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The IBM-ification of Google?

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Re: The IBM-ification of Google?

#71

Post by Brian_K_White »

sakesun wrote: post #21
hintymad wrote: post #16

> YouTube is eating itself from the inside out too One thing that I really really hate Youtube for is that they don't allow users to turn off their shorts. You can choose to "reduce" Shorts for a given session, but they come back right next time. That said, Youtube is tremendously valuable for its high-quality content. It's kinda like a restaurant. The service can be horrible. They decor can be hideous. But! I'm goin…

You can go to Google Account > Data & Privacy. Then pause Youtube History. There will be no more feed on Youtube home screen. You will only see your /subscriptions feed. Little trick for a more peaceful life.

And that subscriptions screen has a row of all shorts across the top, and shorts trun up in searches and side bar related recommendations.

This while paying them for premium for 20 years.

Re: The IBM-ification of Google?

#72

Post by Brian_K_White »

kyrra wrote: post #37
hintymad wrote: post #16

> YouTube is eating itself from the inside out too One thing that I really really hate Youtube for is that they don't allow users to turn off their shorts. You can choose to "reduce" Shorts for a given session, but they come back right next time. That said, Youtube is tremendously valuable for its high-quality content. It's kinda like a restaurant. The service can be horrible. They decor can be hideous. But! I'm goin…

There's a new setting rolling out in the YouTube app. Go to settings > time management > shorts feed limit. Turn that setting on, and you can select how many minutes you limit to. There's now an option for "0 minutes".

This does nothing. It does not remove shorts.

Re: The IBM-ification of Google?

#73

Post by Aurornis »

somesortofthing wrote: post #2

Not the article's main point but I've never liked the "google killing products" complaints. People always talk about how big companies fail because they're unwilling to take risks and just recommit to their areas of strength, but this is what risk-taking looks like - you blast out products, see what sticks, and kill what doesn't. People who think it's a quality product won't be wary of whether it'll get killed - the…

> People who think it's a quality product won't be wary of whether it'll get killed - the quality itself is insurance against that.

Not true in the slightest. Google has had some quality hardware products where they killed the cloud service and rendered them useless. Products that were stable and working, but Google decided to pull the plug and make the hardware worthless.

Quality of the product means nothing. You’re at the mercy of the whims of Google’s decision making. The thing you like may stop working in a couple months.

Re: The IBM-ification of Google?

#74

Post by light_hue_1 »

> Eric Schmidt got booed on stage recently. Eric Schmidt! The guy who basically was Google for a decade. When your own alumni get heckled by the crowd your brand isn't just damaged. It's toxic.

I was at an MIT event 8 years ago where Eric Schmidt was booed. It was his first summer at MIT. Basically everything he said about Google and his world view left the students feeling horrified. It was so bad people walked out in a daze.

So if this is the bar, we passed it long ago.

Re: The IBM-ification of Google?

#75

Post by janalsncm »

csallen wrote: post #17
somesortofthing wrote: post #2

Not the article's main point but I've never liked the "google killing products" complaints. People always talk about how big companies fail because they're unwilling to take risks and just recommit to their areas of strength, but this is what risk-taking looks like - you blast out products, see what sticks, and kill what doesn't. People who think it's a quality product won't be wary of whether it'll get killed - the…

I'm sure that Google internally is well aware of the negative press that comes with product shutdowns, and is doing them regardless as a deliberate strategic tradeoff where they believe the benefits outweigh the costs. But it's very difficult to measure the costs, bc the #1 cost is lost trust, and how do you measure that? Many people simply won't sign up for a Google product bc they don't trust it'll be around long e…

It’s not just the price of keeping the servers humming. You have to pay people to maintain the software. So now you’re paying hundreds or thousands of people to maintain zombie software.

Re: The IBM-ification of Google?

#76

Post by Eighth »

The technological world is rapidly changing and Google is changing with it. They are in a very strong position, owning the full stack in an industry that is very early and rapidly growing. They won't win all their bets but they have enough coverage for it not to matter.

I disagree with the Apple comparison. Apple haven't done anything successfully innovative for what seems like decades. I do admire their stance on AI though. Not going all in makes them unique.

Re: The IBM-ification of Google?

#77

Post by dgoldstein0 »

Aurornis wrote: post #73
somesortofthing wrote: post #2

Not the article's main point but I've never liked the "google killing products" complaints. People always talk about how big companies fail because they're unwilling to take risks and just recommit to their areas of strength, but this is what risk-taking looks like - you blast out products, see what sticks, and kill what doesn't. People who think it's a quality product won't be wary of whether it'll get killed - the…

> People who think it's a quality product won't be wary of whether it'll get killed - the quality itself is insurance against that. Not true in the slightest. Google has had some quality hardware products where they killed the cloud service and rendered them useless. Products that were stable and working, but Google decided to pull the plug and make the hardware worthless. Quality of the product means nothing. You’re…

Unfortunately quality and earning money are only loosely correlated - especially for Google when they can pour money into making something good, but baby necessarily figure out how to make it earn.

And it also seems if it's not a $100 m+ business they lose interest very quickly. So even good things that could run somewhat cheap of optimized end up with no long term place in the Google ecosystem when they fail to make it big.

... That all said Google kills perfectly good things because they have a few internal rules that encourage it: that there can only be one of a system (dunno if that's applies to product but they seem to always want to consolidate every few years) and that stuff cannot be unowned so reorgs => kill products that don't match the new org structure. That and they incentivize pumping out new products with their promotion process - whether or not they really needed yet another chat/vc/etc product, someone probably figured they could climb the career ladder by shipping another one.

Re: The IBM-ification of Google?

#78

Post by siliconc0w »

Google has amazing potential but has consistently squandered it. Gemini CLI being killed/rebranded is yet another example of their complete lack of follow through and persistence. It wasn't a good product - it was slow, buggy, and unreliable but you have to fix it to demonstrate you can do more than launch and then kill products.

They have everything going for them - amazing technology and technologists, huge distribution and lock-in, and a giant compute advantage and the can pay for more out of cash flow rather than debt or equity. And yet it's still hard to see them not fumbling the ball.

Re: The IBM-ification of Google?

#80

Post by erwincoumans »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #25
erwincoumans wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gemini is pretty good.

You're entitled to your opinion, but you're literally the first person I've ever heard say that. Even people who like LLMs seem to think that GPT and Claude are the good ones, with Gemini being B tier at best.

Agreed Gemini maybe not the best, but it is still pretty good. And their research was the foundation of others (Attention is all you need paper).
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