The Mediocrity of Modern Google ⇥ om.co

Om Malik:

What’s particularly ironic is that today’s Google has become exactly what its founders warned against in their 1998 paper: an advertising company whose business model fundamentally conflicts with serving users’ needs. I remember when Sergey Brin and Larry Page first articulated their vision. I was introduced to them by one of their professors. Their clarity of purpose then makes today’s muddle all the more striking.

The multinational corporate equivalent of that Upton Sinclair quote you know.

I remember a time when tech companies felt like they actually had to work for their ability to exist. Now, they seem to take it largely for granted. As Malik writes, however, Google’s position may be more precarious than it seems, given how much of its revenue still depends on its search engine being the directory for the web.