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Google has already pulled six products in 2023

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Re: Google has already pulled six products in 2023

#101

Post by zvrba »

onion2k wrote: post #23
bigyikes wrote: post #6

Surely the people working at Google understand how all these shutdowns look to outsiders, right? I have to imagine so… they’re smart people, and a ton of them lurk here on HN. It’s interesting to me that they continue to spawn and nix products like this despite the reputation damage it causes. Anyone wanna bet on if/when Bard gets axed?

It’s interesting to me that they continue to spawn and nix products like this despite the reputation damage it causes. I think the 'problem' is that reputation damage doesn't really impact Google's revenue. They get the overwhelming majority of their money from publishing adverts, with a significant amount on their own properties (search and YouTube). It really doesn't matter if a bunch of gamers decide Stadia screwe…

> if people have an alternative to Google Search (very unlikely)

I started using Bing ~2 years ago. At the start, I used Google to get alternate results for about 1/4 of searches. Today? I drop to Google a couple of times a month, at most, usually when searching for something very ambiguous. I don't even live in the US.

Re: Google has already pulled six products in 2023

#102

Post by ryanbrunner »

zztop44 wrote: post #71
ghaff wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Put in concrete terms, do you want to be one of the two engineers exiled to maintaining Reader because you pissed someone off to keep the geeks off Google’s back?

For $400k a year I’d be okay with it yeah

From what I've heard even their performance reviews heavily focus on bringing new products to market or working on exciting projects, so even if Google needs it there's a chance you're at the top of the list for layoffs anyway.

Re: Google has already pulled six products in 2023

#103

Post by bombcar »

eknkc wrote: post #78
creshal wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even G-Suite isn't really getting that much support, it's on life support at best. There's so many missing features and bugs and just painfully unergonomic workflows that have been ignored for 10+ years at this point; the long overdue and minimal UI facelift recently didn't really solve any pain points.

It is not compatible with a lot of stuff. Can't subscribe to youtube premium family. Can't use android automotive. Can't use this that etc. I switched to my old basic google account for google services and probably move my domains away from gsuite at this point.

I still have the weird issue where I have a google domain with email and stuff, and the same email address is somehow also a separate google account of the personal variety.

No idea how it somehow kinda works and when it’ll finally explode in my face.

Re: Google has already pulled six products in 2023

#105

Post by fancl20 »

jiggawatts wrote: post #87
zztop44 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For $400k a year I’d be okay with it yeah

I'd do it for $300K! Anyone from Google want to check my post history and reach out to someone able and willing to do boring maintenance?

Part of the problem is when you are in that position it’s also easy to move to other interesting projects internally.

Then the real choice is between doing boring maintenance or useful new things at same pay.

Re: Google has already pulled six products in 2023

#106

Post by ryanbrunner »

jsnell wrote: post #72
imgabe wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other companies kill projects when they’ve clearly failed and basically nobody is using. Google will kill things that are moderately successful and people are dependent on, but they aren’t a blockbuster success that makes a difference compared to their ad revenue. But mostly we’ve just never forgiven them for killing Google Reader. And we never will.

Which product on this list do you think was "moderately successful" and had "people depend on it"?

Maybe not "moderately successful", but if I bought a router from Google and it was no longer supported / discontinued, I would probably avoid buying a Google product again.

Re: Google has already pulled six products in 2023

#107

Post by bombcar »

ryanbrunner wrote: post #102
zztop44 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For $400k a year I’d be okay with it yeah

From what I've heard even their performance reviews heavily focus on bringing new products to market or working on exciting projects, so even if Google needs it there's a chance you're at the top of the list for layoffs anyway.

They need to create a subsidiary of Alphabet called Google Maintenance or something and explicitly it only does boring maintenance and promotes on a mechanized schedule.

Re: Google has already pulled six products in 2023

#109

Post by bombcar »

orra wrote: post #84
jzb wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have a history of pulling projects that people like, and seem capricious / chaotic about it. How many different chat / messaging platforms has Google put out in the last ten years, for example? Other companies cancel things, but I’m not aware of any that seem to do so as often. Google started developing a reputation for this more than a decade ago and has just kept doing it if not even doing it more often! Is it…

> How many different chat / messaging platforms has Google put out in the last ten years, for example? This is a good point. They don't iterate on products, at least that's my obvious perception. Instead, they launch competitor products, so in the end they end up pulling more products.

Microsoft has had various tools and programs that they sunset (lynk becoming Skype for business becoming teams) but they do try to make a migration path available (or, arguably, they just put window dressing on the same backends).

Re: Google has already pulled six products in 2023

#110

Post by zvrba »

illiarian wrote: post #65
papito wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. "This person said the group’s leaders didn’t explicitly state what would happen to the cloud division if it didn’t reach a top two position by 2023. A commonly held view inside the group was that Google wouldn’t continue investing money if it failed to it meet its goal, the person said. " https://www.theinformation.com/articles/google-brass-set-202...

They have insanely expensive multi-year contracts with quite a few huge companies (and probably government agencies, too). You don't just shut GCP down.

You don't just shut it down, but discontinue further sales instead so that existing contracts die gracefully.
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