oh google, you are the greatest thing ever

In a capitalist society, people fear monopolies because it means that one company or corporation has complete control of something that people want, so they can charge however much they want for said thing. Like if I was the sole distributor of toothpicks, I could charge fifty bucks per toothpick if I wanted, and there would be nothing you could do about it!

But the truth is that monopolies are everywhere (clearchannel? cableone/comcast? microsoft? intermountain gas? for you idahoans), and they exist through loopholes, and it sucks. But on the Internet, everything changes.
Google is a monopoly. No, they’re more than a monopoly. They are somehow a polymonopoly. They do so many different things so much better than everyone else that it’s sickening. They’ve taken the ashes of shitty web ideas only to birth beautiful fiery phoenixes that shoot fire out of their eyeballs and set flame to … really shitty things. Remember Geocities? Remember how big a pile of shit that was?

Geoshitties (haha, I just made that up, okay not really), for those of you who were born in the 1990s, was essentially a precursor to myspace, in the sense that everyone had one and they all induced epileptic seizures with their bright colors and flashing animated gifs. They were little websites that you could horribly fuck up any way you wished. And since HTML back then was relatively simple (Web 1.0?), anyone could easily make their font REALLY REALLY BIG and REALLY REALLY YELLOW.

Well one day Google decided to make Google Pages, which are just like Geocities pages except more awesomer.  Pre-designed templates almost guarantee that your average soccer mom won’t mess up making her dream website about macrame and cookie recipies.  And HTML and coding is so much more confusing, with CSS and PHP and fuckin Drupal shit that people will stare at the HTML and say, “I ain’t messing with that,” allowing Google to totally control the design of your page.  Smart smart.

Remember Hotmail? Or Yahoo mail? Or any other mail that looks like a little girl compared to how awesome Gmail is?  Hotmail boasted 5MB storage limits back in the day.  Then one day Gmail came along and said, “Hey Hotmail.  Way to be a girl about things.  We’re going to give people two GIGS worth of storage.  And then, just to be jerks, we’re going to continually add more space, in small but steady increments, until one day we give each Gmail user an entire Internet worth of space.  Think about it.  It’s like getting your own Universe, Hotmail.  Way to be behind the times.”

And of course Hotmail and Yahoo have tried to compensate, but they fail.  They just fail.  And now Gmail connects to AIM which means I never ever have to have AIM installed on my computer ever again.  Plus, the other day I realized that I can have my Gmail account CHECK MY OTHER GMAIL ACCOUNTS FOR ME.  That’s right, I just add the other e-mail addresses and Gmail looks them up for me, and even labels which e-mail comes from which address.  If Gmail were a human female, she would be foxy, and she would be my wife.

Remember Mapquest?  Microsoft thought they were being all cool by allowing people to figure out where shit was on a map.  But it was a little buggy, and sometimes it would give horrible directions, but it’s all that was there, right?  And there’s no way you could improve a map.  Who improves a map?

I’ll tell you who does:  GOOGLE DOES.  Google Maps are directly connected to secret CIA satellites in geosynchonous orbit high over the Earth.  They have incredibly accurate directions, and include public transit and even walking as alternate methods of direction-finding (a not to subtle hint, I think, that you should get off your ass and start walking places).  And then they thought, “Hey, why not just drive down every street in America and take pictures?  That’s easy right?”  And so the Street View was born, and with it, embarrassing pictures of middle-aged women going out to get the paper in the morning, or guys shooting up meth in front of their house, or you, in a children’s sized swimming pool, in a wifebeater, drinking a beer and picking your nose as you casually look at the camera with that “You can’t judge me” look on your face.  Priceless!  Priceless I say!

Look!  They have a website dedicated to finding these pictures!  I am aghast.

And then Google said, “Maps?  We can do better than that,” and they created Google Earth.

I’m assuming on the seventh day they rested.

Oh, and let’s not forget Google Chrome, their new web browser.  I’m using it right now, as a matter of fact.  Think of it this way: everyone, and I mean EVERYONE was all about Firefox.  When Firefox came out people went nuts.  It was amazing!  It had add-ons!  It had tabs!  ooh tabs!  And us oldschool web users said, “It reminds us of Netscape!” which was nice.

Well Google was not to be outdone.  They totally redesigned how browsers work.  Now each tab is a separate process, meaning that each page you have tabbed is essentially a program in itself.  That means if a tab containing a flash video freezes on you, Chrome itself DOESN’T freeze.  Only THAT TAB freezes.  And Chrome even tells you this!  It says, “Hey, man, this tab fucked up.  Can we close it for you?” and you’re like, “Yes Google Chrome, you can!” and it’s like, “Hey, thanks.  Listen, I’ve been meaning to ask, but would you like to go out and get a beer tonight?”  and you’re like, “What?  You’re a computer!” and it’s like, “Oh yeah.  I keep forgetting because I’m SO AWESOME.”

All I’m saying is that if Chrome supports addons someday, especially Adblock, I will never have to have sex with a woman again. I was such a huge Firefox fan, too. But now in comparison their browser sucks. It just sucks! It’s slow and doesn’t reallocate memory that well! I mean, come on! I’m sorry, Firefox, but you’ve got some work to do now!

What else does Google do better than anyone else?  GO LOOK FOR YOURSELF!  They’re not afraid to boast about their gigantic e-penis.  They own Blogger, for Chrissakes.  They own what I am writing this blog onto!  They own it!  In a way they own me!

AND LOOK AT THIS!

THEY HAVE PADDINGTON BEAR ON THEIR FRONTPAGE RIGHT NOW.

How … how … it’s Paddington Bear!  Look at him!  He’s holding a suitcase!  He’s obviously moving to either London or Peru!  OH GOD THE CUTENESS STINGS MY EYES.

Okay, I had a reason for this blog post but I can’t remember it because Google is too awesome.  All they need is a social networking site and they will officially Rule the Internet.

… I really did have a reason for this post but I forgot it.  Oh well.