Would you? Could you? In a merger?
Microsoft seems bound and determined to buy Yahoo! They don’t seem to be getting the message. So I wonder if we, the citizens of the web, can send them a message loud and clear: Yahoo! doesn’t want you, and neither do we. We like competition and diversity, and Microsoft has demonstrated time and again that they don’t compete fairly and they certainly aren’t all that diverse. Their strengths seem to lie in Quashing Creativity and Innovation™ and Adding Bloat™.
Thanks to the internet, the world is no longer intimidated by Microsoft’s bottomless pockets, and more and more companies are realizing there’s more to business than selling out to the bully on the playground. So I started to wonder if we (the collective ‘we,’ those of us who use web technologies regularly) could actually live without some of the services we’ve come to use frequently if it meant sending a message to Redmond. Out of curiosity, I went looking for the other services (or applications) that Yahoo! offers, and I found out they’re mostly (relatively) recent acquisitions
- bix (Nov 2007)
- del.icio.us (Dec. 2005)
- flickr (March 2005)
- jumpcut (Sept. 2006)
- maven (Feb. 2008)
- mybloglog (Jan 2007)
- upcoming (October 2005)
- Yahoo! Mail
- Yahoo! Messenger
- Yahoo! Widgets (neé Konfabulator) (July 2005)
There are some others, but those are the prominent services I found. Most of the other stuff just seems to be back-end related, but the services and apps above are all user-facing. Out of those listed, I (barely) use flickr and Yahoo! Mail, and I’ve heard of del.icio.us and upcoming. I don’t use Yahoo! Messenger or Yahoo! Widgets (heck, I don’t even use the Widgets in Mac OS X’s Dashboard, for that matter). Not to suggest that nobody uses any of them…it’s just that I don’t personally. But I wonder if those who do would be willing to give them up to fend off Microsoft.
Example: I personally make it a point not to shop at Wal*Mart, because I feel that if I do, I’m contributing to the decline of localized economy. My wife, however, continues to shop there, because she likes the selection and the prices. For her, convenience trumps conviction. She’s not crazy about Wal*Mart’s impact on local economies, but it doesn’t bother her enough to not shop there. This seems to hold true for most people — otherwise, Wal*Mart wouldn’t be the juggernaut that it currently is.
So how many of us are there who are willing to put our money where our mouths are? I mean, I know I could live without Flickr or Yahoo! Mail. But what about everyone else? Could you live without Flickr? Or del.icio.us? Or upcoming?
…or does it just not concern you that Microsoft may soon own those services? Me, I know I’d drop all those services like a sack of moldy potatoes if Microsoft bought them. But maybe that’s just me.
[note: when trying to find an image that illustrated this post, I searched the term ‘want some?’ and I found the picture above. It’s a bit disturbing, but apropos for the gist of this entry.]
Would you? Could you? In a merger?
Microsoft seems bound and determined to buy Yahoo! They don’t seem to be getting the message. So I wonder if we, the citizens of the web, can send them a message loud and clear: Yahoo! doesn’t want you, and neither do we. We like competition and diversity, and Microsoft has demonstrated time and again that they don’t compete fairly and they certainly aren’t all that diverse. Their strengths seem to lie in Quashing Creativity and Innovation™ and Adding Bloat™.
Thanks to the internet, the world is no longer intimidated by Microsoft’s bottomless pockets, and more and more companies are realizing there’s more to business than selling out to the bully on the playground. So I started to wonder if we (the collective ‘we,’ those of us who use web technologies regularly) could actually live without some of the services we’ve come to use frequently if it meant sending a message to Redmond. Out of curiosity, I went looking for the other services (or applications) that Yahoo! offers, and I found out they’re mostly (relatively) recent acquisitions
- bix (Nov 2007)
- del.icio.us (Dec. 2005)
- flickr (March 2005)
- jumpcut (Sept. 2006)
- maven (Feb. 2008)
- mybloglog (Jan 2007)
- upcoming (October 2005)
- Yahoo! Mail
- Yahoo! Messenger
- Yahoo! Widgets (neé Konfabulator) (July 2005)
There are some others, but those are the prominent services I found. Most of the other stuff just seems to be back-end related, but the services and apps above are all user-facing. Out of those listed, I (barely) use flickr and Yahoo! Mail, and I’ve heard of del.icio.us and upcoming. I don’t use Yahoo! Messenger or Yahoo! Widgets (heck, I don’t even use the Widgets in Mac OS X’s Dashboard, for that matter). Not to suggest that nobody uses any of them…it’s just that I don’t personally. But I wonder if those who do would be willing to give them up to fend off Microsoft.
Example: I personally make it a point not to shop at Wal*Mart, because I feel that if I do, I’m contributing to the decline of localized economy. My wife, however, continues to shop there, because she likes the selection and the prices. For her, convenience trumps conviction. She’s not crazy about Wal*Mart’s impact on local economies, but it doesn’t bother her enough to not shop there. This seems to hold true for most people — otherwise, Wal*Mart wouldn’t be the juggernaut that it currently is.
So how many of us are there who are willing to put our money where our mouths are? I mean, I know I could live without Flickr or Yahoo! Mail. But what about everyone else? Could you live without Flickr? Or del.icio.us? Or upcoming?
…or does it just not concern you that Microsoft may soon own those services? Me, I know I’d drop all those services like a sack of moldy potatoes if Microsoft bought them. But maybe that’s just me.
[note: when trying to find an image that illustrated this post, I searched the term ‘want some?’ and I found the picture above. It’s a bit disturbing, but apropos for the gist of this entry.]
Posted 4 years ago Notes
