Google’s constant product shutdowns are damaging its brand • Hacker News Board

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

#331

Post by chewz » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 7:05 PM UTC

eeeeeeeeeeeee wrote: post #314

jfasi wrote: post #61

Warning: Personal opinion ahead To understand why this keeps happening, you need to understand the product and engineering culture at Google. As a group, Google engineers and PMs are obsessed with promotion. At the heart of every conversation about system design or product proposal lies an unspoken (and sometimes spoken) question: will working on this get me promoted? The criteria for promotion at Google, especially…

Probably also explains why their messaging strategy is completely incomprehensible too. I still have no idea what apps do what, which ones provide video or audio or text or both. I have a hangouts and voice app on my phone and they appear to have duplicate functionality. I’m not joking — I receive the same notifications on both.

I have Google Assistant app but to change settings I must use Google app but some settings like volume, room etc. could be controlled via Google Home app.

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

#332

Post by kian » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 7:09 PM UTC

blihp wrote: post #302

Customers/users/developers don't care what the reasons are, only that it continues to happen. What is especially irksome to many is that they are shutting down products/services that found an audience... just not one large enough, fast enough to Google's taste. The more they shut down products, the longer many are going to wait before even considering using one of their new products/services especially if there's a c…

I couldn't agree more here. If only they had a habit of keeping services in beta until they could earn a net profit, and then released them. Then, if for some reason they can't find the level of profits that Google wants for them, they could spin the product off as a separate company and forget about it instead of shutting it down.

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

#333

Post by omnifischer » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 7:10 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #305

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.

The iPhone 5s from 2013 can run the latest OS. The latest version of MacOS supports computers back to 2012. But while the Mac is not a huge percentage of Apple’s revenue, by itself, it makes enough money to be a Fortune 100 company.

Yes, you can run latest iOS. But it is dog slow. Try to use it with at least 3 apps. For a typical user with > 10 apps it is useless.

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

#334

Post by avip » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 7:17 PM UTC

jfasi wrote: post #61

Warning: Personal opinion ahead To understand why this keeps happening, you need to understand the product and engineering culture at Google. As a group, Google engineers and PMs are obsessed with promotion. At the heart of every conversation about system design or product proposal lies an unspoken (and sometimes spoken) question: will working on this get me promoted? The criteria for promotion at Google, especially…

If so, why is YT (sampled randomly from your list) buggy as hell? Is it possible no-one at G noticed that (sampling randomly again) for example playlist shuffle does not work? How come this is not fixed?

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

#335

Post by steelframe » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 7:23 PM UTC

addicted wrote: post #283

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The FINAL straw was falling in love with a PixelBook that I bought during the Black Friday sales, as I moved into a role in an org that was 1) deeply invested in G Suite and 2) allowed me to do all my work from the browser - making the Chrome OS concept finally fit for me. THEN Google closes that part of their hardware division. The PixelBook isn't going to stop getting security updates any time soon, so if it was…

What if the machine gets lost or damaged? You've invested in a platform that you now don't have the same kind of access to anymore.

I just checked eBay and found about 150 Pixelbooks, 17 of which are in "Open Box" (a.k.a., pretty much new) condition. I also found 12 refurbished 120GB Zunes. My brother still drives a perfectly functional Pontiac G8, and he has no trouble finding parts for it when he needs to.

You either can either move on to the current-generation technology or buy an old working gadget from someone else. You're never without good options.

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

#336

Post by unlimit » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 7:25 PM UTC

jfasi wrote: post #61

Warning: Personal opinion ahead To understand why this keeps happening, you need to understand the product and engineering culture at Google. As a group, Google engineers and PMs are obsessed with promotion. At the heart of every conversation about system design or product proposal lies an unspoken (and sometimes spoken) question: will working on this get me promoted? The criteria for promotion at Google, especially…

> As a group, Google engineers and PMs are obsessed with promotion. At the heart of every conversation about system design or product proposal lies an unspoken (and sometimes spoken) question: will working on this get me promoted?

> The criteria for promotion at Google, especially at the higher levels like SWE III -> Senior and especially at Senior -> Staff and above, explicitly talk about impact on the organization and the business.

Wow! Its exactly like my job at a my IT off-sourcing job. I am very surprised.

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

#337

Post by steelframe » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 7:28 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #254

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> You should be purchasing hardware based on whether the current model looks good, not what model may be next in that product line. I couldn't disagree more. When I buy a laptop, I want to know that all the time I invest in learning that ecosystem and customizing won't be wasted time. Or any other hardware. Especially if I have to buy apps for it. I want to know that when I get the next piece of hardware, it will sup…

I always buy the product that's in front of me, in the state it's in, and expect nothing more. This is why I bought a Jaguar I-PACE instead of a Tesla Model 3. A big part of the differentiating Model 3 value seems to be in vague promises for full self-driving capability and in an increasingly robust charging network in the future. Looking at the features the two cars actually have now, as well as where I can get with the charging networks that already exist or are actively under construction, in my book the I-PACE made more sense.

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

#338

Post by wycy » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 7:30 PM UTC

alexhutcheson wrote: post #198

criley2 wrote: post #10

Closing inbox has really made me re-evaluate if I want to continue using Google for email, as the clusterf--- of garbage that Gmail has turned into for people with long-standing accounts is untenable. The kitchen-sink approach of gmail has created a website/app that wants to meet every need and honestly meets none. In the next 24 hours or so I'll be forced from a clean and clear perfectly rolled up and ideal notifyin…

If you spend a week or so clicking the "unsubscribe" links in all of the unwanted emails you receive, you might be surprised with how manageable things become. I'd estimate that 99% of my unwanted emails respect the unsubscribe and don't send any more mail.

I highly recommend doing this. I got fed up at one point and started clicking unsubscribe in every non-personal or un-important email and, without all that much effort, my inbox became infinitely more manageable pretty quickly.

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

#339

Post by Judgmentality » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 7:32 PM UTC

arebop wrote: post #271

bad_user wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Google killing Reader was very shortsighted because they’ve hurt the open web in an effort to promote Google+. And it was all an effort to promote Google+, nothing more. Reader was perfect the way it was and could have been left unmaintained. Don’t tell me that Google couldn’t spare an intern for the occasional fix. And I don’t have any numbers however I’m willing to bet that Reader was, as a social netwo…

FANG interns aren't coffee-runners; you can't give them work you wouldn't give to a real junior engineer. First: doing so undermines your efforts to recruit the intern. Second: doing so undermines your efforts to evaluate the intern. Third: doing so wastes a valuable eng resource you could deploy on something worth launching! The real problem for Reader was that it wasn't worth any engineering effort (because it only…

If I were an intern at Google and it was my job to maintain Reader I would be ecstatic. Hell, I'd happily do it now as a senior engineer. Why would I rather do a bunch of bullshit on a product nobody cares about when I can work on something I know people deeply love? Can you think of something that would have a larger impact than maintaining Reader?

This mentality is entirely the reason why large corporations can never do anything apart from their core business, and why they always spend billions acquiring startups (which usually fail to integrate into their business). They just fundamentally are incapable of creating anything new, and when they somehow do it the incentives are so misaligned they shut it down and the only thing they get for their efforts is making the public rightfully hate them.

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

#340

Post by griffordson » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 7:32 PM UTC

blihp wrote: post #302

Customers/users/developers don't care what the reasons are, only that it continues to happen. What is especially irksome to many is that they are shutting down products/services that found an audience... just not one large enough, fast enough to Google's taste. The more they shut down products, the longer many are going to wait before even considering using one of their new products/services especially if there's a c…

Google also kills entire niches in the short term by doing this stuff. Almost nobody is going to try to compete with them head on so if they are in a niche with a product that eventually gets killed, all progress stops in that niche for potentially years.