Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google’s constant product shutdowns are damaging its brand

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 427 posts

Re: Google’s constant product shutdowns are damaging its brand

#221

Post by [deleted] »

Jorge1o1 wrote: post #71
fixermark wrote: post #42

I was going to make a comment about how Google's approach to service deprecation contrasts with Microsoft's, but then I spot-checked my assumptions and realized that MS has discontinued over 50% of the Office ecosystem of apps over the years. So I think I need to instead ask a question: Is Google's deprecation strategy actually unusual for a company with a wide ecosystem of offerings?

Disagree about the MS point a bit. Yes, nominally, MS has killed some programs in the Office Suite, but the core products of Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Outlook are still there. Even the weird, obscure products like Publisher and Access are still around. So maybe they killed Clippy, but that guy

[deleted]

Re: Google’s constant product shutdowns are damaging its brand

#223

Post by mrmuagi »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #210
sooheon wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think the half life of most electronics is? Why do you think so many people get anxious about Apple "abandoning" the Mac? A trickle of security updates does not make a well supported and thriving product line.

You should be purchasing hardware based on whether the current model looks good, not what model may be next in that product line. The latter is pointless and largely impossible. Chrome OS itself isn't going anywhere.

Not entirely. If the ship is sinking (no future development) it's highly likely things like warranties, support, maintenance, etc -- are also sun setting or degrading in quality -- in a sense that most of the brightest and keen individuals in those departments have routed or been reassigned, leaving lack lustre or not as motivated people behind.

I kind of speak from both sides of this, I had some audio hardware I bought but one day they went radio silent (404 site so presumably belly up), so future support was dead along with all their support drivers. Another was an internship I did at a hardware company where there was just maintenance patches being applied to the product, and it was depressing.

Re: Google’s constant product shutdowns are damaging its brand

#224

Post by bad_user »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #210
sooheon wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think the half life of most electronics is? Why do you think so many people get anxious about Apple "abandoning" the Mac? A trickle of security updates does not make a well supported and thriving product line.

You should be purchasing hardware based on whether the current model looks good, not what model may be next in that product line. The latter is pointless and largely impossible. Chrome OS itself isn't going anywhere.

How the product looks is a very superficial criterion.

As developers we understand the value of the ecosystem and we want to invest in products that last longer that one or two years.

Also I own Apple and Thinkpad laptops that are between 1 and 7 years old and all of them are still working fine. Laptops last longer than smartphones so you want to ensure the platform will be supported for the next 10 years.

Can you honestly say that Google will support Chrome OS for the next 10 years? Personally I doubt it.

Re: Google’s constant product shutdowns are damaging its brand

#225

Post by ArtDev »

La-ang wrote: post #111

I disagree with the idea that shutting down products damages the brand. It's quite the opposite. Google+ has always been a joke, and migrating and merging products sounds just as wise as creating new ones that work. On a side note, I'm happy Google+ will be buried for good.

Their history killing successful products makes everyone wary of using any new Google products: https://killedbygoogle.com

Re: Google’s constant product shutdowns are damaging its brand

#226

Post by fabricexpert »

Just switched from inbox to gmail today after the notifications stopped working

There are ads inside gmail that look just like emails, which I keep accidentally opening.

This is just ridiculous why would I use an email provider that does this. What are they going to do next? Start adding ads to my email signature?

Re: Google’s constant product shutdowns are damaging its brand

#227

Post by csixty4 »

fixermark wrote: post #42

I was going to make a comment about how Google's approach to service deprecation contrasts with Microsoft's, but then I spot-checked my assumptions and realized that MS has discontinued over 50% of the Office ecosystem of apps over the years. So I think I need to instead ask a question: Is Google's deprecation strategy actually unusual for a company with a wide ecosystem of offerings?

Groove Music Pass and Microsoft Band stand out as good parallels, too. As does Windows 10 Mobile. The Microsoft Health service that went with Band & Mobile is shutting down soon. And they announced today that they'll no longer sell books in the Microsoft Store app.

It's getting hard to trust both companies.

Re: Google’s constant product shutdowns are damaging its brand

#228

Post by dragonwriter »

fabricexpert wrote: post #226

Just switched from inbox to gmail today after the notifications stopped working There are ads inside gmail that look just like emails, which I keep accidentally opening. This is just ridiculous why would I use an email provider that does this. What are they going to do next? Start adding ads to my email signature?

> What are they going to do next? Start adding ads to my email signature?

That's crazy, who would ever do that?

~ sent from my iPhone [0]

[0] not really, but...

Re: Google’s constant product shutdowns are damaging its brand

#229

Post by toast0 »

carrier_lost wrote: post #62
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see the "this news only impacts tech people" argument from time to time, but remember that all the non-tech people ask the tech people they know what to use. And tech people are who set up their family's computers, deploy software widely on business networks, etc. The tech-savvy community was on Google years before the general public, and them leaving Google should set your expectations for what happens with everyo…

"remember that all the non-tech people ask the tech people they know what to use. And tech people are who set up their family's computers, deploy software widely on business networks, etc." As a techie who has set up and/or fixed many non-techie family & friends' computers and devices, I hear ya. 110%, loud and clear. :-) However... I wonder how long this will remain true. More and more devices are ready to go out of…

> However... I wonder how long this will remain true. More and more devices are ready to go out of the box and kids are being taught to use Google products in school.

If the Google products change too much, the curriculum will become so wrong as to be unusable. My school taught me Microsoft Word with outdated versions on outdated computers; but that was OK because the book matched the computers; when you eventually run into a more recent Word, you have to dig around to find where they moved the menus and controls, but the core concepts still work. With Google's tendency to move stuff around willy-nilly, I expect the curriculum to become unusably stale --- once you have the core concepts, you can search them out; but if you're still learning, it's really hard when step a of every step in the process is find where they moved the things you're being taught.

Re: Google’s constant product shutdowns are damaging its brand

#230

Post by Boulth »

I think the biggest unforseen effect of these shutdowns is the consumers perception of Google's new products. Google announced gaming service? So what, it will be gone in 2 years tops. Google announced a new product? I don't want to be a beta tester for life.

Edit: Just found this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19553601

Post reply on HN