Wow, this is a rip-snorting interview with @pluralistic - you, sir, have got great metaphors. Well done. This needs to be on every single NZ MP's listing list: https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/afternoons/audio/2018985178/feature-interview-how-meta-and-x-will-eat-themselves
Feature interview: how Meta and X will eat themselves

This is how huge tech platforms like Google and Meta roll; first, they're good to their users; then they abuse them to make things better for business customers, then they exploit their business customers to squeeze out every last bit of value for themselves. Then, they die. That's how author, activist and journalist Cory Doctorow sees tech's slow-motion collapse. He's in New Zealand to meet readers and talk about his latest book about Silicon Valley's big bet on AI called Picks and Shovels.

RNZ

@lightweight @pluralistic Mild quibble: Google did come up with Gmail on its own. Or at least through a 20% project (that is, it wasn't a management objective).

But other than that, novel product development has been quite poor.

@dredmorbius @lightweight a Hotmail clone!
@pluralistic @dredmorbius which, in turn, was a 'RocketMail' clone. (which became Yahoo! Mail after Yahoo! acquired them) Remember, too that Microsoft acquired Hotmail. BigTech isn't very innovative.
@lightweight @pluralistic @dredmorbius I also remember when Microsoft moved Hotmail off BSD onto Windows servers using 4 times the hardware and it went down for a week.
@rupert @pluralistic @dredmorbius hah, yes, I also remember enjoying that immensely.