This is the HN bubble. They only have this reputation among nerds who are still angry about losing Google Reader. Go ask any normal person if Google has a reputation for discontinuing products, and they won't know what you're talking about.
Also, i don't know who out there is heavily invested in a $35 audio dongle. I love mine, but it still works just as well today as it did yesterday and not being able to order more isn't causing me any anxiety.
I never used Google Reader and never cared much for RSS, and yet as a developer I have been bit by tons of services Google has discontinued, from login mechanisms to web APIs. The shut down tons of things, including things that make them money (Google Checkout). I know end users sad about Picasa, as they had organized all of their photos into that app, and have seen end users concerned about the continual discontinuation of messaging apps.
Where is this storyline / narrative that this is always about Google Reader coming from? It is downright nonsensical at this point, and is clearly false.
Agreed, Inbox is the latest one (being shutdown in March) that has me hugely disappointed. I’m a paying customer too with multiple G Suite accounts for my company.
Photos requires you allow them to use your data to run their image ML on, so it's not going anywhere it isnt quite what it appears. This was precisely the motivation for shuttering the desktop app.
At the time you posted this comment, there was already at least one other hacker news reader complaining about Google Reader in this thread. Check any other thread about Google killing a thing, on this site or any other, and it's always there.
Well, there was and there will be for foreseeable future, because Google Reader was damn useful and is a poster child of Google's habit of hyping up useful products and then canning them.
The claim was that this reputation only exists with "nerds" who are "angry because of Google Reader". Just one counter example suffices to refute that. Personally, I think even that is a waste of time because the claim doesn't even pass the smell test. The only useful function it serves is to demonstrate double standards; if someone said "only nerds work for Google" their comment would be dead in 5 minutes.
There are a dozen services and a hundred run-your-own servers.
People lose detail in older memories; Google Reader did a pretty good job and had few awful problems, so it is remembered fondly. The death notice was a big shock to people who relied on it heavily, so it is remembered vividly.
I set up a Tiny RSS server and have been reasonably content.
I ran my own Tiny RSS server for a while but found it was just enough hassle when updates would occasionally break minor things. I switched to paying NewsBlur $2/mo to deal with the backend and am much happier.
Feedly is one of my favorite examples of "small company in the right place at the right time." They had an RSS reader website that was, in most respects, exactly like Google Reader. They also supported easily importing Google Reader subscriptions.
The day Google Reader announced it was going away, me and everyone else found Feedly and said "hey, this is basically the same thing and I can switch easily" and bam, they grew like crazy.
I might just be a "nerd" on hacker news but I'm also the guy who just made the decision on which cloud service, email provider, and document sharing service to use at my job.
This is exactly the risk that Google doesn’t seem to effectively mitigate.
Choosing GCP over Azure or AWS seems like such a dangerous move. Same with migrating 5k users to gmail. Outlook and others may have weaknesses, but they are predictable.
To be fair. Microsoft isn’t precisely known for providing a stable platform either. While they might not discontinue things out right it’s pretty standard for them to relegate some existing solution to second class status while promoting the next big thing as the replacement, promising way more then it delivers.
Microsoft was all about backward compatibility. They might have changed with windows 10, but before then they tried their best to make sure you could run an old app on windows.
Fine for individuals. But switching a huge org with tons of weird, internal processes and rules seems like a gamble that meeting those requirements will always be important for Gmail (ie, using ie11 for some dumb reason).
I agree with you on drive, but docs is missing lots of features compared to msoffice (macros, excel functions, offline storage and runs) and google hasn’t been building tons of stuff into docs for a while.
I think they are fine for small orgs, but big orgs pay for lots of support and customization.
And none of those services are going anywhere. If you're given the responsibility to make those types of decisions, I have my doubts that you based it on whether an audio dongle or RSS feed reader were dumped.
I went through a similar process the other day with a startup. We did pick GSuite at the end but the questionable decisions made by Google in the last 1-2 years made me want to look into alternatives instead of just choosing the one which would've been a no-brainer choice in the past.
They were only questionable because people that used them were pissed off. But Google isn't going to trash a product that's really hitting home. Gmail is the most successful email app ever. Google Reader was a niche product in a niche market.
You just compared a 35$ audio dongle, which is pretty redundant when you can instead of the other 35$ dongle that does the same and more, to a billion dollar cloud business.
Not saying you are wrong, but I don't think you would be getting some of the largest companies in the world globally using the Google platform if there was a risk to its future.
I share your feelings about not wanting to commit to Google products, but some (like Gmail) are here to stay. I'd work more about getting support for Gmail than Google closing it.
Again, ask an average person, and they won't recognize even 5 products in that list. The only things in that list they might recognize is Google+ and Inbox, both of which aren't even dead yet.
A few years ago, Google's penchant for abandoning projects was an actual honest-to-god issue for both Go adoption and the use of GCP at a very large company I am deeply familiar with. It's not just nerds, it's also director-level types.
We all have to remember HN commenters are irrelevant as far as marketing any product. If you see the embarrassing "Show HN" posts for Dropbox, interviewcake and other startups, you can see that being hated by HN has zero relation to the success of a product. Right now Quora is getting a lot of hate here, while they may be on the verge of a $1 billion IPO. We need to realize that our views really don't matter and in some cases are counter productive.
You can say that about any website; doesn't make the argument valid or invalid. It simply doesn't describe anything about the impact of the argument _either_ way.
"Normal" people don't know because they don't use niche software products like an rss reader or Google's latest messaging app.
If something is not an instant mainstream hit, Google might can it. That's a risk if you plan on trying out something new from Google before your uncle is asking you how to set it up.
And yet after years of speculation about its imminent shutdown, Hangouts still works to this day.
In response to the most recent reports of its demise Google explicitly denied the rumored shutdown date and committed to supporting classic Hangouts until all users transition to Hangouts Chat: https://www.androidpolice.com/2018/12/03/hangouts-executive-...
Also, i don't know who out there is heavily invested in a $35 audio dongle. I love mine, but it still works just as well today as it did yesterday and not being able to order more isn't causing me any anxiety.
It does give me some anxiety. Because there are no and, unless google ships a replacement, probably will never be anything equivalent.
The chromecasts as devices are quite weird. Their usability for most things are just horrible. But they are simple devices. Once you get over the hurdle of how to use it becomes functional. Everything supports it. It took weeks frustration to get my parents to learn the chromecast, and it requires dedication. Now they love it, but apparently now I have to find something entirely different for audio. And I expect there to be a ton of compromises to even get to the clunkyness of the chromecast.
The value of the chromecast is the software support. Something only few could do not because it is hard but because you need the market penetration. And google does have a tight lid on the software integration.
That way they can sell the chromecast with ridiculous margins. Not sure how they reason canning chromecast audio, it's basically free money.
> Go ask any normal person if Google has a reputation for discontinuing products, and they won't know what you're talking about.
These are on the other hand the same people who ask (or are being told by) the nerds which browser to use, which email provider to choose etc, so the collective HN/techie opinion still has far-reaching implications.
I use Hangouts currently and I literally have no idea what Hangouts Chat is. I have Allo and Duo installed on my phone for calling iOS devices for psuedo-Facetime. I really have no idea what the future is going to be on these products and it's not very clear at all.
This one always comes up a lot for some reason (I really don't understand what point is being made), but I'll point out that maps was actually acquired. But, it's been so long since that it's been a) thoroughly ship of theseus-ed such that I'd be surprised if there's more than minor fragments of the original codebase remaining and b) sprouted large new features that are under the 'maps' umbrella but could easily be standalone apps in their own right (example: public transit support in google maps; there's a whole marketplace of apps that just do that).
Similarly for docs, android, etc - maybe they were started with an acquisition but given the amount of change and work done on top of that: so what?
Also, i don't know who out there is heavily invested in a $35 audio dongle. I love mine, but it still works just as well today as it did yesterday and not being able to order more isn't causing me any anxiety.