Google is the new IBM.
I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again
71–80 of 356 posts
Re: I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again
#72It is only a matter of time before a class action is filed against Google for reducing the functionality of products they previously sold. The Assistant in Mini speakers I use at home has become amusingly bad: not that it doesn’t understand what I want, but it will often just not execute my orders, despite understanding. For example, it recently ignores my “yes” to its “do you want to know more?” follow up questions.…
Against googles lawyers? It would require a massive amount of pissed off consumers, and a huge team to even drag them to court. End result would be google paying a pittance and no one getting anything. End of the day, a lot of lawyers would be paid well and google would shrug it off as a cost of business.
With all this talk of ChatGPT clearing law school exams and all, I'd love to see a legal fight of lawyers armed with AI against "googles lawyers". I believe that'd be a net good.
For everyone else in tech, I suppose we can all vow to never purchase Google products as gifts for family.
Re: I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel like it's not only products that get left behind once Google gets bored. Many of Google's software eventually get worse too. YouTube for example has killed most of their social features by removing dislikes, limited searchability of videos by channel, allowed bots to fill the comments. And Google search has so much malware in their ads that pop up first, that even govts are recommending ad blockers by default.…
I had to delete the YouTube app simply because there was no way to disable Shorts. Those things are hopelessly addictive and unavoidable. If I wanted shorts, I'd install TikTok.
It's crazy, when I remove the YouTube Shorts pane it says "Shelf will be hidden for 30 days".
It feels like a slap to the face by some promotion seeking Google Manager who tells me that he knows better than me. It's crazy. I didn't stop using YouTube like you did but I was darn close. I guess they do know better than me, in a way.
Re: I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again
#74It is only a matter of time before a class action is filed against Google for reducing the functionality of products they previously sold. The Assistant in Mini speakers I use at home has become amusingly bad: not that it doesn’t understand what I want, but it will often just not execute my orders, despite understanding. For example, it recently ignores my “yes” to its “do you want to know more?” follow up questions.…
Maybe instead of hoping for a lawsuit just stop buying shit google makes. They’ve repeatedly dropped whole product lines on short notice, and even the Android phones they have produced have sometimes had pathetically short supported lives.
So you buy something else like Nest, and then google buys the company and removes your functionality anyways.
That is, if vendor lock in will even allow you to get some other product without having to replace every device in your home (and hope this new vendor doesn't do the exact same within a few years).
Fair consumer protection regulations are necessary in modern society, the "vote with your wallet" strategy doesn't scale.
Re: I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had to delete the YouTube app simply because there was no way to disable Shorts. Those things are hopelessly addictive and unavoidable. If I wanted shorts, I'd install TikTok.
It's crazy, when I remove the YouTube Shorts pane it says "Shelf will be hidden for 30 days". It feels like a slap to the face by some promotion seeking Google Manager who tells me that he knows better than me. It's crazy. I didn't stop using YouTube like you did but I was darn close. I guess they do know better than me, in a way.
It’s the same in Instagram: removing recommended posts only has an option to remove for 30 days. The consistent enshittification of products with these sorts of behaviours just makes me want to use them less. Unfortunately I’m sure they’ve got data that shows that my reaction is a minority.
Re: I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again
#76What are the open, easy to install and use, and sustainable alternatives? It feels like enough work has been done on the margins of replicating some of the capabilities of Alexa and Google Nest hardware and software, but it’s not packaged up in an accessible way for the mass-market?
Re: I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again
#77One day I fully expect to wake up to find my phone issuing me the warning "Google Fi has been discontinued. Please find an alternative carrier by the end of the month"
Or
"Google Photos has been replaced by our new service, Google Pixa. Please back up your photos as they cannot be transferred to our new service"
It's almost like their project/team structure depends on cannibalisation.
I already lost my wedding playlist (2019) because Google decided to rebrand Google Play to YouTube Music.
Re: I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again
#78In this thread: people invest time into a free product and then complain that they get rugged.
Re: I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again
#79I recently went and got a couple of Lenovo ThinkSmart View displays off eBay and re-purposed them: https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2023/04/22/1330 The reason I got them was that I wanted small desktop displays to both replace my “now playing” Raspberry Pi display and act as smart speakers, and there didn’t seem to be anything event in the market (there are plenty of cheap Chinese tablets, but I wanted something with…
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Re: I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again
#80yeah, another half-ass solution were the business model is to monitor you as much as possible by offering as less as possible