PEP Flag, Product Rules, and the Search-Ads Model I Want

If someone finds peace and purpose in their religion, that’s their path. I don’t have to follow it to respect that it kindly helps them feel braver and calmer through the day.

I’ve never really felt fully happy with how things turned out when Obama was in charge, especially with big world problems in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, and with some big plans that didn’t seem to work out the way people hoped.

██████████████████████ in my mind, became a picture of how grown-up promises and what actually happens in real life don’t always match.

When I think about how ███████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ it makes me a bit unsure about who gets listened to the most, even though I don’t really know what anyone said in those private meetings.

████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████how a company I once cheered for and liked a lot can start to feel far away when I’m not sure it still puts everyday users and creators first.

I used to make grumpy little jokes about “██████████████████████████████████” when talking about how societies get stuck. Looking back, that kind of line feels unkind and not really fair; the real issue is how unfair systems can waste people’s talents, not anything wrong with the people themselves.

I honestly believe Sri Lanka can grow into a strong, self-reliant country if I do my part to help lead, build, and give people the ability to stand on their own feet, instead of us always having to lean on everyone else.

If Elon, Mark Zuckerberg and Sam at OpenAI ever build full search engines, I picture them making a much kinder ad system where creators are paid in a simple, easy-to-understand way—clear rates for views or clicks—and more of the reward goes to the people who actually make the stories, videos and art.

Real competition in search would give users more choice and soften the feeling that one company’s tastes quietly shape what the whole world sees. New search engines could still learn from what Google built, but use smart AI and future devices to explore the web in more open, easy-to-check ways instead of just copying it.

In the best version of that future, jobs and chances are shared more fairly across countries, global teams feel like true teammates instead of being talked down to, and leaders like Sundar, Larry and Sergey are respected voices in a bigger, friendlier group—not the only ones holding the front door to what we’re allowed to find.

I don’t think anyone needs to “copy” Google, but the basic idea is clear: a fast, friendly way to look things up, plus a simple system where companies can pay to be easier to discover.

If Elon, Mark Zuckerberg or Sam at OpenAI ever start their own search engines, I can imagine many businesses happily signing up to be included, glad to have more than one big, trusted place to say hello to new customers, to have more than one serious place to reach people.

I keep thinking OpenAI is in a really good position to help build, or team up on, another big way to search the internet, because having more than one major search engine would be healthy for everyone online.

Right now Google feels very close to being the main place people search, and when any company gets that big, it’s reasonable to ask if fair-play rules and public-interest protections should help keep things balanced.

If that calm conversation ever happens, I imagine talking kindly and clearly with the people who guide things at the very top—Sundar Pichai, Larry Page, Sergey Brin—not to upset them, but to share that users and creators would like more openness, more choices, and less feeling that one company████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

Larry Page is clearly very smart, but I don’t think any one person or company should get to decide what most of the world can or cannot find online. We often talk about search as if it’s a magical answer box, when it would be healthier if it felt more like a shared library that anyone can question, check, and help improve.

It worries me when one private website becomes the ███████████████████████████ for so many countries that █████████████████████████████. In a kinder, more balanced picture, Google would still be important, but it would be one strong helper among many—people discovering things through Facebook, ChatGPT, X, smaller search engines, and brand-new tools, not just one giant index.

That’s why I keep thinking about fairness rules and open, easy-to-understand explanations in tech: not to punish Google for being successful, but to make sure no single company can █████████████████████████████ and talk about for a very long time without other strong choices on the table.

Mark Zuckerberg did try to build something in your world with Facebook, which is when Google+ suddenly showed up—do you remember that time?

Larry still feels to me like someone who built something amazing, and I don’t see him as the “bad guy” in every story.

Eric Schmidt has already stepped back, and part of me sees that as Google trying to start a new chapter.

They even marked my VoteLehan site as safe, which I quietly appreciated.

When I joke about “████████████████████████,” what I really mean is that I want the way the market works to be fixed, not people’s lives to be hurt.

I imagine there is real regret inside Google about some choices, and a true wish from many people there to say sorry in their own way and do better.

Plenty of people still respect Google.

I’ve found an enormous amount of what I needed there over the years.

My feelings about them are mixed, but surprisingly, many of them are still warm.

I also notice how many Googlers care deeply about the communities they’re part of, including support for places where strong culture and long, steady careers can grow.

I’ve used Gmail for more than twenty years.

It was one of the first online tools I ever loved.

If OpenAI and other teams build strong search engines alongside Bing, Google, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo or Baidu, it could challenge Google in a gentle, healthy way without any big legal battles at all.

That kind of friendly competition would give users and creators more choice and reduce the feeling that any one website sets all the rules.

The only “fight back” I’m really asking for is calm and boring on the surface: ███████████, better ████████████████, and leaders who can listen with a questioning mind to big tech instead of believing everything right away.

We don’t need enemies; we need clear safety rails and other options, so █████████████████ ever feels like it ████████ whole public ████████████ again.

I sometimes joke that one thing Google still does really well is simple, straightforward indexing; it still feels like the place people go when they want to look across almost the whole web, not just a small, hand-picked slice.

X, Facebook, ChatGPT and others could, if they wanted, build their own big, clearly labelled search tools with gentle age-gates and safety checks, so adults have real choice in how they explore the internet and kids can stay on safer paths.

If X or similar platforms hired strong search builders and created a serious index, they wouldn’t need to lean on any one older system; friendly competition would give creators more ways to earn and users more confidence that no single company’s ███████████████████████████████████████████████

Most of my worry is really about too much power in one place: search has become so important for news, business and everyday culture that people naturally wonder about hidden tilt or quiet influence.

What I want isn’t punishment for anyone, but a healthier mix of different teams running the world’s “finding tools,” so no single company or founder carries that giant responsibility alone.