More Proof

August 19th, 2006

Stephen Abram blogs about Google execs selling their stock and then says:

“I’ll show you my commitment if you’ll show me yours. There’s a world of difference between working for your community and working for yourself.”

Just more proof that we need to remind ourselves that Google is not in it to make us happy. Google (and most of the others) are advertising companies, not pure search engines. They make zero money from libraries (unless libraries buy ads or librarians buy stock) and only became interested in making librarians happy when they realized that had to in order to get to our books. Again, take a look at the timeline.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Google Book search (Amazons is much better though), but I know when someone is playing me. I’d be interested to see what happens when they are done scanning the books. Will the execs and major shareholders do what Bill Gates did? I certainly hope so, but I’m not holding my breath.

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