You don’t need goodwill until you need it, and then it’s almost impossible to garner. How does that saying go? When you’re on top of the world you can do no wrong, when you’re down you can do no right? A lot of giant companies have to learn this the hard way, probably due to institutional inertia, apathy, lack of foresight, and the reality that today’s C-levels will probably be gone before that shit hits the fan.
> You don’t need goodwill until you need it, and then it’s almost impossible to garner.
This is the key. Google has my "business," but I'm also sick of it. The moment there's a really valid competitor - and these days, I'm starting to look at protonmail - I'm gone. The same stickiness that kept me with them will keep me gone.
In a way, Google's brand functions almost like an ol-school conglomerate-- you've got B2B and B2C products under one roof, with wildly different quality expectations, but all weighing on the brand.
What sort of blowback do conglomerates see for this? Do railroad executives balk at buying GE locomotives because their GE refrigerators fail?
Once upon a time similar things have been said about other giants who fell upon hard times, or died, or had to become shells of their former selves. It’s not like Google has made good friends with the business world either. Besides, the core of their business is advertisements, and they should probably pay attention to the slow, but inexorable backlash against advertising. Given that only a minority block ads and protect their privacy today, it may seem like that’s a silly thing to say, it history suggests otherwise. A bit of goodwill earned while on top can make inevitable slides down the mountain less fatal.
