I found the Googlification of Everything to be an interesting read. Starting with the “Book of Google” we’re introduced to the idea of blind faith in Google. Not going to lie after this reading I still have faith, but I can a bit more clearly now the rain is gone. Similar to the introduction of cars and planes to society, tech companies like Google are innovative, good at what they do, and set their own rules . It’s only when things go wrong that regulations are put in place. These companies are left alone to innovate and in many cases dominate. I thought of Amazon as a parallel to Google for shopping. They’re slogan is “Everything from A to Z” and their stock is pretty robust. Sure there are other online retailers, but none of them can get me groceries, the newest N.K. Jemisin book, and a drum pedal in one day like Amazon can. Similar to Google whenever I need a product my first thought to check Amazon even though there are many other places to get the item. We’ve seen with big tech companies to grow and monopolize in their respective areas with little to no push back. Which begs the question what is the cost of neglecting to regulate the size and scale of these companies, what they are actually doing with user information and how they are affecting society at large.

I also became a bit more aware of my habits. For example after Googling something I often say “Well according to the Internet blah blah blah” which isn’t bad, but I hadn’t considered that the only search engine I use is Google. Maybe Bing might have said something else. Who knows? I had not really thought much about it until reading this. In many ways Google has become synonymous with the web. The services they offer encompass all the reasons why you go on a computer: checking emails, answering  questions, watching videos, settling scores, mapping directions, and so forth and so on. It’s the perfect business model because you get users to stay on your site for extended periods of time while tracking their movements.

Lastly, one concept that stuck with me from the reading  was this idea of “public failure”. The author describes public failure as a troubling phenomenon that occurs, “when Google does something adequately and relatively cheaply in the service of the public, and public institutions are relieved of pressure to perform their tasks well.”(pg6). I think this stuck out to me in part because I work at a non-profit and often speak with my colleagues about the ways that nonprofits take on issues that’s really the job of the government (education, job training, arts programs in schools etc). It’s way easier for the government to hand out funds and let nonprofits do the work than to fix certain issues themselves. The services these private organizations provide their communities ease pressure on public institutions.  So in that way I guess I had considered public failure before, just not in the context Vaidhyanathan mentions.