I have absolutely no problem with this:

* Google provides me with a very valuable service that simplifies my life (I profit) * my friends recommend things they've loved which makes my life better (I profit) * businesses that are good and recommended also profit (great! I love seeing good people succeed) my friends profit when I recommend stuff Google profits as a result of being value (also good -- they get to stay in business)

I have absolutely no problem with businesses and other people making money. I'm quite surprised that on a site mainly for entrepreneurs that there'd be such a backlash against a feature that benefits everybody involved.

I don't need explicit endorsements to buy something, but I highly value them. For example, I buy from Amazon because of the reviews. These reviews reduce risk of disappointment, and this is one of their USPs because they do it so well. Granted, not everything that's highly rated turns out to be to my liking but I'm dissatisfied far less frequently with my purchases.

You seem very emotional about this.

Look, people consume differently. When I was younger I used to look at my friends to tell me what their opinions were. Now that I'm older I form my own opinions. That means I value people who take the time to create and publish their thoughts. If those people do it all for free? I still value it, but the quality of the transaction goes down. See, for instance, all the Yelp problems, the fake Amazon reviews, and so on.

Google pays about .000001 for you to post your opinion on something. It makes about .0001 from it. I don't have a problem with this math. I'm much more concerned with what it says about the human species than people making money. Are we so lost that we need constant reassurance from others on how to live, what opinions to have, what things to buy? As Schmidt said, do we really just want Google to tell us what to do?

I really don't need 99% of the crap online. I need food, shelter, and medical care. That's about it. The rest of it is all discretionary crap. I'm not sure we have to monetize discretionary spending advice. The web is mostly free. Why not just allow people to publish their own opinions using their own hardware and have protocols to share it all? Why do I need all these third-party services just to communicate?

You either draw the line somewhere or eventually you end up with cranial implants produced and owned by Apple sharing your every emotion and opinion with the rest of the world -- while they make money from it. That's not a future I'm willing to work towards, although others seem so fascinated by the tech that they don't care about the rest of it.

Just wanted to make sure you understood me. Thanks for the chat!

I'm really not emotional about this at all and I'm sorry if I've come across as such! I'm genuinely trying to understand and empathize with people that have a problem with Google connecting ads with reviews, but I'm sincerely struggling to put myself in your shoes. So I'm debating with people that disagree with me!

> Are we so lost that we need constant reassurance from others on how to live, what opinions to have, what things to buy?

Well, yes. We're social creatures and we look to what the rest of the tribe is doing. It's really been quite well studied and it seems humans (and other social animals) behave this way naturally. This tendency can be beneficial (if the rest of the tribe is staying away from those berries, we ought not to eat them lest we get sick) and detrimental (e.g. the bystander effect). This social behavior is also something that's exhibited in the marketplace in many forms. That empty restaurant is probably no good, but the one with the line out of the door is probably doing something right -- at least to our tribal brain.

I'm not really sure what argument you're making. Are you making an argument against materialism, or against the centralization of services? (Perhaps this is a false dichotomy and you're making both arguments!)

If you're arguing against the centralization of common information services, well, this I can partly agree with. Such centralization makes it easier for data to be leaked, snooped, etc and in an ideal world we'd all be running FOSS on our own hardware. In the real world though, it's next to impossible to make money from FOSS and software developers gotta pay their bills too. (Just as a side note, I use FOSS as much as possible and think that it's made the world a better place.)

If you're arguing against materialism, I'm not sure where to go from there. You're free to be as unmaterialistic as you wish but I (and a lot of people) love doing things that are entertaining and incidentally cost money. I accept that not everybody is like me, but I've been very unhappy when my life has been bare bones and just-the-basics. I want to do stuff, go places, sky dive, and experience new things -- usually with other people too. I enjoy buying new technology and other tangible stuff, but mostly experiences that I suppose could be considered a luxury in terms of survival and only serve as entertainment. All this costs money, but these things bring me pleasure that a tofu lifestyle doesn't.

> You either draw the line somewhere or eventually you end up with cranial implants produced and owned by Apple sharing your every emotion and opinion with the rest of the world -- while they make money from it.

That was a good South Park episode!

If at any stage it becomes involuntary I'm going to be right there with you saying it's a problem, but I don't care if someone's making money from me so long as I'm receiving value in return.

The only thing that makes all of this okay is the fact I have a choice not to +1 something. Larry Page doesn't come to my house every day at 5am to make me endorse businesses against my will.

> Just wanted to make sure you understood me. Thanks for the chat!

Likewise!