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

Ask HN: Abandoned/dead projects you think died before their time and why?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 912 posts

Re: Ask HN: Abandoned/dead projects you think died before their time and why?

#141

Post by nine_k »

brandonb927 wrote: post #52
bxparks wrote: post #37

A lot of things on https://killedbygoogle.com/ . I used to use 30-40 Google products and services. I'm down to 3-4. Google Picasa: Everything local, so fast, so good. I'm never going to give my photos to G Photos. Google Hangouts: Can't keep track of all the Google chat apps. I use Signal now. Google G Suite Legacy: It was supposed to be free forever. They killed it, tried to make me pay. I migrated out of Google. Go…

Google Reader: I will forever be salty about how Google killed something that likely required very little maintenance in the long run. It could have stayed exactly the same for a decade and I wouldn't have cared because I use an RSS reader exactly the same way I do that I did back in 2015.

Yes. That was the single worst business decision in Google history, as somebody correctly noted. It burned an enormous amount of goodwill for no gain whatsoever.

Killing Google Reader affected a relatively small number of users, but these users disporportionately happened to be founders, CTOs, VPs of engineering, social media luminaries, and people who eventually became founders, CTOs, etc. They had been painfully taught to not trust Google, and, since that time, they didn't. And still don't.

Re: Ask HN: Abandoned/dead projects you think died before their time and why?

#142

Post by ripley12 »

dannyobrien wrote: post #15

Midori, Microsoft's capability-based security OS[1]. Rumor has it that it was getting to the point where it was able to run Windows code, so it was killed through internal politics, but who knows! It was the Fuchsia of its time... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midori_%28operating_system%29

Midori was fascinating. Joe Duffy's writing on it is the most comprehensive I've seen: https://joeduffyblog.com/2015/11/03/blogging-about-midori/

I've heard someone at Microsoft describe it as a moonshot but also a retention project; IIRC it had a hundred plus engineers on it at one time, including a lot of very senior people.

Apparently a bunch of research from Midori made it into .NET so it wasn't all lost, but still...

Re: Ask HN: Abandoned/dead projects you think died before their time and why?

#143

Post by marttt »

bxparks wrote: post #87
bdangubic wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yup, losing 0.000087% year-over-year so in 865 billion years it’ll be dead :)

That was probably me, when I stopped using Google Search some years ago. :-) Got tired of the ads, the blog spam, and AI-generated content crap floating to the top of their results page.

The https://udm14.com/ flavor of Google is quite usable, though, esp with notable operators like inurl:this-or-that. But, all in all, yeah, gimme back vanilla Google search from 2008-2010 or so. Back then it was definitely a tool (I worked in investigative journalism at the time), whereas currently "searching" stands for sitting fingers crossed and hoping for the better. But, oh well.

Re: Ask HN: Abandoned/dead projects you think died before their time and why?

#144

Post by Jordan-117 »

Developer Ryan Flaherty's "Via" project, a novel approach to streaming large games in real time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5wAn-4e5hQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWsNFVvblLw

Summary:

>This presentation introduces Via, a virtual file system designed to address the challenges of large game downloads and storage. Unlike cloud gaming, which suffers from poor image quality, input latency, and high hosting costs, Via allows games to run locally while only downloading game data on demand. The setup process is demonstrated with Halo Infinite, showing a simple installation that involves signing into Steam and allocating storage space for Via's cache.

>Via creates a virtual Steam library, presenting all owned games as installed, even though their data is not fully downloaded. When a game is launched, Via's virtual file system intercepts requests and downloads only the necessary game content as it's needed. This on-demand downloading is integrated with the game's existing streaming capabilities, leveraging features like level-of-detail and asset streaming. Performance metrics are displayed, showing download rates, server ping, and disk commit rates, illustrating how Via fetches data in real-time.

>The system prioritizes caching frequently accessed data. After an initial download, subsequent play sessions benefit from the on-disk cache, significantly reducing or eliminating the need for network downloads. This means the actual size of a game becomes less relevant, as only a portion of it needs to be stored locally. While server locations are currently limited, the goal is to establish a global network to ensure low ping. The presentation concludes by highlighting Via's frictionless user experience, aiming for a setup so seamless that users are unaware of its presence. Via is currently in early access and free to use, with hopes of future distribution partnerships.

I'm amazed the video still has under 4,000 views. Sadly, Flaherty got hired by XAI and gave up promoting the project.

https://x.com/rflaherty71/status/1818668595779412141

But I could see the technology behind it working wonders for Steam, Game Pass, etc.

Re: Ask HN: Abandoned/dead projects you think died before their time and why?

#145

Post by bapak »

coreyhn wrote: post #74

Yahoo pipes. It was so great at creating rss feeds and custom workflows. There are replacements now like Zapier and n8n but loved that. Also google reader which is mentioned multiple times already.

Yahoo Pipes was what internet should have been. We're so many decades into computing and that kind of inter-tool linking has only barely been matched by unix pipes.

Re: Ask HN: Abandoned/dead projects you think died before their time and why?

#146

Post by viraptor »

rasengan0 wrote: post #138

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Labs/Ubiquity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IGoogle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Desktop and why? = UI/UX

I feel like Zen (Firefox based) captures a few good things from Ubiquity. It could do more though. Zen + Kagi gets even more with the bang commands.

Re: Ask HN: Abandoned/dead projects you think died before their time and why?

#147

Post by bapak »

bigthymer wrote: post #80
bxparks wrote: post #37

A lot of things on https://killedbygoogle.com/ . I used to use 30-40 Google products and services. I'm down to 3-4. Google Picasa: Everything local, so fast, so good. I'm never going to give my photos to G Photos. Google Hangouts: Can't keep track of all the Google chat apps. I use Signal now. Google G Suite Legacy: It was supposed to be free forever. They killed it, tried to make me pay. I migrated out of Google. Go…

I'm still upset that Google Maps no longer tracks my location. It was very useful to be able to go back and see how often and where I had gone. Is there another app where I can store this locally?

Arc and its free Arc Mini companion. iOS. Been using it since Facebook eclipsed Moves app. A decade later, it's still not as good as Moves.

Re: Ask HN: Abandoned/dead projects you think died before their time and why?

#148

Post by bapak »

haunter wrote: post #9

Vine. It was already pretty big back in 2013 but Twitter had no idea what to do with it. TikTok actually launched just a few months before Vine was shut down and erased from the internet.

Whoever took the decision to kill Vine was an absolute moron, even without hindsight. It was square videos, how hard could it have been to shove an ads banner above it and call it a day? Incredible

Re: Ask HN: Abandoned/dead projects you think died before their time and why?

#149

Post by smrtinsert »

burnt-resistor wrote: post #93
bdangubic wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wave was fucking amazing. buggy but amazing

Google sucked/s at executive function because they completely lack appreciation for proper R&D and long-term investment and also kill things people use and love.

Honestly a lot of the time they seem to be be in "what do humans want?" mode.
Post reply on HN