Does it sound familiar? Well, that’s a good sign. First let’s define what evil is. Is earning profits a evil? Hold on, I am not going to discuss about ‘Human face of Capitalism’ or ‘Right to live’ or ‘Purpose of Life’ here. I will leave that to my anonymous blog (Yes, I do have one). Someday I also want to talk about ‘Corporate Mottos, Visions and Missions’ and its practical relevance. But for now let’s stick to Google’s business philosophy.
How many of you think that the stuff available over the Internet should be paid for? At least I haven’t thought so. Until recently, I had a feeling that what ever is available over Internet is free; Internet is open, if someone charges for some service then he is exploiting me. But how different is this service over internet is different from service over traditional channels? It doesn’t sound odd, if someone charges for something outside Internet!
Probably it is due to historical reasons like Internet being popular primarily among College-going-students. But it is also because of a few giant corporations promoting this image. For example, Google tries to give all the information for free and generate revenues through ads. It even buys out small service providers and makes their service free there-by attracting more users to its fold and hence more ad revenues. So what, it’s all looking good…
But, what is happening to so many industries that depend on providing these services? Aren’t they getting killed in the process? I would think Google follows ‘Disruptive Business Model’. It tries to make everything free and kills every other player in the Internet to retain its top-slot or at least to sustain in the business.
Someone please define what EVIL is…
Reflections 
First comment!
But seriously, IMO, “evil” is best defined using the positive and negative golden rules:
PGR: Do unto others what you would have done unto you
NGR: Do not do unto others what you would not have others do unto you
Noam Chomsky (I think) rephrased these once as follows:
PGR: What is right for me to do, is right for others to do as well
NGR: What I’m not OK for other people to do, I should refrain from doing as well
In other words, the simplest definition of “good vs. evil” reduces to “consistent vs. inconsistent”
Hah!
We all appreciated Google for “making money through ads” successfully, we can not blame them for “trying to do it more and more”.
Industries, if not adding value in comparison to what is available, were killed in the past, would continue to get killed in future.
Industries get killed, not people. People learn and re-start another industry to value-add, this time considering all the Googles of the world.
BTW, a few asked about the relevence of this post and Evil. Google’s coprorate moto is ‘Don’t be Evil’. I hear that Google takes pride in living up to its moto.