Google killed a small smart glass maker after acquiring it
androidrookies.com
Google killed a small smart glass maker after acquiring it
1–10 of 28 posts
Re: Google killed a small smart glass maker after acquiring it
#2In the article it says this move by Google is worse than Amazon investing in businesses and stealing info. How is this worse? Google bought the whole company, didn't make partial investment. They can do whatever they want with the company.
Re: Google killed a small smart glass maker after acquiring it
#3In the article it says this move by Google is worse than Amazon investing in businesses and stealing info. How is this worse? Google bought the whole company, didn't make partial investment. They can do whatever they want with the company.
Buying up and killing competitors seems worse for consumers than merely competing unfairly.
Re: Google killed a small smart glass maker after acquiring it
#4In the article it says this move by Google is worse than Amazon investing in businesses and stealing info. How is this worse? Google bought the whole company, didn't make partial investment. They can do whatever they want with the company.
"Worse" doesn't just mean "worse for the companies involved", it can also mean "worse for society". The net result of Google continually buying startups and shutting down the projects is that fewer products receive long-term support, receive any iterative improvements, or can be relied upon to exist later.
Re: Google killed a small smart glass maker after acquiring it
#5In the article it says this move by Google is worse than Amazon investing in businesses and stealing info. How is this worse? Google bought the whole company, didn't make partial investment. They can do whatever they want with the company.
"Worse" doesn't just mean "worse for the companies involved", it can also mean "worse for society". The net result of Google continually buying startups and shutting down the projects is that fewer products receive long-term support, receive any iterative improvements, or can be relied upon to exist later.
And they paid a lot of money to do that (as much as it was worth, at least), which was parent company's point. Whereas Amazon did not- they made only a partial investment in order the kill the entire thing. That full Google money (fairly, it could be argued) compensates the destruction you describe and allows the recipient of the money to do something else productive.
Re: Google killed a small smart glass maker after acquiring it
#6In the article it says this move by Google is worse than Amazon investing in businesses and stealing info. How is this worse? Google bought the whole company, didn't make partial investment. They can do whatever they want with the company.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23690967 discussion of the acquisition itself.
Given how much was raised by the company itself (~$200M according to https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/north-8daa) the acquisition seems like Google providing an exit opportunity for the company and its investors, arguably much better for the ecosystem than what Amazon does
Re: Google killed a small smart glass maker after acquiring it
#7The article doesn't say anything about the internal (to Google) disposition of the team or thechnology -- only that the previous public product roadmap is cancelled. I'm unimpressed.
Re: Google killed a small smart glass maker after acquiring it
#8In the article it says this move by Google is worse than Amazon investing in businesses and stealing info. How is this worse? Google bought the whole company, didn't make partial investment. They can do whatever they want with the company.
Buying up and killing competitors seems worse for consumers than merely competing unfairly.
[deleted]
Re: Google killed a small smart glass maker after acquiring it
#9Would it be worse if they didn’t acquire it, but crushed it in the market? Obviously we won’t know.
Re: Google killed a small smart glass maker after acquiring it
#10In the article it says this move by Google is worse than Amazon investing in businesses and stealing info. How is this worse? Google bought the whole company, didn't make partial investment. They can do whatever they want with the company.
"Worse" doesn't just mean "worse for the companies involved", it can also mean "worse for society". The net result of Google continually buying startups and shutting down the projects is that fewer products receive long-term support, receive any iterative improvements, or can be relied upon to exist later.
It's still too early to say and we don't have enough visibility. Pairing North's tech with Google's distribution would expand the reach and potential of this type of product. North could've been running out of money before the acquisition so Google swooping in ensured the tech lived on. These are all plausible outcomes that would end up being "better for society"