Google wouldn't do anything interesting like that if they bought Pandora. The first thing they would do would be to require a Google+ account to use it, which everyone would hate. Then they would keep changing the UI and the name over and over until no one knew it even existed or what it was called anymore, and then finally they would shut it down.
Google would probably integrate it with their existing play music offering. And I think they've backed off on pushing the Google+ logins due to the backlash.
The problem is that Steve Jobs isn't around any more to give the company the proper focus and hold everyone to a high quality standard.
The recent slippage in quality and focus mirrors what happened in the late 80s and early 90s after Steve was forced out. There was considerable leftover momentum in the short term which allowed the company to coast for while and keep up some semblance of health, but eventually the lack of focus caught up with them. They became "beleaguered" in the mid-90s and only recovered when Steve came back (and axed products that weren't working, focused resources on new problems, simplified the product line, etc). It took many years, but he eventually turned them into a powerhouse.
Now that he's been gone for a while, we are seeing a similar phenomenon. In the short term after he left, the company had considerable momentum (due mostly to the iPhone) which carried them along for a number of years, but without someone at the top who had his ability to maintain focus, the company is starting to slip again.
Yes, things have dramatically improved, but there are still taboo subjects on HN. For example, try saying any of the same things about YC's own AirBnB and see how that goes over.
In fact, this very article had an early comment[1] comparing Uber's logo re-design to AirBnB's paperclip thingy[2]. That comment is now deleted. No way to tell if it was self-deleted or mod deleted, but either way it seems someone wasn't comfortable having that on here, for whatever reason.
The most upvoted and commented story about AirBnB is "Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight"[1]. Also in the top 10 are "The Moment Of Truth For Airbnb As Users Home Is Utterly Trashed"[2], "Airbnb Victim Speaks Again: Homeless, Scared And Angry"[3] and "Dear AirBNB, No thank you for the XXX Freak Fest"[4]. There are more in the top 20.
I draw the opposite conclusion, as all of your examples are from several years ago. Three of your four links are more than 1600 days old!
Ever since AirBnB became the most valuable company in YC's portfolio, there has been a remarkable groupthink on HN where everything they do is good and criticism basically vanishes. Yet criticism of a non-YC company like Uber gets upvoted and creates a big dogpile, even when it could be equally applied to both companies.
The "past few years" is a bigger sample than just "the past year", so assuming the posts are equally distributed through time, you're still going to get more of them in the first bucket.
Tim Cook doesn't seem to care about anything other than the supply chain. He came from being a COO, so that's all he knows. Consider how many different models of iPad there are.[1] It's like he's bragging. "Look how good we are at managing suppliers. Look! LOOK!" Meanwhile, the watch, Apple Music, and everything else that reached a v1 release under his tenure so far has been buggy and broken. But hey, at least they have a "gold" Macbook now!
The cracks in the facade of phony, good-for-bragging-rights-only "valuations" are really starting to show now. Hold on, this is going to be quite a ride!
The only reason humans have had nothing to fear from machines so far is because of their brains. What happens when those are no longer a differentiator?
