Which is the worst big tech company?

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

They're all pretty evil at this stage. I'm going to go Google first, and then Apple (probably because those two are the most dangerous), followed by Meta, then Amazon, then Microsoft.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Oooh a four-way tie!

I voted for Meta. Really, it's a pick your poison sort of thing. There isn't really a wrong answer.

[lfromnj]

None although I guess Meta if I had to pick. Not really sure how any are evil .

[Antonio the Sixth]

Google and Amazon are the most powerful and therefore the ones that do most harm. Facebook however is the most evil one relative to its limited reach.

[All Along The Watchtower]

It’s downright scandalous how f—ed Google Search is nowadays.

[Upper Canada Tory]

None of them are 'evil', lol. You wouldn't have most of the technology you use without them.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

None of them are 'evil', lol. You wouldn't have most of the technology you use without them.

Not really? A lot of the modern internet was built on this vaguely hippyish idea of free use and communal knowledge building; these companies are just attempting to financialise it by any means possible (in meta and alphabet's case, by turning their "users" into products themselves). They're not really the primary innovators, and their domination has largely made the world wide web a worse place.

[Electric Circus]

Exactly. The backbone of the web consists of things like Wikipedia, government websites, independent media, and Internet Archive.

Academic websites, too, although it makes me sad how many faculty pages and passion projects are fading. Has anyone else had the devastating experience of following an old link (to a .edu) and getting redirected to some polished turd put together by the administration's lackeys in marketing?

The major tech companies have done their best to embed themselves in the web's infrastructure, but any one of these organizations could deteriorate and we wouldn't lose the internet. Yes, even Amazon and Google.

As insidious as they are, you can do without their products. The most difficult ones to avoid, like Amazon's cloud services, are also the most replaceable.

I'm not sure which is worst. I voted for Meta on account of personal beef. Every other company on this list has accomplished things that I respect, but Facebook and its satellites are just predatory.

[darklordoftech]

Apple because the iPhone app store has functioned as a Hays' Code on the internet and Apple started the trend of eliminating headphone jacks.

[Electric Circus]

Apple because the iPhone app store has functioned as a Hays' Code on the internet.

Apple is probably the last one I would want to do without, because all of my elderly relatives use their devices and their accessibility features. I don't like iPhones but I'm glad that my grandma isn't doing her banking on something else.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

The one thing about apple in their favour is they are more privacy focused, as their money just comes from high mark-ups and exclusivity. If you use an android phone, you kind of have to accept all sorts of guff is being collected about you; apple do not have the same goal fod its ios users.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

The major tech companies have done their best to embed themselves in the web's infrastructure, but any one of these organizations could deteriorate and we wouldn't lose the internet. Yes, even Amazon and Google.

Would argue with this point though - I think a few of them are almost too big to fail, given things like intranet services, emails etc making up the internal infrastructure of many critical companies, and even in the event of a messy collapse being avoided and such services continuing, the sheer amount of personal data that would be essentially sold off and scattered to the wind makes a bankrupt alphabet a very frightening prospect.

[Upper Canada Tory]

None of them are 'evil', lol. You wouldn't have most of the technology you use without them.

Not really? A lot of the modern internet was built on this vaguely hippyish idea of free use and communal knowledge building; these companies are just attempting to financialise it by any means possible (in meta and alphabet's case, by turning their "users" into products themselves). They're not really the primary innovators, and their domination has largely made the world wide web a worse place.

Sure, these companies didn't invent and don't own the internet - but they created and manufactured a lot of the technology we use to access the internet. Almost all operating softwares used by computers that are used today were developed by Microsoft and Apple largely pioneered innovation in terms of smartphones, which is why you have so many companies like Samsung today trying to compete with the iPhone.

You are partly right that their monopolizing of certain markets has been detrimental to the World Wide Web, but that does not make these companies evil - what that means is government policy should be more conducive to private-sector competition.

[AGA]

Meta for all the tracking they do.

[GeneralMacArthur]

I don't use any Meta or Microsoft products.

I think Apple is an underrated worst.  They throw their weight around to handicap and sabotage other companies a lot more than the other four.  Green bubble is the most evil thing anyone in the tech industry is currently doing (was glad to see Warren do a video about this).

[Mad Deadly Worldwide Communist Gangster Computer God]

I don't use any Meta or Microsoft products.

I think Apple is an underrated worst.  They throw their weight around to handicap and sabotage other companies a lot more than the other four.  Green bubble is the most evil thing anyone in the tech industry is currently doing (was glad to see Warren do a video about this).

Since you dislike Apple and Microsoft, do you prefer Linux?

[DaleCooper]

I voted for Alphabet because they're the ones that had an incredible service from the beginning with Google, and it's declined the most. Facebook obviously is awful, but it was never a valuable service, and the Metaverse crap is a joke. Google Search is absolutely dreadful at this point. A couple days ago I was having issues with my car so I had to look some stuff up and it was nothing but unhelpful SEO spam, no matter what search terms I entered. I've been experimenting with a couple other search engines and I think they're at least a little better.

And if we're comparing them in terms of the theft of private information, Google Chrome and Gmail are basically spyware at this point, so I'm not sure Zuckerberg is much worse on that front.

[President Johnson]

Meta.

If I had to rank them from best to worst:

1. Microsoft
2. Apple
3. Alphabet
4. Amazon
5. Meta

[nerd73]

The one that has done the most long-term damage to the technology industry is undoubtedly Microsoft. But these days they're (just barely) a lesser evil than Google/Facebook. Amazon is up there too.

Apple is quite a different monster compared to the other four, given that their profit comes more from their products than their services. That being said, they also treat their users like sh**t, just in different ways.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

I am always intrigued by how many people I see complaining that Google Search is dreadful, because I don't really have any big problems with it (something similar happens with complaints about YouTube pushing crackpot videos, which to be fair I have come across occasionally but not nearly enough to faze me). Similarly Meta handily winning the poll is unsurprising - and I am the first person who can't stand the company and is glad to never have had Facebook - but coming from a country where WhatsApp is ubiquitous and not using any of their other products my heart isn't quite in it.

In terms of the poll I am not sure how to answer because on the one hand going by revealed preference the "worst" would be Apple as the one whose products and services I use the least, but on the other hand to the extent that they're all predatory companies the "worst" would be Google/Alphabet as the one which has the most impact on my life and the ranking would be flipped.

[John Dule]

Meta is the only one here that contributes nothing of intrinsic value. The others are all active forces for ontological good in this world.

[West_Midlander]

Meta-Alphabet-Amazon tie

[lfromnj]

Meta is the only one here that contributes nothing of intrinsic value. The others are all active forces for ontological good in this world.

From what Ive seen is Meta's AI model is pretty decent and because its open source it can be used to make less censored AI.

[dead0man]

my vote goes to Apple, as I use the other 4.  FB/Meta is a close second.

[President of the great nation of 🏳️‍⚧️]

my vote goes to Apple, as I use the other 4.  FB/Meta is a close second.

This is fair. Voted Meta to be more "objective", though.