Yesterday, Google Maps renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. My understanding is that the change primarily affects users in America. Users in Mexico will see Gulf of Mexico, and the rest of the world will see both names. For shits and giggles, I wrote a review of the Gulf of America on Google Maps. I gave it one star and pointed out the incompetence of new management. I said it’s lost its character, charm, and diversity (a now taboo word here in the US). I ended my review with “Do not recommend.” Google took my review down. Today, Apple followed Google’s lead an renamed the gulf.
With yet more tech companies enshittifying their products and thereby worsening our experiences as users, I’m still trying to figure out how to uncouple from, or at least reduce my reliance on and usage of, tech companies whose views and stances on modern politics I find to be incongruent with and detrimental to the freedom and the well-being of humans. I stopped using Twitter when it’s CEO (and our now co-president) began spreading misinformation and nazi propaganda. Unfortunately, Google, and most of the other tech, are considerably more difficult to avoid.
As someone who writes and as someone who tries to practice spirituality through honesty and self-awareness, being able to name things properly is important. It is the first step in problem solving. It is the first step in understanding. Words matter because on them rests the very foundations of truth. If I decide I want to call a fork a spoon, and then wish to argue the merits of spoons, most people won’t know what I’m talking about… you know those metal things with three, four, or five pointy stab-ey things that help you pick up food or ward of interlopers eyeing up that last baked potato… you know, spoons. Words and properly naming things, feelings, places, etc. gives us context. They give us a common frame of reference.
I find Google’s decision to rename the Gulf of Mexico (at the whim of a dictator) extremely troubling. The fact of the matter is, maps are source documents – they are how we define our world… and without a viable alternative to Google (Google Maps owns about 80% of the market share in mobile mapping), what Google does impacts the entire world. If the orange menace with small hands and bad hair decides north should be south, will Google comply? If he decides to rename San Francisco, that shithole on the coast Shitstown, California, will Google comply? If he decides to rename Mar-a-lago the new capitol of the US, will Google comply?
Google’s page on the issue says the change is “consistent with our longstanding practices.” On their Twitter account (and sure, since we can call things whatever we wish, I’ll still refer to it as Twitter), Google states, “We have a longstanding practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources.” To me, it seems that renaming a place, be it a town or a major body of water, should require more than executive order to “update it in official government sources.”
I’m disappointed, but not surprised, by big tech’s (and corporate America’s) alignment and enabling of the current administration – after all they have shareholders who have mouths to feed. If the alignment were on this one issue (renaming the Gulf), it might be tolerable, but they didn’t stop there. This week, Google also dropped it’s pledge to not develop AI weapons (they removed the “don’t be evil” motto from their code of conduct in 2018), and deleted the monthly observances (Black History Month, Pride Month, etc.) from their Calendar product.
Unfortunately, a handful of these companies have become so ingrained in modern life that short of filling out a complaint card and stuffing it in the nonexistent comments box located on the second floor near the bathroom and just beyond the portrait studio, we have no recourse in voicing our disapproval. But this is the tech playbook: gain market dominance, then change the rules of the game or change the source code and dare people to leave. It happens all the time and seems to be happening with increased frequency. Perhaps the most prevalent, current example is the roll out of AI. Whether we like it or not – it will be integrated into every aspect of our technology. Microsoft, Apple, Google… essentially every major platform is weaving AI into their operations, and opting out (short of opting out of society) is not an option. I use Google products for work – I can’t just boycott them. Our options for phones are pretty much down to Android or Apple (Android has 76% of the market and Apple has 23%). Our choices for computers are Windows based or Apple based (73% and 14% market share respectively). Cory Doctorow, who coined the term enshittification, refers to these companies as too big to fail, too big to jail, too big to care.
And so passes another day when my options, beyond screaming into the void, are limited to writing a little and trying to meet the enshittified world with a dose of humor and my one-star review of the Gulf of America.