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In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users

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Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users

#91
post #88

Google Inbox did one evil thing. To delete an item in iOS's Inbox, you swipe left to right, whereas pretty much every other app in iOS you swipe right to left. This has thrown me into such confusion now in all apps that I'm happy to see Inbox go away.

Why did you use Inbox if you're happier without it?

Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users

#92
post #39

Google's shutdown of products and APIs seems to have led to critical level of trust loss amongst developers and influencers. It's time for Google to either fix this or get out of providing services and APIs to developers. Google doesn't seem to put any weight at all on the outcry every time its shutters another service/API. The trust must be restored. Google doesn't seem to understand that when they shut service X, t…

My company switched from AWS to Azure without considering Google's Cloud at all, and the loss of trust is the reason.

Best of luck. I've found azure far more difficult to manage even simple things with than on AWS. Even spinning up a single simple development server feels far more complicated.

Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users

#93

The new look Gmail has performed very poorly for me. Hanging for extended periods while changing views, and during search. I'm not sure why a UI refresh would have such an effect but I've been avoiding switching because of this

I have to agree with this. I have upgraded (or rather it upgraded for me a couple of weeks ago), and now everything I do is delayed by a couple of seconds. Archive an email? I can't close the tab otherwise the browser tells me I'm going to lose data. Send an email? Ditto. I wouldn't mind a better UI, but beside the added lag I don't find there's anything better or different than before.

What happens when you revert to the old Gmail? I'm wondering if you get the speed of the old Gmail back or if it instead just reverts to the non-industrial design elements of the previous version of Gmail. Today a friend told me he reverted all the way back to HTML Gmail because he was so annoyed with the non-responsiveness.

Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users

#94

I don't think Google cares whether its users are "passionate" or not. They've reached market saturation, so further spread of their products through word-of-mouth (via passionate users and such) isn't a goal at this time. With regard to their Internet service products, their goal seem to be to monetize the user base effectively, while avoiding wasting funds on unnecessary developer time. To that end, many of their pr…

Agree entirely. They don't launch products with the hope of having a long term product. They launch products to experiment and learn more about ad delivery. The core ad system is the main priority. As such, falling in love with any product that isnt their ad tech means understanding the product may disappear for no decent reason.

Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users

#95

Google's shutdown of products and APIs seems to have led to critical level of trust loss amongst developers and influencers. It's time for Google to either fix this or get out of providing services and APIs to developers. Google doesn't seem to put any weight at all on the outcry every time its shutters another service/API. The trust must be restored. Google doesn't seem to understand that when they shut service X, t…

"The trust must be restored."

Playing devil's advocate, what happens when the trust doesn't become restored?

The company loses ad revenue?

Developers flee in mass droves to...Yahoo and Microsoft?

Look what happened when people "lost trust" in Facebook. Shares are down 4% relative to a year ago. Is the company permanently crippled? Are people revolting and moving to alternate forms of social media? Fewer of the people immediately connected to your local graph are probably using Facebook. But that local loss of users gets completely offset by the new users they grow internationally.

Ultimately, these companies are beholden to their boards and shareholders.

Unless Inbox users clicked enough ads to make a dent in revenue, the organization has every reason to deprioritze competing products, and continue down the path of creating free A/B tests, and then merging the winner into a hybrid/better product.

Take a look at Fuchsia.

Or Dart and Flutter.

Or Hangouts and Talk.

An easy heuristic here might be, "Lose trust in the few in order to benefit the many." It sounds really sad, but it is the reality numerous companies live by.

Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users

#96
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google's shutdown of products and APIs seems to have led to critical level of trust loss amongst developers and influencers. Some companies have to care what developers think. (Few, to be frank; developers overestimate their importance.) Many companies have to care what "influencers" think. But not all, and Google is not part of that "most". Google doesn't have to give a shit because everyone uses Google. They are…

You don’t need goodwill until you need it, and then it’s almost impossible to garner. How does that saying go? When you’re on top of the world you can do no wrong, when you’re down you can do no right? A lot of giant companies have to learn this the hard way, probably due to institutional inertia, apathy, lack of foresight, and the reality that today’s C-levels will probably be gone before that shit hits the fan.

If you are banking on B2C-related "goodwill" to save a company whose revenue model is basically all B2B, then you're already dead.

Google fairly obviously is not doing that.

Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users

#97
post #55

Google's shutdown of products and APIs seems to have led to critical level of trust loss amongst developers and influencers. It's time for Google to either fix this or get out of providing services and APIs to developers. Google doesn't seem to put any weight at all on the outcry every time its shutters another service/API. The trust must be restored. Google doesn't seem to understand that when they shut service X, t…

To put a positive suggestion forward, Google could consider giving all services a "sunset guarantee I'd honestly even settle with something like a program where users can choose to enroll in these programs in some sort of test phase. Maybe put some kind of marker in the name or even on the logo that clearly informs and denotes "this product might not last long, it might go into production, it may die after 3 years, y…

wasn't gmail in beta for like 5 years?

Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users

#98

Google's shutdown of products and APIs seems to have led to critical level of trust loss amongst developers and influencers. It's time for Google to either fix this or get out of providing services and APIs to developers. Google doesn't seem to put any weight at all on the outcry every time its shutters another service/API. The trust must be restored. Google doesn't seem to understand that when they shut service X, t…

Google doesn't care about the opinion of outsiders. It's one of the primary features of their culture.

Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users

#99

Google's shutdown of products and APIs seems to have led to critical level of trust loss amongst developers and influencers. It's time for Google to either fix this or get out of providing services and APIs to developers. Google doesn't seem to put any weight at all on the outcry every time its shutters another service/API. The trust must be restored. Google doesn't seem to understand that when they shut service X, t…

"The trust must be restored." Playing devil's advocate, what happens when the trust doesn't become restored? The company loses ad revenue? Developers flee in mass droves to...Yahoo and Microsoft? Look what happened when people "lost trust" in Facebook. Shares are down 4% relative to a year ago. Is the company permanently crippled? Are people revolting and moving to alternate forms of social media? Fewer of the people…

Eh. I just refuse to work on stuff involving Google APIs unless I really have no other choice. It's not as annoying to set up as, say AWS, but it's much less predictable. Not worth it. A focused alternative is usually more responsive. Though sometimes they get acquired so there really is no winning.

Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users

#100
post #88

Google Inbox did one evil thing. To delete an item in iOS's Inbox, you swipe left to right, whereas pretty much every other app in iOS you swipe right to left. This has thrown me into such confusion now in all apps that I'm happy to see Inbox go away.

Why did you use Inbox if you're happier without it?

It easier to keep my work account separate from my personal by using two apps (the majority of my work uses Inbox as well so I like to keep on the same).
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