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A new Internet Law, named after Bill Gates

Tuesday, December 15, 2009 by Dave Winer.

I get more than my share of flack from Google which is really strange because I am a person and they are a multi-billion dollar empire that employs thousands of people.  

Sometimes I even win when they try to make me lose.  

But you gotta wonder why a big company like Google wants me to lose. Wouldn't it be easier if they outsourced some of the innovation and got the seal of approval you get when someone who's truly independent says there's nothing up your sleeve? Otherwise I'm almost sure there is a hidden agenda. Esp when patents surface on stuff they didn't invent. 

Had the same problem with Microsoft, multiple times. Funny how no one makes the pilgrimage to Redmond these days. It seems to me the rest of the world has a say in teh future Mr Google. I said this to Microsoft and now I say it to you. Relax. Kick back. You're going to make 40-plus percent of all the profit that comes from any growth we, outside of Google, are able to create. Maybe even more. You won't get any more growth if you insist on controlling every bit that goes over the wire, in fact you'll get less, because the more you impede overall growth, the less you will grow. 

Of course I can't prove this, but it was definitely the right call in the layer before yours. Somehow I think it's a fundamental rule of the growth of the net. The current leader will always try to control growth, and thus slit its own throat. Call that Gates' Law, because he both discovered it (as it applied to IBM) and fell victim to it (in his struggle to control the web). 

BTW, to Aaron Swartz, who says Google is much less of a sociopath than Microsoft. I don't actually think so. Microsoft wasn't as bad as you seem to think. They didn't interfere with 99 percent of all Windows apps. They certainly never tried to control the platform anywhere as completely as Apple tries to control iPhone apps today. I think it's very nice of Google not to screw around with search results. I also think if they did, they'd instantly fall apart.  

Another BTW, in showing us the future Google Toolbar and Feedburner, yesterday, Google presented a classic Embrace & Extend. You can tweet your links to Twitter, and a number of other places. At some point they will add Google's Twitter clone to the list (unless they acquire Twitter of course). No matter what it will be the default. You can feel its presence. Not a bad thing. A way of reminding Twitter that they are still very much one of us. Might end up being a very good thing.