Today Daringfireball.net linked to an article by Mike Elgan about Google with this quote.

Google makes billions of dollars in revenue each fiscal quarter. That money comes about by the same process that all companies use: They sell a product to their customers. Their customers pay money for that product.

Who’s Google’s customer? You? Really? When’s the last time you paid Google for anything?

Advertisers are Google’s customer. What do they sell to advertisers? They sell you. Or, at least, they rent you out, or provide access to you.

This is why I on a basic level distrust Google and don’t use there services for anything vital in my business or private life. It’s not that I believe they are “evil” or anything like that, I simply don’t trust them enough.

Apple is different. I know that I’m their customer and the product they want to sell is hardware, i.e. Macs, iPhones and iPads. They want to keep me happy because I give them money. I can trust that.

I like Apples products a lot! I like some of Googles services as well, search, Gmail and Analytic are all very good services. But liking something it not the same as trusting it.

I don’t use Facebook for the same reason. I do use Twitter, and enjoy using it, but I’m hesitant. I much rather be using some distributed Twitter-like protocol.

Trust is important.