interesting - but I didn't totally buy into it. new web communication tools are helping to bring down governments and giving people new freedoms

it is like telling alexander graham bell to not waste his time on the telephone since people are just going to use it to spread gossip and rumor

But the thing is, a lot of these "new Web communication tools" are "new" only in the sense that they aren't very old, not in the more important sense that they're novel in a useful way.

But it would be so convinient for Google if they have less competition working in communication tools. and more working on projects that Google is not working on. yes longevity of life is important but quality is also important.

I think this is the highest level of tinfoil hattery I have yet seen on Hacker News.

Google gets Steve Yegge to encourage coders to work on bioinformatics because it gets rid of the competition!

(I doubt that)