I'd dare to say that Google is very bad at doing products. They tried so many times and almost always failed, the list of products killed by Google is huge, They really succeeded in search, maps and gmail; all of these products are engineering-first products, created in the early days.
One might argue that YouTube and Android should go in that list, but I disagree.
YouTube was acquired and it never managed to become something really big (it failed to compete with Netflix for video streaming, with Spotify for music and with TikTok for social network).
Android also, was acquired and without a pletora of hardware vendor supporting it, it would have failed too (I'd say that Android without Samsung is nothing -- of course, it's big on embedded things, like cars or TVs, but it's not a world-wide product like gmail).
And likewise it is failing in AI, against OpenAI, which looks like another engineering-first product.
It's not that it's not big. It's that it's not as big as it could be. It's not gmail-big or maps-big, at least for me. It is outclassed by many other, in their respective niches (video streaming, music, and social networking), and despite the huge efforts, Google never managed to turn it into a subscription-based service.
It's not that it's not big, it's that it is not on the same level than maps or gmail, IMO.
Atleast according to average daily watch time reported in 2019, Netflix was at 164 million hours and YouTube was at 1 billion. I doubt that ratio has changed much since then
How do you think YouTube failed? If you tried to get someone to name a search engine that's not Google, they could maybe think of Bing or DuckDuckGo or something. If you tried to get someone to name a email service that's not Gmail, they could maybe say Outlook or Yahoo if they're older. But try to get someone to name a user-generated video platform that's not YouTube? YouTube has comparable revenue to Netflix. And Netflix has direct competitors -- such as Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ to name a few that are pretty big on their own right.
I don't know about that, they made some good products, or invested in ones that already existed.
I don't consider creating a product, and then retiring a product after many years a failure myself. Its more like a nuanced then, some producdts don't change with the times, and others dont work.
I did watch that TV series on how some people at google did some unethical things to incorporate the maps idea from a German company. Not sure how true that is, but if it is, then google is just like any other corrupt establishment, willing to do shady things at the expense of the original inventors.
I strongly believe that Google Video would have been killed by Google long ago. They bought YouTube because they couldn't create it themselves. And they never managed to turn that into a real product, IMO.
This is not necessarily true. For instance someone coming from Linux might be uncomfortable installing non open source source from not trusted origin (I.e. not the distribution package manager).
Also, installing anything anywhere is potentially a huge security risk, so I see why people use browsers as convenient sandboxes for trying out software.
I (and I think many people here) would be more than happy to pay a reasonable price for a reasonable product (haven’t tried yet this, but I think anything between 2$ and 10$ would be fine).
I know that software is not free to build, so I don’t expect it’s free to use. If you want to keep the product free, you can always add a Donate me button, to let people show their appreciation.
Kudos to you for letting us know what is the way you expect to make money. I try to never use software or services where the “making money” part is not clear.
I wouldn’t probably pay for a service, but I might be happy to pay a one time fee for a function that dumps the todo file (I understand it’s a csv) every time there is an update so I can integrate that on some other workflow (like committing to git, or importing into obsidian).
Another thing I might pay for is a iPhone app so I can mark todos completed on the go, but it’s probably very difficult to to a always on window there.
> I wouldn’t probably pay for a service, but I might be happy to pay a one time fee for a function that dumps the todo file (I understand it’s a csv) every time there is an update so I can integrate that on some other workflow (like committing to git, or importing into obsidian).
Yes, it seems there is a strong preference for a one-time purchase over a subscription, so I'll definitely give that serious consideration as we figure out our business model. My prototype for NowDo (which ran on i3/linux) uses Notion as a back-end.
> Another thing I might pay for is a iPhone app so I can mark todos completed on the go, but it’s probably very difficult to to a always on window there.
I think iphones now support widgets, similar to Android - so I think we can do something similar to NowDo's always-on-top. Iphone and Android versions are on our roadmap.
What I usually do is keeping them on the phone as long as possible with questions and then tell them I don't want what they are selling.
I worked in a place that had call centres as part of their business and I know that they classify calls into hit or miss. Miss calls must finish as quickly as possible and they know that if they keep miss calls under a given duration they are gaining money.
I want to be the person that makes them lose money.
I also do that sometimes. Like when they put you on hold when you need them? I put them on hold when they need me. I go like "sure, I'm very interested.. can you just wait one second?" and then I put the mic on mute and go on with my life. Some of them are desperate enough to call back.
The current scenario is so broken. You have multiple different platforms that do not interoperate with each other.
Different platforms have become the standard de facto in different regions of the world (iMessage in us, WhatsApp in Europe, WeChat in china, ..).
All of these platforms belong to private companies.
A sane landscape would be having platform interoperability, at least for the most common features and then let companies compete on features, not on user networks.
In Europe it is virtually impossible no to use WhatsApp, especially if you have kids. I don’t like it, but it’s one of the service I use the most, because I’m forced to.
I have a few messaging apps on my phone. It doesn't bother me at all that I communicate with my family using iMessage, some friends with Whatsapp, and some friends with other chat apps, and work using Slack.
What's the problem exactly?
To have a standard? Isn't that what phone numbers and SMS are if you want a standard way of reaching someone?
If you have other standards, you reduce innovation because in order to change anything, you have to get 100s of companies to agree and comply.
But if Whatsapp, iOS, Viber, WeChat, etc wants to make something better, they can write the code and release it tomorrow.
Users have chosen the private model. It's better. It's faster. It innovates more. If you want a standard, it'll just become like SMS years later. I don't want one single app. Each app does something better.
Also, this dream ends the very moment you need an hospital. Hospitals are complex structures that require immense amount of resources to operate. Not not mention the resources needed to develop drugs, train doctors and so on.
Maybe you could live a solitary life, on your own, using only what your land provides you, but there's no way you could access modern health care, then.
Same goes for Internet access (all those subway cables were laid by somebody, probably subsidised by some government, at least partially).
Same goes for roads, and so on.
This is a myth very few people could live because the others don't and one way or another support them.
I am of the opinion that Apple Maps are pretty bad outside of Cali.
The locations are not exactly accurate for the remote locations of the United States. They seems to be exceptionally interested in improving lives of Californians who use iPhone.
I have to say that in Italy (and Europe) in general they are not that bad. Still way behind google maps. Like anything else unfortunately.
Anyway my point stands: if something doesn't have a clear business model, I'm not happy using it. If the business model is ads I'm very unhappy using it.
> Its a phone for christ sake, they only last a few years, where have you seen this issue even come up
On this point I don't agree. My iPhone is about to be 5 years old, it's fully functioning and I'm about to pass it to my daughter. The only repair I did was changing the battery at an Apple Store, which cost around 100$ and took a couple of hours.
For me this is a decent service and a decent device lifetime (provided it will stay in my kid's hands for a few years more).
In the past I had to deal with non original repairs (in specific batteries for HP laptop) and my experience was truly truly bad. True, it was 15 years ago, so battery technology might have changed.
I don't really care for self repairing. I understand that there are people that care for that and I respect that; for them Apple probably is not the right brand. For me, personally, a phone or a laptop must work as expected, have a decade of lifetime, and might require servicing a couple of time during its lifetime max, for a reasonable price.
Self repair is a tiny part of the market. But if I can’t self repair because I can’t get hold of parts, then you probably can’t find an independent repair shop to fix something because they can’t get parts either. That is their goal.
> Apple is probably not the right brand
How do you imagine that other brands are not doing the exact same thing? If Apple is allowed to do it, everyone will do it. Not just on phones, on cars, on dishwashers, everything.
My point is that if there is a market for devices that can be easily repaired, then there will be devices that can be easily repaired. If there is no such a market, then there will be no such devices.
If the second case is true, we can clearly mandate this by law, but then we must explain the reasons behind it, and we must also search for alternative ways of enforcing such reasons.
IMO the modern devices are way too complex to service on your own for most of the people. And those who might be able to technically do that often times are not interested into actually doing it. Also, the tradeoff that such a serviceability would imply might be not interesting (e.g. bulkier device, more complex waterproofing, less sturdy chassis, ...).
Again, it's my personal opinion, based on personal experience, but since we do have alternatives (e.g. the fair phone) and since these devices are not that widespread, I'm afraid my opinion is more common that you'd think.
Security isn't a binary. Banks are secure. Prisons are secure. In software and hardware the thing being secured against is increasingly the "owner" of the device, for the benefit of rentiers.
I might agree, but my experience with this brand in particular is that I buy much less devices, and I pay them more. All in all I think that the money I spend is similar, but the quantity of devices is lower.
Again, this is MY experience, in MY context, with MY use case. I believe that my use case is pretty common, but I might be wrong, of course.
Years ago I was brought to twitter compared to Facebook exactly because you could read without being logged in.
After a few years it had become a hellish place with lots of flames and arguments, but it still had some value.
It became clear that my engagement was mainly to discuss with random people about things knowing they would never change their minds (neither would I) on things like Covid vaccines.
It was a huge waste of time, but I found it out that surfing it as non logged would amore allow me to read without being able to reply to the most stupid comments. Some sort of read only Twitter.
Now that it has gone, Twitter has irrelevant.
One might argue that YouTube and Android should go in that list, but I disagree. YouTube was acquired and it never managed to become something really big (it failed to compete with Netflix for video streaming, with Spotify for music and with TikTok for social network). Android also, was acquired and without a pletora of hardware vendor supporting it, it would have failed too (I'd say that Android without Samsung is nothing -- of course, it's big on embedded things, like cars or TVs, but it's not a world-wide product like gmail).
And likewise it is failing in AI, against OpenAI, which looks like another engineering-first product.