The sound news : Google will be patronize 4,000 Boingo hotspots through the end of the calendar month . That ’s a set of Wi - Fi ! The unsound tidings : It look like only gadget that have verbatim Google shimmer access — Android sound , Macs , and PCs — will profit . Which , hey is Google ’s prerogative . But it ’s also a very different Google from the one we used to know .
First , the detail from the press release Google and Boingo sent out today : 4,000 hot spot , include 15 drome , tons more hotel and parks , and the occasional NYC subway stop . If you require to apply your net car to enter the world wide entanglement at any of those locations , you may do so without reaching for your notecase ( or , more likely , your PayPal password ) .
But ! The phrasing Google uses score it go very much like iOS and Windows Phone users will be leave out in the low temperature :
start this week , Wi - Fi users with Android phones and tablet , as well as Windows and Macintosh laptops , will be offered complimentary Wi - Fi …
All that ’s rightful , but some of us retrieve the days when Google ’s main goal was to get as many hoi polloi on the net as possible — since once you ’re there , you ’d invariably chance your way to using one of its products . Now , though , Android ’s not just a searcher delivery system ; it ’s an ecosystem . And ecosystem must be curated and fed and serve .
It ’s a small example , maybe , but an example just the same ofGoogle ’s trend towards self - interestabove the substance abuser utopia it originally envisioned . Even if it ends up being Wi - Fi for all , the exception of Io and Windows Phone from the military press release is a more aggressive cordoning off than we might have see five years ago .
https://gizmodo.com/the-case-against-google-5895010
Again : there is nothing inherently incorrect with that . But whether it ’s bad or it ’s good or it ’s a shrug , it ’s definitely a shift key . And one that leaves more of us worse off .
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