Google Blew a Ten-Year Lead • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Blew a Ten-Year Lead

#331

Post by Ericson2314 » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 5:43 PM UTC

> I’m a long shareholder of Google. It’s amazing how they have four monopolies and only monetize one of them. I’m confident they have a bright future ahead.

What? Name me a company to make a comeback on the R&D-is-dead-slowly-killing-bussines front?[1]. Clearly Google (and Intel) are on the IBM train now, with only a lack of anti-trust possibly keeping them barely sentient in a few years. [I say "sentient" because they could continue to rent-seek into their feeding tube way after.]

And clearly this person is letting their investment guide their thinking rather than vice-versa. You almost get it, just a bit more!

[1]: Don't say MS, yet, they have embraced tons of web-era trappings and culture, but are they actually pushing the envelope or still assimilating?

Re: Google Blew a Ten-Year Lead

#332

Post by petepete » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 5:45 PM UTC

mcot2 wrote: post #241

Not sure why he called it “TheFacebook”. That was an early name used way prior to even 2005. ChromeOS was released in 2010/2011.

Figma was released in 2016. The author must be some kind of prophet.

Re: Google Blew a Ten-Year Lead

#333

Post by actuator » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 5:45 PM UTC

eugenekolo wrote: post #49

I'm sure these alternatives work for some, but I really don't find "Hey" a suitable alternatives to Gmail, nor "Notion" to Google Docs. I think the innovation and updating in those Google products has stagnated a lot, but they're still better for actual work and business than the new hip things.

I agree with this. I have had Hey for more than a week now. The UI is nice and feels fresh but that's about it. There are some features which won't work well if you keep an address for long enough.

- Screener: This works well at start but it won't scale well. I still have to see every address for the first time. Google is smart to send spam to spam. I almost never have to check it. I have used other email services and no one comes even close to recognizing and flagging spam well.

- Categorization : Algos work well mostly in Gmail. Auto Categorization works reall well, sure it sometimes mislabels and sends email to a different category. But it is accurate most of the times. I don't have to spend time on these rules.

Re: Google Blew a Ten-Year Lead

#334

Post by A7med » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 5:46 PM UTC

So because you started using other services that's mean Google is behind, what kind of logic is that

Re: Google Blew a Ten-Year Lead

#335

Post by ceo_tim_crook » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 5:46 PM UTC

xnx wrote: post #53

Google has minimal interest in "apps" (which many companies can do an OK job at) and much more interested in planet-scale data/machine-learning/AI (which is much much harder and something that Google is still very far ahead of everyone at).

yeah Google is to busy mastering mind-control by search censorship and advertising to give a damn about "apps"

Re: Google Blew a Ten-Year Lead

#336

Post by lucasmullens » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 5:46 PM UTC

thoraway1010 wrote: post #25

No kidding. Early adopter of gsuite for domains (work and personal email). The google home devices CANNOT get your calendar from your google calendar. My Alexa device can easily. The thing of stuff just stagnating and no care to scrub the rough corners is crazy. They have some things they keep on improving. I think youtube is there (after the dumped plus thank goodness). Chrome seems to be moving along nicely. I used…

> Android / Chrome are amazing - why not put the execs like this in charge of shipping everything

They did. Sundar ran both Android and Chrome, and now he's CEO.

Re: Google Blew a Ten-Year Lead

#337

Post by zarkov99 » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 5:46 PM UTC

This is exactly right. You see the flashes of brilliance and the incredible untapped value in GDocs. But its slow, disorganized and stagnant. Google could be making its money the honest way, by providing genuine value, making people more productive and and collaborative. Its heartbreaking to see them instead massively profiting through spying and manipulating their users. They destroyed their brand and surely they are no longer an appealing place to work for those who can afford to have a conscience.

Re: Google Blew a Ten-Year Lead

#338

Post by reidjs » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 5:48 PM UTC

SenHeng wrote: post #216

hodgesrm wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article rings completely true to me. One simple example: folders in Google Drive. * It's a constant struggle to keep documents in folders so that you can find them easily. * Yeah I get that I can do google search and find docs wherever they live. But I can't find docs if I don't know that they exist. * Moreover, I can't ensure that important documents are reliably stored in folders where everyone else can find th…

> Yeah I get that I can do google search and find docs wherever they live. But I can't find docs if I don't know that they exist. To illustrate this point more. I used to work in a company where everyone had to submit their timesheet via docs. And if you did not keep a link or copy or whatever they call it of your own sheet, it's essentially impossible to search for it, because now there are 1000s of identically name…

I wouldn't call this an issue w/ google docs, just pick a consistent naming scheme like timesheet_john_smith_august_2015. Or even better, just make it so only John Smith can see John Smith's timesheets through sharing preferences.

Re: Google Blew a Ten-Year Lead

#339

Post by munificent » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 5:48 PM UTC

hinkley wrote: post #205

EthanHeilman wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All organizations that grow rapidly face an "Alexander bias" where the sort of incentivizes, perspectives and people that allowed them to rapidly capture territory cause them to value capturing new territory even when it is no longer possible or in their organizational interest to do so. Even when organizations identify the problem, evolving from the cult of the new to the cult of incremental improvement is always ha…

One of my employers was spun out twice, after having been acquired years ago. It was sort of a joke to tell people who the owners were. It made no goddamned sense. Sure, we had customers in common, but so do Xerox and people who lease out coffee machines. The toner-flavored coffee jokes practically write themselves. They just got onto a growth tear and bought a bunch of things they shouldn’t, and eventually rounded u…

> I wonder sometimes if Google would be better off having a system set up for spinning off ideas that are complementary to their business model but distracting, or not high volume enough.

Is that not what Alphabet is?

Re: Google Blew a Ten-Year Lead

#340

Post by edw » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 5:50 PM UTC

My understanding is that Android existed not to pursue the goal of "winning," whatever that would have been, but to prevent Apple from running away with the show. Chrome was the same thing, though the competitor was Microsoft. Google Docs? Same thing, Microsoft again.

Google is good at building things 90% as good as they could be. For Gmail that 90% was leaps and bounds better than the web mail alternatives of 2004 which included…SquirrelMail.

Does Google care that you're switching to Hey or Safari or whatever has replaced Google Sheets? No. Are they going to buckle down at finish the last 10% of all of these products? No. Is that an opportunity for all of us reading this story? Yes.

One way to think of Google's products as the equivalent of Microsoft Write — or Apple's iWork. Google's platform is not Windows or Mac OS or iOS: it is the Internet. Google's products come free in the shrink-wrapped box when you drive to Egghead Software pick a copy of "Internet" up off the shelf.