally superior" to other > corporations is a philosophical discussion at best. > > On Mar 16, 12:12 am, Reinier Zwitserloot <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > No, it's *NOT* a walled garden at all. It is the opposite. Google was > > the first company that let you get at your web-based email via POP3/ > > IMAP. This was absolutely unique and that combined with the 1GB meant > > that almost everyone believed it was in fact an April Fools joke > > (GMail was announced on april 1st). Separate from google's moral high > > ground or lack thereof as a company, calling GMail a walled garden is > > insulting. It tore down the walls of web-based email. It was and is a > > *fantastic* feather in the cap of the open internet. > > > As far as IMAP servers go, gmail isn't the best out there, but being > > slightly non-confirming to spec does not a walled garden make. The way > > gmail handles its IMAP is public information and nobody is going to > > get sued or impeded in trying to release a tool that reads into / out > > of this slightly non-conforming IMAP clone. > > > Let's not lose sight of what 'walled garden' means in this discussion. > > > On Mar 16, 12:16 am, Peter Becker <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > GMail often doesn't show you your own mail if you post through IMAP. > > > Most of the time, actually -- but not always. > > > > GMail is another walled garden -- it works well as long as you use the > > > GMail interface, but the IMAP interface behaves weird in some regards > > > and the fact that renaming an email subject renames a whole thread for > > > GMail UI users is ridiculous. The walls are pretty low, though :-) > > > > Peter > > > > On 16/03/10 03:45, Karsten Silz wrote: > > > > > Hi, > > > > > I thought I had posted this interesting reading about a sorry > > > > development yesterday, but I must have been mistaken. > > > > >http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/technology/14brawl.html -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
