Computer programmers can all join me in joyful celebration this week because Google has stopped being evil: Google has decided give us back our respect by finally charging money for software with Google Apps Premier Edition.
During most of my 20+ years in the industry, computer programming was a noble profession. We worked hard, and if we made good product we charged money for our efforts, got paid, got laid, bought shoes for our kids, and so on. All that started to change when Google exploded with wealth based on giving everything away for free. Suddenly it appeared that all software would be given away for free--a programmer's output wasn't worth money anymore. Even worse, Google's formula for success wasn't based on programming at all, it was based on advertising. Advertising! No longer were programmers smart, noble, hard workers, in league with Einstein and Turing and Knuth. We were now just ad-men, like Darren Stevens but without the hot witch-wife! (Sorry, Amy, I mean other programmers-turned-advertisers don't have the hot witch wife.) And all this was Google's fault. Google was being evil.
But now Google has seen the wickedness of their ways. They aren't giving it all away for free anymore. Software is respectable again. Google has been exorcized of it's evil. Hallelujah!
(Am I going to have to start paying for keyhole again? Oh, crap!)
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