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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

#261

Post by manquer »

aembleton wrote: post #253
manquer wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gsuite also had inbox and Gmail and they are not free. Users who pay for those care. Next time I have to make a choice on Google product, most likely will reject it coz I can't really on them to either maintain it or give actual human support either MS is probably supporting XP in the embedded world. If you are not selling to consumers you have to be prepared to do that

Only if the administrator has allowed Inbox. Mine doesn't. Maybe most of them don't and so keeping it alive can't be justified.

That's the difference between with MS and Google(i.e. enterprise and consumer), it doesn't matter how small the user base is, once a feature/product is GA to paying customers, you maintain it for a reasonable amount of time (>>> 1 year ) If you are not sure whether it will have usage/ interest, do your research , but once you go GA stick to it. Even if you are maintaining it for one customer, it shows the commitment you are showing to your customer , builds a lot of confidence on the vendor - Google doesn't get mine today.

   * I meant the SLA for notice of deprecation not the lifetime of the product

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

#262

Post by tzury »

I am convinced that in the roadmap of Gmail, the greatness of Inbox is planned to be integrated. This is my opinion only, and time will tell how wrong or right I am.

There are 2 Types of Gmail users, gmail.com and G Suite.

I think Google prefer maintaining two types of backends, rather than two types of front-ends.

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

#263

Post by sumedh »

colbyh wrote: post #224
fiblye wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The above poster said few, not zero. Google has killed off dozens upon dozens more officially launched projects.

the four listed are the biggest products in the world in their space. the first three would be multi billion dollar companies outside of Google. not to mention Search itself, Docs has become a fantastic product as has Photos. of course they have killed hundreds of potentially great projects (RIP Reader) but give the company their due - they know how to build products.

> Docs has become a fantastic product as has Photos.

Didnt the acquire companies which eventually became docs and photos?

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

#264

Post by skinnymuch »

Heliosmaster wrote: post #232

I see in these comments a lot of bitterness, where I think there should be opportunity: if you think Google made a mistake in killing Inbox and it was a feature beloved by many users.. why don't you spin up your version of it? They have already done the hard part for you: the idea. When google killed greader, Feedly, The old Reader and other products rose up to the challenge. They felt there was market, and they laun…

I thought it’s the opposite. Idea isn’t the hard part. I’ve never seen ideas being said as the hard part.

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

#265

Post by snaky »

gonyea wrote: post #231
crunchlibrarian wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm so tired of this decision making process in business: well our statistics say Just stop. Please. Analytics != insight. Meetings should stop being won by whoever prints off the the most tables and visualizations, because gasp sometimes that leads to the wrong decision.

I don’t get this. Features complicate products and require maintenance. By your logic, features would never get built because they’d carry a lifelong burden.

It's not linear. GCD haven't got traction (and billions of revenue) it might have now because of shutdown of some products like Reader. And that's oversimplified example actually.

People's minds are not linear, especially when they make decisions. The only market when you can do well with raw numbers only is cheapest 10%, when all competition is about price, and customers have zero loyalty whatsoever.

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

#266

Post by snaky »

twblalock wrote: post #206
slowmovintarget wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds to me like Google knows how to do projects, not products.

It seems like the incentives for employees at Google are the problem here. People are rewarded for successfully completing projects, not for maintaining existing ones, so rational employees will maximize their compensation by moving on from a project after it launches and trying to launch a new one. There seems to be nobody at the top enforcing a consistent product vision. This is how Android ended up having several…

> This is how Android ended up having several text messaging apps at the same time

And in the same time, they had (open for a couple of years) a bug about Android default app sometimes randomly send SMS to wrong recipient.

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

#267

Post by dredmorbius »

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.

Maps was significantly enhanced thorough a bought company: Keyhole.

https://googlepress.blogspot.com/2005/04/google-maps-and-key...

Intermediated by the CIA;

https://pando.com/2015/07/01/cia-foia-google-keyhole/

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

#268

Post by coldtea »

elvinyung wrote: post #204
sdrothrock wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would take it a step further and say that they don't launch products; they launch experiments. It's a giant Mechanical Turk setup.

I am not sure if you are using the term "Mechanical Turk" correctly. Would you mind clarifying?

Point being we, the users, are the mechanical turks, carrying out Google's experiments.

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

#269

Post by coldtea »

Buge wrote: post #174
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…

You're right that passionate users can no longer effectively bring new people to Google. But passionate users can lead people away from Google.

Can they? As always I think this idea is overestimating the power of passionate users (usually computer geeks thinking they're influential).

They surely didn't lead any large swaths out of Microsoft and into Linux, for example...

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

#270

Post by coldtea »

dredmorbius wrote: post #267
zavi wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Maps was significantly enhanced thorough a bought company: Keyhole. https://googlepress.blogspot.com/2005/04/google-maps-and-key... Intermediated by the CIA; https://pando.com/2015/07/01/cia-foia-google-keyhole/

And Chrome was based (and later forked off) on Webkit, after Apple had already done the hard work (and KHTML laid the groundwork).
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