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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

#211

Post by blahedo »

sharmi wrote: post #146
Gatsky wrote: post #131

There is always so much vitriol on HN about these kinds of announcements. I've never understood why. Google presumably has lots of data and feedback from people using Inbox, and determined that it wasn't useful enough or widespread enough to justify ongoing investment. Why is this surprising or shocking? This happens all the time in commercial and open source software. The internet is great, but unfortunately has the…

In the case of open source project, * if the maintainer is no longer able to take the project further, the code is still there an can be used as is, maybe with a few bugfixes. (ala, thunderbird). The code does not disappear overnight. r. * All the associated data is still yours and available. So no information is lost. * If it is very critical, you can develop it yourself further I am not an user of Inbox, but I can…

> ...It crushes most competition and development of open source alternatives....

This is the aspect, above all the others, that bothers me. Apple is guilty of this too. As soon as a project or tool is released free or as part of the OS or whatever, it drives any competing version out of business. Does it matter if the implementation is shitty? No, because it will still be "good enough" for enough users to make that competition unviable. Does it matter if the implementation stops being developed and eventually gets pulled? No, because the competition has already been driven out.

If somehow the big company that pulls this (Google, Apple, etc) were to seriously commit to maintaining the project, hm, ok, fine I guess. But of course they've repeatedly shown that they won't do that.

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

#212

Post by ardy42 »

mbrumlow wrote: post #119
omosubi wrote: post #16

I used to be a Google fan boy but am starting to dislike them more and more. This, they killed off reader and the creepy data collection they do is why I've started to look into alternatives for their products - anyone have any good suggestions?

I was a fanboy too and feel the same. The things that rub me the most seem to be problems I think from the way the hire people. The average stay at google is like 2.5 years, so most of the things I loved were created by people who are no longer there ( I am sure there are some staples that stay there, but ... ) They tend to higher young and fresh out of school people who know algorithms but seem to lack a strong foun…

> I think many of the problems created area also created from the altitude that "they are the best and brightest so whatever they think must be right". I know this generalization does not hold true in all cases. This sort of attitude can be seen most recently in the way they are handling "www" and "m" domains, and then even suggesting that they would somehow just make the change and then assume they could push a standard on the rest of the internet. There are other cases but don't have the time or will to detail every one of them.

This. That attitude will also result in an almost total inability to take valid feedback. If you incorrectly and arrogantly think your the best and brightest, why would you listen to the plebs when they tell you you're making a mistake.

Then you get the plebs who buy into the best and brightest myth. They falsely assume whatever decision Google, Apple, or Facebook makes must be backed by air-tight reasoning, understanding, and skill; then praise turds to the heavens out of ignorance.

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

#213

Post by sseth »

Those (like me) who like using Google products know the bargain. Until a product reaches critical mass, it could get canceled.

Wave died. G Suite has succeeded. Chrome succeeded. Reader died. Google+ is in a coma. Hangouts and Google Photos which came out of the ashes looks like they will stay, though what they are doing with their chat tools is a real mystery. In hardware, Chromecast succeeded, Nexus faded away as did a bunch of other stuff. Among the ones i am a little worried about : Google Keep - which i am using more and more. I hope it does not die. Also, Google wifi which i am using now - hope it stays. I tried Inbox and liked it, but I did not invest a lot in it.

The ones you can be certain won't go away are the ones with a billion+ users : Gmail, Android, Chrome, Maps, Search, Youtube, Google Drive (almost 1B) and Google Photos (500M+) should be fine as well.

But Google does not owe me anything. And I don't owe them. I don't have to use any of their products if I don't want to.

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

#214

Post by mbrumlow »

ardy42 wrote: post #212
mbrumlow wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a fanboy too and feel the same. The things that rub me the most seem to be problems I think from the way the hire people. The average stay at google is like 2.5 years, so most of the things I loved were created by people who are no longer there ( I am sure there are some staples that stay there, but ... ) They tend to higher young and fresh out of school people who know algorithms but seem to lack a strong foun…

> I think many of the problems created area also created from the altitude that "they are the best and brightest so whatever they think must be right". I know this generalization does not hold true in all cases. This sort of attitude can be seen most recently in the way they are handling "www" and "m" domains, and then even suggesting that they would somehow just make the change and then assume they could push a stan…

After reading your comment I just realized something..

> You Either Die A Hero, Or You Live Long Enough To See Yourself Become The Villain

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

#215

Post by mmt »

mbrumlow wrote: post #156
mmt wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> managing your own systems at places like Softlayer The problem is, at a place like SL, they're not actually your own systems. > can save you a bundle It can, and usually does provide at least some savings, but it still comes with both the obvious form of vendor lock-in, and a subtler disadvantage, which is that you're limited by SL's specific hardware and engineering (including network) choices. The real (performan…

> The problem is, at a place like SL, they're not actually your own systems. You are right, I do prefer colo and EOL hardware for low budget operations. But SL is a step lower than AWS. SL still can give you a punch in the face. But the point I really want is bare metal more than anything. Also, if you need current gen stuff not owning can be nice because you won't have to repair when they break. > It can, and usuall…

> you won't have to repair when they break.

I hear this as a reason not to own, but I struggle to understand it, given my experience with how reliable modern hardware is (with notable exceptions[1]).

Regardless, you don't have to repair anything broken at all. It may seem preposterous at first, but, for low enough failure rates, on things with low enough replacement cost [2], using warm spares and abandoning in place can be a reasonable strategy. This can work remarkably well for disks in remote locations, especially in non-hot-swap enclosures.

> depending on SL network topology

One doesn't have a choice, though. There's no alternate topology (nor maximum bandwidths) available. Not taking maximum advantage may be premature optimization (optimizing for stability, rather than performance).

> Anybody making a service today should be able to buy a server at any provider, or setup a colo anywhere and join those resources in and get advantage of those resources instantly.

That would be nice, but it's tantamount to asking everyone go "multi-cloud", which removes too much of the "don't have to think/worry about it" purported benefit of cloud/IaaS.

[1] high-density (say, more than 1socket/U) seems to be the worst offenders

[2] by which I mean the current equivalent, including something like half of a server of a quarter of a CPU

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

#216

Post by xeromal »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #10

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…

I remember when they came out with Goog411 where you could could google and search for businesses and such. This was way before smartphones so it was a solid, free option for finding stuff on the go. They canned it after a while, but used all the interaction data to further their voice recognition services.

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

#217

Post by fiblye »

zavi wrote: post #191
themagician wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google themselves has actually built very few successful products outside of search. Half of what they build internally they kill and the other half is acquisitions, many of which they also kill. Sometimes I even wonder about things like GSuite. When does the 2-year sunset period start?

Gmail, Chrome, Play, Maps seem pretty successful to me.

The above poster said few, not zero.

Google has killed off dozens upon dozens more officially launched projects.

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

#218

Post by ldiracdelta »

praneshp wrote: post #117
smt88 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Did you consider Google cloud, and reject it because you don;t trust Google? that's different from not considering gcp at all :)

With respect to googlers, I 100% do not even consider google solutions because I have so little trust that what I do on whatever platform they role out this week, however great it may be, will actually still work in one year.

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

#219

Post by Apotheos »

themagician wrote: post #122
TimTheTinker wrote: post #10

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…

Google themselves has actually built very few successful products outside of search. Half of what they build internally they kill and the other half is acquisitions, many of which they also kill. Sometimes I even wonder about things like GSuite. When does the 2-year sunset period start?

RIP Songza. I will never forgive them for acquiring and ruining that service.

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

#220

Post by pratyushag2 »

smt88 wrote: post #39
andrewstuart wrote: post #7

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.

Burn I wonder if that’s really a problem because in 3 years, if GOogle Cloud becomes a billion dollar company then most wont question its financial importance to Alphabet.
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