Meanwhile SpaceX spends billions launching thousands of satellites into space and wreck the environment just so people can doomscroll their slop. When all we need are governments building some basic infrastructure like fiber internet for a fraction of the money.
Google Fiber will be sold to private equity firm and merge with cable company
Submitted 2 weeks ago by cantankerous_cashew@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
CosmoNova@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Hope@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
My prior city ran a survey on whether they should build out fiber to the homes around the city, since they were building their own fiber infrastructure anyway. Despite the city saying it would be cheaper and faster than the existing 0 or 1 options people had, my fellow residents cried communism and the city government scrapped the idea. Infuriating.
nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Americans are too stupid to vote in a lot of cases. why even hold a vote on something like this at all? just get it done. don’t bother asking permission from people who speak up without understanding the question
Test_Tickles@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
“ran a survey”, this was the only clue I needed to realize that they never planned to do it in the first place. Surveys are so easy to manipulate that if someone tells you they made a decision based on a survey, that you can immediately assume that what they are really saying is that they made a decision that they knew would be unpopular, obviously biased, or otherwise disastrous, but they wanted to blame the decision on “other people”.
Flocklesscrow@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
“We’re too stupid to have better things,” cried Society.
Zorque@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Don’t worry, even if they welcomed it international telecom companies would sue to block it anyway.
Bristlecone@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Seriously Man, more junk in orbit
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
and also help rig elections
Zetta@mander.xyz 2 weeks ago
I agree fiber is better but starlink isn’t bad for the environment, it’s bad for astronomy though sadly.
frizop@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
starlink isn’t bad for the environment
Umm, yes it is.
science.org/…/burned-satellites-are-polluting-atm…
In 2023, Murphy and colleagues reported the first direct evidence of how satellite re-entries are changing the composition of the stratosphere, based on data from a NASA WB-57 aircraft that flew from Alaska to altitudes of 19 kilometers. Using an onboard laser mass spectrometer, they found tiny droplets of sulfuric acid containing 20 different elements that likely came from satellites and rockets, as they were present in ratios that matched those of spacecraft alloys. The amounts of lithium, aluminum, copper, and lead all exceeded the estimated contributions from meteors.
ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zip 2 weeks ago
Those satellites are designed for a 5 year lifespan before they deorbit and burn up all those metals in our atmosphere… it’s not great
FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Ugh.
The service has been quite good for ten years.
Guess it was good while it lasted.
dhtseany@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
That tends to be the general way things go with all Google products.
nunesgh@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
It hasn’t hyperscaled to a billion users, so it’s not “Google scale” enough for Google. Wait… The US doesn’t have a billion people… 🤔
protist@retrofed.com 2 weeks ago
Fuck my life. I’ve had Fiber for 11 years and it’s been leaps and bounds better than the alternatives, AT&T and Spectrum/Time Warner. Am I going to have to start calling customer service to threaten to leave in order to keep my same price again?
Zedd_Prophecy@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
When do no evil finally turns to do evil always. I think this leaves the Woz as the only remnant of when tech was the good guy.
Hobo@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Linus: Am I a joke to you?
RagingRobot@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I wonder if Linus and woz would be friends
Peekashoe@lemmy.wtf 2 weeks ago
Good point. Though even when Woz was involved, he was overruled by one of the model tech narcissists, Jobs. But at least he was in the room.
I think we’ve just created an unregulated system that almost perfectly incentivizes and reinforces evil, so eventually evil is what we get.
Free market capitalism can only serve good with a tight collar and very short leash held by healthy democracy. Maybe it was a bad idea spending 40 years removing and making all leashes and collars for capitalism illegal, and handing the collar and leash to capitalism to put on democracy. But what do I know.
NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Checks and balances?
So you mean check marks on my balance sheet for each billion dollar row?
empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Another one for the Google graveyard.
NatakuNox@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Locally community owned nonprofit isps are the future. Of you live in an area with that, switch over now. Isps in the next year or so are going to sign Ai data scrapping contracts and allow federal censorship like China’s great firewall. You heard it here first.
melfie@lemy.lol 2 weeks ago
I gladly more for my local fiber connection than it would cost for Xfinity. Fuck these greedy corporate shithead monopolies with their shitty service. I’ll pay whatever it costs to support a local company instead.
empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Of you live in an area with that, switch over now.
hahaha lol lol lol you’re hilarious
WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
how would a community owned ISP deny federal censorship?
ramble81@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
They just finished laying Google Fiber in my neighborhood and I was looking at switching. Guess I’m holding on that.
TachyonTele@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
Dodged a bullit today. Pretty lucky
Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 2 weeks ago
I’m on former Centurylink fiber which was similarly sold off to private equity. Other than the name changes and wonkiness with accessing my account in their system, its been…fine actually? The connection is more stable than it ever was under Centurylink for one thing, and my bill hasn’t changed at all in the years since
BananaIsABerry@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Every ISP is pretty shit to be fair. Doubt whoever they sell to is worse than the other options.
(fuck spectrum)
unphazed@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yeah, the good ones get bought out. (RIP Armstrong, Adelphia)
Lonewolfmcquade@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
For real. Last year we finally got some competition against Spectrum and their customer service is actually worse than Spectrum. I didn’t imagine that was possible
PalmTreeIsBestTree@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
All I do is bitch at Spectrum on the phone once a year and they barely increase my bill.
Test_Tickles@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
It will take at least a year for full on enshitifcation to ramp up, so you could always just switch once it goes to shit.
phailhaus@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
I haven’t used RCN/Astound since COVID, but they were pretty decent before then. Far better than Comcast.
db2@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I’m shocked. Totally shocked.
bassomitron@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
db2@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
the Avenger Thor sarcastically expressing disbelief
Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Everything Google touches turns to ash.
yggstyle@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Then gets sold to Satan.
Justifier@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
So all of the easement agreements got pushed through by google, and are being taken over by entities who wouldn’t have been able to get those easements due to commujity distrust of their company
I’d sue to have the easement revoked as a community, and for punitive damages hefty enough as a punch to Google’s nose to prevent that type of bad behavior from happening in the future
Not chump change, not cost of operations. Actual punitive damages enough to cut out any profits from the transaction and then some
white_nrdy@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
Can I get an ELI5? My understanding is that easements are the fees that customers (either individual or community) pay to get the equipment/infra run to their property for service.
Are you saying that customers wouldn’t have paid those easements if it was the normal telecom company doing it, as opposed to Google? If so, what are the “damages” in this case? I’m not understanding for what you could sue.
Justifier@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Theres really no eli5, this is a purposely convoluted topic
Best I could offer you is recomemend you go look up the channels Lehto’s Law and The Institute for Justice on YouTube
In the US, easements have a history of being abused to render large areas of privately owned land useless/unusable, to legally trespass, and to harass landowners
There’s a reason for example that American Tribes fight especially hard to prevent easements from oil or rail or really any companies
Cable companies in particular have a reputation of destroying peoples properties, have numerous times now been given insane payouts to build the very infrastructure with taxes that they just bought and in those instances pocketed the money without even a slap on the wrist. Further their involvement indicates that any further infrastructure projects expanding that fiber are basically dead, and for any that exist they’re going to be on life support
Those same bailout companies just got their hands on the easements that were allowed to go to a group who at the least didn’t have that history of abuse, and precedent of the that deal going through so it is more likely to start happening in more places
All of those easements should be considered as dead space and new ones will have to be allocated when expansion is taken up by yet another company on 10 or 20 years when they prove they won’t upgrade or properly maintain theirs to modern needs, that means further encroaching on people’s property
Think of it like sidewalks that moved another 3-4 feet into people’s yards every 10 or so years which you as a homeowner are not allowed to alter or use or complain when their representatives do so
Justifier@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
As for damages
Say you have a old masonry structure like a masonry brick fence in the way of the easement
They can tear it down and will, and will not replace it with one of comparable quality if they bother to at all
Ive seen some beautiful 1950s work like that where it goes from amazing tradesmen quality masonry and iron fencing to jank 4x4’s and basically chickenwire on the easement, even 2 sections of the masonry/iron fence would take thousands to fix properly from what they did and there’s the likelihood they’ll do it again in the future.
Those are homes of people on fixed incomes or investments. They usually can’t keep fixing the damage. And those fences aren’t really decorations, its not even slightly uncommon for people to die from dog maulings in my area. Happens a few times every single year
Say you have a road, driveway, etc? At some point you will have a massive random pothole or speedbump because they’ll cut a trough right through it and fill it with asphalt not repour expensive concrete. I can in my neighborhood point out four locations where cable and fiber easement companies have done just that
sevan@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
I always thought this was their plan. I used to work for one of the cable companies when this came out. Most of us in the Operations space saw this as an obvious play to bully the big telecom companies to increase speeds and latency to benefit the tech companies. However the execs freaked out and treated them as an existential threat, which is exactly what Google wanted.
They never had any desire to run an Internet company, it costs a ton of money to build out. So they cherry picked relatively dense middle and upper class neighborhoods that would have a good return in a way that the regulated telecoms would not be allowed to. They normalized high speed internet nationally and now they can sell off the business to recoup some of the cost.
I’m not a fan of Google, but as an internet customer, I appreciate the result of this strategy.
Cort@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yeah some (formerly) local fiber companies started out as a way to get decent Internet in places the big ISPs wouldn’t touch. Some are still around, but many are getting sold off to the big telcos
mlg@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Makes sense but since ISPs are essentially a monopoly in fiber, they get to charge whatever they want, despite the fact that I know AT&T’s break even cost for 5G fiber is $10 a month per line.
mctoasterson@reddthat.com 2 weeks ago
Great. Can’t wait for price increases or data caps or both.
db2@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Both, along with reduced speed and support that is next to useless.
Boiglenoight@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
This will enshittivize profit over quality of service.
andrew@mastodon.furrow.me 2 weeks ago
@cantankerous_cashew add to the list of heinous stuff the #epsteinclass is using this window of opportunity to get away with. Imagine pretending to be a force for modernization and good, get grants from to build infra, then sell said infra to the same scumbag ISPs who already got grants from city/state/local & federal to create monopolies in the first place...truly, fuck you #google. Fuck you.
spicehoarder@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
I’ll never understand the fanboys who glaze google.
fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
When Google Fiber came here every ISP shat themselves and dropped prices, and raised speeds. And Google Fiber has been by far the most reliable ISP.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
by the time fiber appeared, SONIC appeared just before, and others was also appearing at the same time in the bay area, fiber was in for a big competition already.
Holytimes@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Google only does two things.
Roll out a product REALLY well then ignore it forever leaving it an amazing state that everyone loves and is insanely consumer friendly before randomly deciding to axe it with no reason.
Or roll out a product REALLY well then promptly over monetize it forever ruining everything good the engineers did in the first place. Thus making it very extremely unconsumer friendly.
They have no middle ground.
acosmichippo@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
google fiber was a special case where they were introducing much needed competition to the nearly monopolized ISP market.
jqubed@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Google started bringing fiber to neighboring towns and all of a sudden the cable company started offering speeds 3x faster for less money and AT&T built out a fiber network including in our town, which didn’t get Google for another ten years, and then only a franchise that was paying for the Google name.
Test_Tickles@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
For those of us who are old enough to remember peak Google, it is understandable.
They revolutionized and opened up so many things that were grossly monopolized before they got involved. Android broke the telecoms insane grip on cell phone designs and features. Several people have already mentioned how Google fiber changed things in local connectivity, but Google dramatically changed global connectivity way before Google fiber. There used to be only a few international (under sea) connections, and not only was it slow and congested, but entire continents could just drop off the internet for weeks or even months at a time. They broke MS Office’s death grip on basic productivity tools. There was a time where private individuals, even grade school students were required to buy an entire professional productivity (Office) in order to deliver basic school work like writing essays. I can think of almost a dozen ways right off the top of my head that they revolutionized the world and really did take the “Do no evil” slogan to heart.
But, as with every company that “goes public”, they slowly changed from "Do no evil’ to “Do know evil” and now they are exactly the soul and life destroying parasites that they used to free us from.ayyy@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Google did not make Android, they bought it.
Zetta@mander.xyz 2 weeks ago
I use to when I was 14 - 19 but realized how shit they are in many ways as I grew and learned more about the world.
JackbyDev@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
I don’t have any experience with Google Fiber, but I was bummed when Google Domains got sold off, I forgot to whom. Google Domains was so simple. No nonsense.
dan@upvote.au 2 weeks ago
They sold Google Domains to Squarespace.
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
which just to happens to be today’s sponsor!
daychilde@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I’ve been using NameCheap since well before 2009, but since 2009, it’ll take me a lot to switch away after they helped protect me from Glenn Beck. heh.
They are pretty free from bullshit and pretty straightforward.
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
route 53 in AWS is even easier.
scytale@piefed.zip 2 weeks ago
And here I am still waiting for google fiber to reach my part of the neighborhood. I guess another one bites the dust.
maplesaga@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
There’s an obvious reason as to why. Municipal bureaucracy makes it unfeasible.
amateurcrastinator@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
If only companies were allowed to just do what they wanted without rules and regulations… What a beautiful distopian nightmare we would live! Also the line would go vertical! One can only dream
mechoman444@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
There are essentially only three major cable providers in the United States. They have blocked Google Fiber at nearly every turn. I have been unable to get Google Fiber at any address I’ve lived at since it launched.
It is oddly entertaining to watch monopolies that the federal government failed to break up, largely due to their own lobbying, fight each other in an attempt to prevent the others from becoming even more monopolized.
orbitz@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
I always thought the 1Gbps was awesome and perhaps a good incentive for other companies to upgrade (probably more the reason since they’re Google and their ad bucks). Recently saw a reason to switch for 2.5, did it then was told by the installer they don’t even have cable that does it. Mean. I did it myself and my stream downloads are quite fast, but it’d have been nice if my provider mentioned that in the first place so I knew who had to run the wires. It was only through some holes, behind the sink / dishwasher so not awful but you td have been nice to understand 2.5 was higher than their techs supported.Also needed a switch / router upgrade. Which was actually quite fun to do and minimal cost now can get a mesh wifi going.
Still if your techs can’t provide what is needed in cables for your upper end least tell the customer first.
thisphuckinguy@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yeah fuck everything Google.
roguelazer@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Webpass used to be great. The instant it became Google Fiber, it seemed to be totally abandoned; no rollout to new buildings/neighborhoods, no speed improvements (most locations still top out at 1Gbps and local favorite Sonic.net has rolled out 10Gbps fiber throughout the Bay Area), and prices are stubbornly high ($70/mo for 1Gbps versus $40 from competitors). Oh, and there’s still no IPv6.
I’m sure Astound will be even worse but Google has been an awful steward of this service.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
i always wondered if fiber is going anywhere, like most google venture it fails poorly, because they couldnt expand, i suspect waymo will go the same way.
we currently have sonic for like 10 years and it was great.
browned_bear@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
lol
fubarx@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Hugging Sonic.
Paradox@lemdro.id 2 weeks ago
Add another to the graveyard
kautau@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
For those who’ve haven’t seen it:
killedbygoogle.com
Landless2029@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
299 entries… That makes it 300! Congratulations!!