I've just been catching up with, among other things, the (unofficial) Google Operating System blog, which has a post about what the world would be like If Google didn't exist...
While entertaining and thought-provoking, it is also funamentally misguided, and most of the claims seem to me obviously wrong. To take a couple of examples:
* we would find a mail by manually reviewing each subject and sender.
This is patent rubbish. There have been mail clients with search facilities going back to the 1980s, and today, Google isn't even the best way to search email. It may be true that Google's arrival means that, on average, more people have better email search facilities than they would otherwise, and that is to be applauded. But it's a difference in degree, not in kind.
* we would pay for software like Picasa, Keyhole (now Google Earth), Sketchup.
Also rubbish. It's nice of Google to buy these companies and give their products away, but Google didn't invent free software. Arguably there's a net benefit to the people who use Google's free programs, but it might also be the case that we are worse off, not better off. For example, other companies might have developed better programs than Picasa and sold them cheaply or given them away if Google had not distorted the market. We'll never know. Either way, it's a difference in degree, not in kind.
I am sure that Google has, in some cases, done things better than they were done before -- such as search, web-based mail and maps -- but we were doing them before Google appeared, and we'd still be doing them if it had never existed.
What's more important, I think, is that Google has done them with some sort of moral stance: "Don't be evil."
Google may have fallen short in some cases, but it has made explicit an important element in the competitive marketplace that I don't believe would have been explicit without Google. Yahoo could have done it, but didn't. The Free Software Foundation was doing it, to an extent, but without the market power. And, of course, many companies and organisations outside IT are also trying to trade eithically and benefit society.
Still, it seems to me that Google's ultimate failure would not be having inferior products, losing money or losing market share but the admission that "Don't be evil" was just a marketing slogan. Amost anything else would be forgivable.
Footnote: Several other blogs have had a go at this post, including Publishing 2.0 (recommended) and Ziff's Googling Google
