I think Google is great. You can say that from objective angles like market cap, profit, and business model — and personally Google made all kinds of things more convenient and efficient.
As I've written on this blog before, I have a kind of awe for useful IT tools, so in a good way I never get used to them — I still look at these services every day with a fresh feeling and think from the bottom of my heart how wonderful they are.
(Not long ago I was staring at a sheet of something like 500 useful Google Spreadsheet functions and getting excited.)
How much have the tools Google created made the world more convenient? (And that so many of them are free is also staggering.)
One of the great things: how many jobs were born — and keep being born — just from being able to use Google's tools, or knowing them well.
"SEO specialists" who know how to rank high on Google, "online ad agencies" who know Google Ads ops, "data analysts" who can analyze from Google Analytics, and so on.
There are truly a ridiculous number of them. And beyond the people and roles above, you can add the derivative tools (auto Google Ads systems, auto SEO analysis systems, etc.).
The economic effect and employment Google brought are huge.
Put the other way: these days, almost no one calls themselves a web marketer or data analyst without knowing Google's systems and tools.
This may be an old-fashioned view, but I believe "creating employment is a noble thing." Founders and companies that create jobs are admirable and deserve respect.
(※ Extreme cases like black companies excluded, of course.)
If I say this I'll probably get called a capitalist shill, but I still believe it.
Someone who takes the risk of starting a company, makes profit, and uses that profit to hire people — that becomes someone's salary, and the economy turns.
Whether you're for or against capitalism (or whether it's right or wrong) aside, the world currently runs on that mechanism.
Back to the point: of course there are downsides to the jobs Google created too.
I'd love to keep writing about the greatness of the employment Google created, but this post's theme is the downside.
(※ First: these are not downsides Google should be held responsible for.)
(I don't know the situation overseas, so) at least in Japan, there are endless ridiculous "online ad agencies" that cold-call with "We'll run Google Ads for a 20% fee!" and nosy "SEO specialists overflowing with results" who say "Want SEO? We ranked competitive keywords..." and so on.
Every company has probably been pitched with lines like that once. They truly exist by the truckload.
The web marketing and ad market is enormous, so these silly roles can still make a living.
There's enough demand that I don't question that they exist — but I don't think it's healthy, and I find it lamentable.
They're people who know Google's tools a little and know how to use them. And these industries are mostly labor-intensive and hard to differentiate.
Bluntly: template task shops. (※ The irony is they call that template work "our proprietary know-how.")
I'm not denying the job itself, but honestly I often see this corner of the industry overdoing self-branding more than necessary.
And there are frequent cases where a company contact who doesn't know the web gets ripped off by a shady web agency.
Every time I see that I get tired, and I think: isn't something ethically off here?
In that sense they aren't professionals. They strip and reshape the client's request so it fits their template work.
Results are half luck with template ops. Of course if both sides have a shared understanding that it's just outsourced task work, fine...
I'm getting rant-y, but the conclusion: supply and demand keep creating all kinds of jobs, and the world still has plenty of roles that can exist without professional pride or ethics.
The world keeps producing advanced, game-changing companies. Like a whack-a-mole, "distortions" will keep appearing.
Even so, those market distortions should be resolved and made healthier.
I hope great companies of the future will fix the kind of "industry distortion" I wrote about here.
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