"Don't be evil" clearly is bullshit to the extent that you can always rationalize an evil action, and three words aren't going to stop you from doing what you want.
On the other hand, though, a mantra like that can help entrench a culture that makes it harder for "evil" ideas to find roots.
On balance, I'm not sure a mantra makes a difference. It's sort of dangerous when it becomes so entrenched that you start to think your actions are by definition non-evil. From time to time, we do see Google pulling out "it's not illegal if the President does it"-type rationalizations.
That said, it's a tough pill to swallow coming from Apple of all people. Especially with the lawsuits over rumors/leaks. Especially with the, "you can't run non-approved apps on iPhone OS," attitude. If I had to rank companies on the spectrum of 'evil,' Apple would be closer to evil than Google.
Tough pill to swallow? Apple never staked a claim to some fuzzy moral high ground. All Jobs is pointing out is that to the extent that you equate greediness with evil, Google is precisely as evil as every other company.
Google is open where it thinks it can afford to be and not where it doesn't. So is Apple.
Google locks down its algorithm to give a good user experience in search. Apple locks down its App Store to provide a good experience on the iPhone. Both of these moves are designed to make money, but mysteriously, Teflon Google easily sheds all acknowledgement of its motives.
Maybe I'm not a good judge of morality. I still hold the romantic notion that people giving you money means people think you're doing something good for them. Apple's fans are some of the most loyal on the planet. It doesn't seem as though they're extorting folks into buying their stuff.
> Google locks down its algorithm to give a good user experience in search. Apple locks down its App Store to provide a good experience on the iPhone.
You lost me at this point. Out of all of the things that Google does or has done, locking down their algorithm hardly ranks on the scale of evil.
> Both of these moves are designed to make money, but mysteriously, Teflon Google easily sheds all acknowledgement of its motives.
Google locking down their algorithm does not prevent someone from competing with them. On the other hand, Apple locking down the AppStore does allow them to prevent others from competing with them (i.e. where is iPhone Opera Web Browser?). Google's algorithm is more in line with the hardware design blueprints of the iPad and the source code to the operating system. No one but the most rabid FSF supporters are railing on Apple for not open-sourcing their operating system. And no one is railing on Apple for not posting their hardware design blueprints for the iPad and/or iPhone.
No, your analogy isn't right. Or rather, using your analogy, no one is being prevented from competing with Apple either, all you need to do is build your own wildly successful gadget with AppStore. Easy!
No, a better analogy would be to look at how Google restricts use of their APIs. I remember a couple of years ago, I wanted to geo-code a couple of hundred addresses of handicapped parking spaces in Paris for a handicapped friend. Google's terms of service required me to pay money for this access, because a couple of hundred hits, run over a few minutes, was considered commercial use of their service. I didn't have an automatic right to use Google's service in an innovative way. And indeed, I tried it anyhow, just to see how they reacted, the server stopped responding after the first 50 or so hits.
Both companies are very restrictive in how you, as a developer, may use the services that they provide. And they are both near-monopoly providers of those services. As others have pointed out, both are publicly traded companies that are there to make a profit, and both will put restrictions on developers that they feel are using their systems in ways that they have decided are inappropriate.
"I didn't have an automatic right to use Google's service in an innovative way. And indeed, I tried it anyhow, just to see how they reacted, the server stopped responding after the first 50 or so hits."
No, you didn't have the automatic right to use their servers as much as you want in an innovative way. Putting in a time delay (say 2 seconds?) between each request and you can do that just fine. Google is in no way saying either method is inappropriate, just that they consider one to be an action done by businesses and they don't give away as many services to businesses for free.
I hope you got the list done for your friend though, it sounds like quite a nice thing to do.
Yes, that's the way of getting around the technical restriction, but if you read the terms of service, at least as they were a couple of years ago, what I was doing wasn't allowed - I was over the upper limit per month.
I ended up finishing things with Yahoo's service instead, so she eventually had a list of handicapped places in her GPS :-)
I lost you because we have different assumptions. I don't consider either of those things to "rank on the scale of evil". They are both business practices. Just because you assert that Apple's practice is more evil, doesn't make it so.
And, you're quite wrong. Google makes its money as an advertising platform. In this regard, Google's moat around its industry is exactly as deep and as wide as Apple's is around the App Store. People compete against Google search. People compete against the App Store. The lock in effects for both of these enterprises are essentially the same.
If I was Google I'd do a parody of the 1984 ad featuring Apple as the bad guy. -- "We have created for the first time in all history, a garden of pure ideology. Where each iPhone user may bloom secure from the pests of contradictory and confusing applications."
And the majority of your userbase wouldn't understand that it's satire because they would love to be set free from the contradictory, confusing, often-harmful experience on other platforms.
Please. Those campaigns weren't self-serious morality stories, they were about anti-conformity. Companies establishing a personality is branding. Companies asserting that whatever they do must not be evil because, hey, that's our motto, is arrogance.
Google has set itself up to be right by default in every action. If I dispute their actions, I just might be evil. After all, we know they aren't.
As a matter of fact, I consider it somewhat evil that they don't have easy (or in some cases any) live support for most of their products. But, hey, the services are free, right? Google couldn't be getting any strategic or first order value from my using gmail, could they?
If I knew someone personally who told me all the time that they refused to do anything or believe anything immoral and then I had to carry on a discussion about politics with that person, it wouldn't be very pleasant. Every public debate where Google's involved, and that's all of them now, is like debating that guy.
True, but Apple doesn't make any special claims that it's not evil. I think if people smell bullshit in "don't be evil", it's because looking at all companies, they see no correlation between claiming not to be evil and actually not being evil.
I think many people are missing the fact that Apple saying Google's "Don't be evil" is bullshit does not imply that Apple claims they aren't being evil.
Filing lawsuits because people tell your secrets is not "evil", nor is a very up-front policy about having a single, moderated channel of distribution for your mobile devices.
It's very "closed", and that's no secret, but that has nothing to do with being "evil".
Eric Schmidt has addressed this multiple times. He just sees it as a conversation starter. Someone at the meeting can always suggest 'Is this evil?' and people can ponder if it's the best course of action.
I think it is refreshing that this line could be said in a meeting and it not just be laughed at.
On the other hand, though, a mantra like that can help entrench a culture that makes it harder for "evil" ideas to find roots.
On balance, I'm not sure a mantra makes a difference. It's sort of dangerous when it becomes so entrenched that you start to think your actions are by definition non-evil. From time to time, we do see Google pulling out "it's not illegal if the President does it"-type rationalizations.