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Ask HN: How did Google botch messaging/video/hangouts so badly?

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Re: Ask HN: How did Google botch messaging/video/hangouts so badly?

#31

Post by bombcar »

tylerrobinson wrote: post #29
habosa wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone at Google says this. It’s not true. Of course it contributes to the problem, but trust me a broken messaging strategy doesn’t naturally arise from Software Engineers trying to get incremental promotions. It comes from two parts of google that are totally broken and don’t know it: 1) Product Management 2) Legal The PMs are running from meeting to meeting trying to please execs and not doing anything that look…

This is interesting. As a non-Google PM, whenever I face legal or compliance-related pushback on what I think are fair uses of data and reasonable risks, I think to myself, There is no way I’d be facing this constraint at ! But perhaps that’s been a bad assumption.

If the big company has a cash cow, legal does everything to protect the cow.

If the big company is hurting, legal works to find ways to justify everything and anything.

Re: Ask HN: How did Google botch messaging/video/hangouts so badly?

#32

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

amelius wrote: post #12
mdorazio wrote: post #6

Having talked about similar questions with friends who work/worked at Google, you need to first ask "How do people get promoted at Google?" The answer to that (by launching new things that get abandoned soon after rather than improving/fixing existing things) answers your question and many others like it.

And there's never another employee saying: wait a second, that's not a good idea ...?

> "And there's never another employee saying: wait a second, that's not a good idea ...?"

In any engineering organization, one can find people saying "wait a second, that's not a good idea" to pretty much anything.

Re: Ask HN: How did Google botch messaging/video/hangouts so badly?

#33

Post by e9 »

tylerrobinson wrote: post #29
habosa wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone at Google says this. It’s not true. Of course it contributes to the problem, but trust me a broken messaging strategy doesn’t naturally arise from Software Engineers trying to get incremental promotions. It comes from two parts of google that are totally broken and don’t know it: 1) Product Management 2) Legal The PMs are running from meeting to meeting trying to please execs and not doing anything that look…

This is interesting. As a non-Google PM, whenever I face legal or compliance-related pushback on what I think are fair uses of data and reasonable risks, I think to myself, There is no way I’d be facing this constraint at ! But perhaps that’s been a bad assumption.

Bad assumption. I worked for Snap and anything that goes out has to be reviewed and signed off by legal. Don’t even get me started on looking at data. For some data requests, Directors had to be involved and I had to justify to them to give me access for couple hours to some piece of data.

I also worked for FB and it’s not as strict as Snap but similar.

Re: Ask HN: How did Google botch messaging/video/hangouts so badly?

#34

Post by notatoad »

Gualdrapo wrote: post #7

I can't understand why they ditched XMPP for corporative Google accounts. Our uni uses Google services but for their stupid chat I have to keep a Hangouts tab opened because most XMPP clients won't work with it.

IIRC they were pretty up-front about why they dropped XMPP - most of the clients connecting over XMPP were spammers, and there were few enough legitimate users connecting over third-party clients that it made more sense to drop XMPP support than build spam-blocking solutions.

Re: Ask HN: How did Google botch messaging/video/hangouts so badly?

#35

Post by vadfa »

Gualdrapo wrote: post #7

I can't understand why they ditched XMPP for corporative Google accounts. Our uni uses Google services but for their stupid chat I have to keep a Hangouts tab opened because most XMPP clients won't work with it.

Everybody I know moved on from XMPP years ago. Google and Facebook dropping their support was indeed big part of it. But all in all centralised protocols have proven to be easier, more stable and simply better. Want to roll out a new feature? No need to sit down with a committee for years or wait for all 3rd party clients to keep up: you just implement the feature yourself.

Wait... what was the question?

Re: Ask HN: How did Google botch messaging/video/hangouts so badly?

#37

Post by JohnFen »

enos_feedler wrote: post #30
habosa wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone at Google says this. It’s not true. Of course it contributes to the problem, but trust me a broken messaging strategy doesn’t naturally arise from Software Engineers trying to get incremental promotions. It comes from two parts of google that are totally broken and don’t know it: 1) Product Management 2) Legal The PMs are running from meeting to meeting trying to please execs and not doing anything that look…

There is a Village Global podcast episode where Eric Schmidt is asked this question [1]. He basically says that leadership did not "get" messaging platforms. I think of this as similar to how RIM/blackberry did not "get" the iphone. Nor did Steve Ballmer. It's equivalent in screwup magnitude to Microsoft not getting mobile. This requires massive leadership oversight. Now, having worked at Google during these times (i…

> Schmidt also references youtube as a messaging/social platform in the podcast episode.

I've heard that from other people at Google as well. But the fact that YouTube isn't a messaging/social app in any significant way is part of why I stick with it. I wonder if I'm not the only one.

Re: Ask HN: How did Google botch messaging/video/hangouts so badly?

#38

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

Gualdrapo wrote: post #7

I can't understand why they ditched XMPP for corporative Google accounts. Our uni uses Google services but for their stupid chat I have to keep a Hangouts tab opened because most XMPP clients won't work with it.

Because at that time WhatsApp rose to huge popularity, was bought by Facebook and all of a sudden Google wanted their own walled garden clone.

Re: Ask HN: How did Google botch messaging/video/hangouts so badly?

#39

Post by bugBunny »

H8crilA wrote: post #36
bitcuration wrote: post #10

The truth is, other than search engine advertising, google doesn't know how to make money.

It's not just Search, YouTube has very good earnings too. But yes, almost all ads, at really fucking good margins.

They did not build YouTube by their knowledge, they acquired competition company. They had Google videos back at that time.

Re: Ask HN: How did Google botch messaging/video/hangouts so badly?

#40

Post by JohnFen »

FinanceAnon wrote: post #27
amelius wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And there's never another employee saying: wait a second, that's not a good idea ...?

If many managers are onboard with an idea, one engineer saying "no" doesn't have much weight. Also, if you keep saying "no" to things, you might be perceived as "negative" and it might come up in performance reviews. And it's often difficult to predict if an idea will work or not - a lot of it comes down to execution and future politics. So, as an engineer, it's probably better to jump on the bandwagon with everyone…

> (I've never worked for google, but did work in a large software corporation)

I wouldn't work for Google, but have worked at a couple of very large software companies and this echoes my experiences with them.

It's one of the reasons that I prefer not working for large software companies -- people there tend to be more concerned with their own career than the products they work on.

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