It's not "large" UI changes that are needed. (I mean, they are needed, the current google UI for most of their products sucks).
But it's small improvements that make the big difference. A small user interface element added or removed to speed up an interaction. An updated user experience so that data can be found or organized in a slightly different way.
I could pick on almost everyone of Google's products and have gripes about some UI or UX choice. Missing functionality here, overly complex there, etc. Every product has obvious low hanging fruit that could be improved.
That's what parent is referring to (I assume). There's no more micro-innovation happening. If it's not a change that makes 100 bazallion dollars, then it's just not a change worth doing, apparently.
Every product has obvious low-hanging fruit that could be improved in the UX — yet the company persists in spending effort on sweeping yet entirely cosmetic changes that deliver zero value.
A good example is changing the typeface of text labels in every product to match the new Google logo, which Google seem to have been continuously doing for years on end now. I would argue this even has negative value, as it creates a mix of two typefaces (Roboto and Product Sans) in every product that used to have one, which causes every future UI design decision to be saddled with the extra cost of deciding which of the two to use.
One such example is the ability to copy my own email address. Gmail makes it so damn difficult it's mind-boggling. Whenever I try to copy my email address other elements are included in the selection, right-click is disabled and probably other annoying things happen: https://i.imgur.com/Ds0ROuT.png
I don’t think it’s that per se, for instance Meet has been innovating in small ways to the point where I believe it’s way better than Zoom. But not all Google tools are innovating at the same rate.
But it's small improvements that make the big difference. A small user interface element added or removed to speed up an interaction. An updated user experience so that data can be found or organized in a slightly different way.
I could pick on almost everyone of Google's products and have gripes about some UI or UX choice. Missing functionality here, overly complex there, etc. Every product has obvious low hanging fruit that could be improved.
That's what parent is referring to (I assume). There's no more micro-innovation happening. If it's not a change that makes 100 bazallion dollars, then it's just not a change worth doing, apparently.