Sergey Brin's Clarification On Guardian article

Imagine Apple, Facebook or whoever controlled the Internet like Google does:<p><i>How long would it take until they abused their power?</i><p>If someone is dominating the web it's Google and looking at their power and how much traffic they move—their actions feel balanced and neutral compared to any other player.

Refreshing response from Sergey. The Guardian article made him come off very immature.<p>The article brought to my mind a presentation Roger McNamee (Elevation Partners) has been circulating -"10 Hypothesis for Technology Investing."<p>A number of the points in the presentation illustrate a challenging future for Google:<p>- Index Search has peaked: Google's position of dominance on the web is fading, due largely in part to their own success.<p>- Apple's App Model Threatens the World Wide Web: a walled garden, un-indexable<p>- Rise of Social. Facebook owns. Again, a walled garden, un-indexable<p>- Lack of searches on mobile<p>Similar arguments were made in Wired's "The Web is Dead" feature, and they all point towards Google's core business going downhill.<p>The Guardian article made Sergey seem... well... butthurt. As if recognizing his lousy position, but instead of owning it, whining about it. I've always thought of Sergey as smarter than that. He's always seemed much more pragmatic than The Guardian article made him out to be. It didn't feel like the Sergey I [don't actually] know.<p>Certainly Sergey has gripes with Apple and Facebook, and certainly he has self-preserving motivations for responding as he did. But I feel like giving him more of the benefit of the doubt here and calling slight nanz on The Guardian for rabble-rousing as press outlets do.<p>Also - kudos to Sergey for his extremely diplomatic clarification there. We've all seen much less tactful responses to press spins.<p>10 Hypothesis Slides: <a href="http://read.bi/GMHoYQ" rel="nofollow">http://read.bi/GMHoYQ</a><p>10 Hypothesis Video: <a href="http://bit.ly/w0qpeh" rel="nofollow">http://bit.ly/w0qpeh</a>

I'm glad he wasn't attacking Facebook and Apple in the way it was portrayed.<p>I think a key issue here is that powerful incumbent corporations have always challenged the economic freedoms of smaller players and individuals operating in their space.<p>In the heyday that Brin refers to, those powerful corporations hadn't yet emerged. Now they have. The biggest challenge to starting a new eBay today is eBay. The biggest challenge to starting a new Google today is Google.<p>Going forward, what matters is the extent that a platform economically empowers its participants to create additional value. Ideological openness is just one dimension in that.<p>Facebook, Apple, and Google all do empower their participants in different ways and with different tradeoffs, as do startups like Square and Kickstarter.

To me this is another example of a fundamental difference between the Web 1.0 entrepreneur generation and today's superstar startup CEOs. The former's ambitions ranged from data liberation, information freedom and up to interplanetary travel. The new generation's ambitions end in their stock valuations.

Let me paraphrase: "I bemoan the rise of Internet tollbooths and gatekeepers, such as the ones put up by Facebook and Apple. By the way, please build native apps for Android, and please use Google+ to connect with your friends and family."

Pretty scary some of the proposed legislation being thrown around in the UK.<p>On large companies... If individuals have issues with large companies they can simply go to an alternative. However government should intervene to ensure "internet" companies comply with the same laws as "non internet".

What new "tollbooths and gatekeepers" is he talking about? If I wanted to start an online store or search engine today, who would I be paying?

&#62;Today, starting such a service would entail navigating a number of new tollbooths and gatekeepers.<p>One of them being Google.