Google has been receiving a lot of criticism recently for its Joint Policy Proposal with Verizon that, if ever adopted into law, is contrary to several aspects of net neutrality.   While arguments for or against Google’s changed stance on these issues are oozing out of all corners of the Internet, it’s important to remember how much good Google does on an everyday and quietly expected basis.   Many of Google’s most popular services remain free to the vast majority of its users, providing solutions to problems and simplifying aspects of life in once unimaginable ways.   “Don’t be evil,” the company’s motto, needs to be digested in the context of Google “the business” – which ultimately must answer to shareholders and make money to survive.  Without making money, the company and all the free services provided to its millions of users would not exist.  How would the disappearance of Google influence your life?  Imagine for a moment a day without Google.

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The first thing I do when I wake up is check my email.  As I sit down at my computer and click the email shortcut, my computer returns an error message.  The requested program cannot be found.  Google Chrome, my web browser of choice for several reasons, doesn’t exist.  Instead, I click the Internet Explorer shortcut and proceed (more slowly) to check my email.

Without Google, my Gmail account doesn’t exist.  This isn’t necessarily a problem since I don’t use an @gmail email address, but I do immediately miss Gmail’s ability to aggregate several other (up to five) online, POP3, or IMAP email accounts into one convenient interface.  Without Gmail, I quickly find myself checking each of my five email addresses individually, adding several minutes and extra keystrokes to my morning email routine.

After email, I click the browser’s home button to get to my iGoogle page.  I have it customized to quickly and succinctly present all the relevant news and information in which I’m interested.  But unfortunately on this day without Google, my iGoogle page doesn’t exist.  I revert back to Yahoo’s confusing mess of news and category links as my homepage.

I still subscribe via RSS feeds to several websites’ content.  To aggregate all this content, I use Google Reader, which I open each morning and skim the stories, “starring” interesting articles to read later.  Except today, Google Reader doesn’t exist.  I’ll have to find another RSS reader that lets me access these news feeds via the cloud.

Before heading to work, I decide to glance at my Google Calendar to get an idea of the appointments I have scheduled today.  My Google calendar, which is synchronized to my wife’s, conveniently displays her schedule overlaid on mine – which solves the “double booking” problem we once shared.  But on this day without Google, our calendars are gone.  I’ll have to buy a day planner and call my wife before permanently inking any appointments.  I can expect calls or emails from her confirming the same.

The drive to work is uneventful – until traffic grinds to a halt.  Without some other transportation infrastructure to fall back on, I reach for my EVO 4G smartphone to check the Google Maps traffic overlay.  The overlay to Google Maps provides real-time traffic data for the roads in the area I’m traveling, informing me about the magnitude of the current traffic jam and of possible alternative routes via the phone’s built-in GPS and Google Maps Navigation software, which is free with all Android phones.  But today, without Google, there is no real-time traffic report from Google Maps.  My wife won’t be able to see Google Street View pictures of the actual buildings to which she’s traveling.  There is no Google Maps Navigation to guide me on unfamiliar streets.  In fact, there’s no EVO 4G smartphone running Google’s Android 2.2 mobile OS.  All the useful Android smartphone apps and features, like Google Voice, Google Checkout, Google Earth, and Google Goggles, don’t exist without Google.

Finally at work, I decide to finish an article for TechClicker.  I try logging into Google Docs to retrieve an article I started the previous evening, except now Google Docs doesn’t exist.  The freedom afforded by working in the cloud is gone.  I dig up an old copy of Microsoft Office, which cost several hundred dollars years ago, and install it on my laptop.  Now, if I want finish this article later on another computer, I have to physically copy the file onto a portable storage device for later retrieval.  I worry because I tend to lose USB thumb drives and the computers I use are prone to hard drive failures – both of which are problems that went away when I migrated to Google’s cloud based services.

As TechClicker’s editor, I depend on the data captured by Google Analytics about the visitors to the website.  The website’s primary source of income is advertising revenue from Google Adsense.  It’s primary means of advertising is Google Adwords.  One of the many channels of content distribution is Google’s Feedburner.  TechClicker uses Google’s reCAPTCHA technology to filter spam and Picasa to host photos.  YouTube is the source of a large percentage of our video content (and wasted time).  Needless to say, without Google, TechClicker and many other websites don’t exist.

Finally, let’s not forget about search.  Although there are alternatives like Bing, without Google and the comfort and ease with which I’ve come to feel using its search engine, the Internet would quickly become a much smaller place for me.

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While these events are obviously fictitious, they don’t significantly deviate from my actual usage of Google’s products and services.  Except for Adwords, I pay nothing to use any of them and I’m sure many people have similar stories and usage patterns.  While there are companies that offer similar individual products across the broad spectrum of Google’s product line, no one brings it all together into a suite of services so easily and universally accessible across multiple synchronized platforms – from the mobile to the desktop to cloud-based operating environments.

Without Google, companies like Apple and Microsoft would operate unopposed.  The epic battle between Google, Microsoft, and Apple is great for innovation on both the granular and broad scales.  Without Google, would there be a serious alternative to the iPhone and Apple’s closed policies?  Who knows?  But it’s clear to me on a personal level that life without Google would set me back a decade in terms of how I organize my life and communicate with others.  And for that, I’m grateful.

Now I’m going to go waste some more time on YouTube…