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

Google has already pulled six products in 2023

toolhub.tech

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 371 posts

Re: Google has already pulled six products in 2023

#311

Post by column »

jzb wrote: post #50
ed_mercer wrote: post #28

Why does Google get grilled so badly for pulling products? Don’t other companies do the exact same thing, and isn’t it their full right to abandon projects when it no longer makes sense?

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…

I know your question was rethorical but I'm counting 7 chat / messaging platforms :

Hangouts (2013): A messaging platform that integrated with Google+ and Gmail, offering text, voice, and video communication.

Google Messages (formerly Android Messages, 2014): An SMS, MMS, and RCS messaging application for Android devices.

Google Spaces (2016): A group messaging app that allowed users to create "spaces" for sharing links, images, and other content.

Allo (2016): A messaging app featuring AI-powered smart replies, stickers, and end-to-end encryption.

Duo (2016): A video calling app designed for one-on-one video communication on mobile devices.

Google Meet (2017): A video conferencing service that supports text chat within the meeting interface, mainly targeted at businesses and organizations.

Google Chat (formerly Hangouts Chat, 2018): A team messaging platform integrated with Google Workspace, designed for businesses and organizations.

Bonus : Google Voice had messaging capabilities, YouTube could also go in there, but that's a stretch.

Re: Google has already pulled six products in 2023

#312

Post by jacknews »

I was going to comment on another post, about the validity of CS style leetcode puzzles in interviews, and that Goole seems to have been at the forefront of this trend: Not only do they not necessarily predict competence at solving real-world problems, they possibly select for people who treat complex real-world problems as a CS exercise, and just look at the result for Google - numerous projects that try to solve the wrong problem, others that solve it in a way that doesn't align with the audience, etc. The algorithms are probably efficient though.

Re: Google has already pulled six products in 2023

#313

Post by voytec »

lolinder wrote: post #248
voytec wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't it marketed as unlimited during invite-only beta?

No, 1GB was the starting point and was considered insane at the time. Then they eventually added a counter where the storage space grew all the time. They finally capped that out—maybe that's what you're thinking of?

My bad. I misremembered.

Re: Google has already pulled six products in 2023

#314

Post by jsnell »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #309
jsnell wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who developed for Stadia mainly did so because Google paid them outrageous amounts of money for ports, not because users they were making a lot of money buying games. If there were no users buying games, shutting it down would not have had any meaningful impact on the developers. How do you think they should have done it instead? What would have changed for those developers when done your way?

> How do you think they should have done it instead? Launched it as a start-up with unfair access to Google's resources. There was no way for it to work under Google's aegis.

I mean the shutdown.

Obviously it was not a well launched product, but that's what you get when you hire Phil Harrison.

Re: Google has already pulled six products in 2023

#315

Post by bombcar »

joezydeco wrote: post #284
bombcar wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a backup of my email, and my domain DNS/registrar is not Google, so the real worst I'll be hit with is a loss of email for a bit as the DNS updates.

Ok cool. When you said "I have a Google domain" I assumed the worst. Everyone else: do NOT use Google as your registrar. Just don't.

oh no, I hate crossing registrar and other providers, even using (say) godaddy for DNS and registrar weirds me out; too many chances something goes horribly wrong (and then you can't transfer the domain).

Re: Google has already pulled six products in 2023

#316

Post by comte7092 »

londons_explore wrote: post #100
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Half of this list is side projects which didn't work out, which is understandable to a certain degree What happens to the people who bet on them? Do they even have a point of contact if e.g. an integration breaks? That’s the point. They’re half-baked products being put out and pulled with no care in the world. That’s the brand. Which means when a Stadia comes out, a product that could have worked if people trusted…

They really just need clear branding between "This is a side project, we might take it away with just a months notice" and "This is a product we will give you many years notice and a migration path if we decide to get rid of it". I think they should label everything in the former category "experimental". Put the label right in the logo so it is really obvious.

> "This is a product we will give you many years notice and a migration path if we decide to get rid of it".

Is that even the standard procedure at google though? There are plenty of projects where they’ve unceremoniously pulled the plug with little notice, stadia is a glaring example (though to googles credit, they did provide some refunds)

Re: Google has already pulled six products in 2023

#317

Post by never_inline »

jacknews wrote: post #312

I was going to comment on another post, about the validity of CS style leetcode puzzles in interviews, and that Goole seems to have been at the forefront of this trend: Not only do they not necessarily predict competence at solving real-world problems, they possibly select for people who treat complex real-world problems as a CS exercise, and just look at the result for Google - numerous projects that try to solve th…

Going by this logic, most of these shut-down projects should be coming from India (and possibly eastern European countries?), where the bar of DSA problems is much higher due to competition.

I too dislike the pervasiveness of the narrow type of DSA problems (because it comes at the cost of other computer science topics, scales linearly with practice after some point, and selects for people who have time to practice them). But DSA puzzles aren't what you should be blaming for closing down stadia.

Re: Google has already pulled six products in 2023

#318

Post by JumpCrisscross »

jsnell wrote: post #314
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do you think they should have done it instead? Launched it as a start-up with unfair access to Google's resources. There was no way for it to work under Google's aegis.

I mean the shutdown. Obviously it was not a well launched product, but that's what you get when you hire Phil Harrison.

> it was not a well launched product

I'm broadly criticizing Google's ability to launch and maintain products. Launching fucked products falls under this umbrella. The point is betting on Google with your own resources is a bad idea.

Re: Google has already pulled six products in 2023

#319

Post by [deleted] »

apexalpha wrote: post #165
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?

>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. Surely the people on Hackrnews understand that no one outside of tech enthusiasts even knows about this, right? I have to imagine so... they're smart people and surely sometimes interact with regular people in real life?! But on a more serious…

[deleted]

Re: Google has already pulled six products in 2023

#320

Post by DANmode »

remirk wrote: post #29

The dedicated Streetview app was finally killed because streetview is already integrated in regular google maps. To me, that seems like a good reason to discontinue the dedicated app. I don't get the reasoning behind this article. Half of this list is side projects which didn't work out, which is understandable to a certain degree. The article feels like blogspam riding on the hypetrain of people disliking when googl…

Does anyone have firsthand knowledge why Google split Street View into its own app way back when?

I think I know (resource allocation), but I'd love to be certain.

Post reply on HN