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jess_mango's review against another edition
4.0
Don't Be Evil is a look at the issues with the digital age especially those related to Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google (FAANG). The author presents the case that these corporations are doing more harm than good for society in regards to privacy, the economy, addictive behaviors and more.
The author believes that these companies are too big and too powerful. Their lobbyists are influencing legislation and they drive out competition due to their size, which in turn stifles innovation. She posits that what these corporations get their most value from is user data and user generated content.
An interesting factoid I gleaned from my book that I shared with my kids who dream of being YouTube stars: you have to get 2 million views on a video to earn $20,000 in a year. So, to make a serious living as a YouTube star, you need to be REALLY popular and get millions upon millions of views. Not quite easy money. AND...that content is in turn generating even more money for YouTube/Google.
As a former employee of a high tech company, I could see many things in this book that rang true. While I haven't worked for any of the aforementioned companies, I have interviewed with a couple and decided not to further pursue working with them (for now at least). Foroohar admits in this book that she at one point she considered working for Google but decided against it. She did a good job with this book as it was very informative and flowed well from point to point.
I won a copy of this book in a GoodReads giveaway.
The author believes that these companies are too big and too powerful. Their lobbyists are influencing legislation and they drive out competition due to their size, which in turn stifles innovation. She posits that what these corporations get their most value from is user data and user generated content.
An interesting factoid I gleaned from my book that I shared with my kids who dream of being YouTube stars: you have to get 2 million views on a video to earn $20,000 in a year. So, to make a serious living as a YouTube star, you need to be REALLY popular and get millions upon millions of views. Not quite easy money. AND...that content is in turn generating even more money for YouTube/Google.
As a former employee of a high tech company, I could see many things in this book that rang true. While I haven't worked for any of the aforementioned companies, I have interviewed with a couple and decided not to further pursue working with them (for now at least). Foroohar admits in this book that she at one point she considered working for Google but decided against it. She did a good job with this book as it was very informative and flowed well from point to point.
I won a copy of this book in a GoodReads giveaway.
charlottehobbit's review against another edition
4.0
Heel informatie-dense, leest daardoor wat minder makkelijk weg ondanks de toegankelijke schrijfstijl. Maar heel inzichtelijk en lifechanging.
amn028's review against another edition
3.0
Interesting but nothing shocking or revealing. It is depressing though
mdross1's review against another edition
2.0
There were great points in here, and plenty to be learned for sure. Unfortunately, a lot of the material was repetitive (did you know the author thinks of social media like railroad networks? You certainly will by the end), and a lot of the last half of the book felt like padding to me at least. The writing was a bit awkward sometimes too, and the author's opinions on irrelevant points seemed to sneak in at weird points.
bookbuzzard's review against another edition
challenging
informative
slow-paced
3.5
Most of the book is informative and damning of the tech industry, but the conclusions the author comes to at the end are bizarre- advocating for more surveillance and censorship.
miguelf's review against another edition
4.0
Foroohar’s previous book, Makers & Takers, was a great oversight of the financialization of the economy and its negative effects. She has continued her insightful streak with Don’t Be Evil, which deals with how Google and other digital darlings have tended to distort the markets they play in and are detrimental to society as a whole. Though other books have dealt with issues of Oligopoly better (see Matt Stoller’s “Goliath”) Foroohar does a solid job showing how Google/FB/Amazon’s dominance in their respective marketplace have not benefited consumers overall and pose a continuing threat as they continue to hoover up our digital presence, monetizing it to their own bloated bottom lines. The more insidious aspects of them hoovering up our digital lives is more broadly covered in Shoshana Zuboff’s “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism”, but here again Foroohar does a good job outlining at a high level how this affects our online autonomy.
starfondant's review against another edition
3.0
3.5 Stars. Disturbing and informative, but also repetitive. I felt it could have been a little more condensed. The chapters sometimes felt like connected essays instead of chapters in the same book and I feel like I heard the same few phrases/sentences again and again (probably made more noticeable by the fact that I was listening to the audiobook). Still a good read - would recommend if you want more information on the monopoly of Apple/Amazon/Google et al.