Google and Chrome - A Plausible Future

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Max Slowik
Kurtis
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Sep. 4, 2008

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Why Microsoft Has Nothing to Fear

There are too many things that people would never concede to the Cloud. And I don't just mean sensitive personal data, which will undoubtedly be skimmed over by the cold and inhuman eyes of their algorithms. I mean regular junk, like printers. While it's easy to imagine an App that you upload, process, and print photos with, that's just not going to satisfy photographers. Google isn't going to pay for processor cycles that get used for gaming. There are too many things to enumerate that cannot be on the Platform.

And Google will absolutely make their Platform open to all operating systems. Firefox will outlive Chrome, because Chrome comes stamped with an end-of-life. As soon as the Platform becomes real, Chrome will go the way of Safari. Barely supported, loved by the unfortunate, outstripped by the Fox. Chrome is an idea vessel, the sabot of their missile.

This is an alternative to carrying around a laptop. It's different than Your Computer and Your Documents. While some people would give up all that for the Platform, most people are going to augment their computing with it; Google doesn't want to take anything from Microsoft, they want to make something new.

How Will Google Pay for This?

The same way they do with everything. Which is a black box for me, I know they do ads and stuff, but I don't think anyone really comprehends where their green comes from. This is going to cost a huge sum, the likes of which could fund a dozen Wikipedias. So they are faced with two options, the first of which, a simple subscription.

That would be terrible and no one would do it. People like one-time costs, and about the only way Google could do this is by putting up a once-a-year fee, something that covers Google Checkout and whatever pay-for Apps and services they've got. It would have to unlock all of them, make them free to use assuming you have this year's fee in the bank. And it can't be more than $100.

Alternatively, and this would cost even more scads, is Google lighting up all that fiber. Getting in on the broadband spectrum, and setting up a fully-fledged ISP. Like the Platform, Google ISP will not restrict its users. Sniff packets, yes surely, but screw Microsoft? Why! The Platform runs fine on Firefox, and Firefox runs on anything. Google ISP gets bundled with the Platform, which works with your Android smart phone. It's a little far-fetched, but then consider this:

They may end up being forced to create their own ISP. Not out of some malicious actions by Verizon and the others, but from a good ol' bandwidth perspective. I don't know if you've surfed via SIM recently, but it's a fat, expensive disappointment. Without love and a little quality control, people aren't going to go for something that doesn't work, even if it's not a Google-based problem. That, and no matter how real the Platform ever gets, the concept of paying for an ISP to plumb your tubes is a whole lot realer. Where Dear Reader has no uncertainties over paying for the Platform itself (I mean, if it's your bag) anyone who knows it as the Google isn't likely to fork over for it without something more.

And the infrastructure could use a Google, too. Can you imagine how much less spam there would be if Google put its algorithms up against it? That alone would open up so much bandwidth that they could stream all of Battlestar Galactica, the new one and the old one picture-in-picture, to every Platform-enabled HDTV on the planet, without laying an inch of new fiber.

I C WUT U DID THAR

The irony here is that computing started in the Cloud. Before the personal computer, you read your paper tape into phones and screeched it into a mainframe that would screech your results back to you, in tape form. It only makes sense now for the mainframe to hang on to the tape, as well.

With the rise of the nettop, the popularity of the cloud computing concept, and the general shift towards portability, it's obvious that people are ready for, in fact wanting, a new computing experience. Most people have spent their entire working lives with computers, and yet, the work itself hasn't changed much. We have ridiculously fast computers, but word processing, worksheets, none of these have evolved like the Internet has--another thing that doesn't need much muscle--and yet, all this stuff is locked up in hardware.

Hardware people will continue to use for its tangible benefits and for its performance, but not for the Internet.

No, Google wants you to browse via your kick-ass little net tablet, so that they can save the world from spam and viruses, while you compute your taxes on their green server farms. I mean, they'll totally know all about your dividends, but it's cool, they're not sellin' to the Russians.

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