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I don't understand how people keep bringing up Google product shutdowns as if literally half their products get discontinued. Yes, there are a couple, but that'

I don't understand how people keep bringing up Google product shutdowns as if literally half their products get discontinued. Yes, there are a couple, but that's because they have so many more products than any other company. I'm sure if you looked at it percentage wise, they're actually probably on the lower end compared to most other companies. Obviously if you make thousands and thousands of products, then a couple will eventually have to be dropped. Can you even name me 5 big products they've ended which had a huge impact.

obmelvin 9y ago
People also bring it up for products like this, which is related tangentially to Ads or google cloud offerings. Google is not going to shut something like this down that enhances their revenue
- iaw 9y ago
  >Google is not going to shut something like this down that enhances their revenue Right now this product is losing substantial amounts of money, we're talking on the order of tens of millions USD per year. If the net present cost of support exceeds the net present value of the product revenue stream Google has every right to cull it. It's their prerogative as a business. My prerogative as a business consumer (when I am in that position) makes me wary of being reliant on the whims of a multi-billion dollar company whose primary revenues are generated from ads for my analytics needs. It's quite possible Google Data Studio is going to be the next big thing for the company, it's just as possible it doesn't get the desired traction and ends up culled from their offerings.
FooHentai 9y ago
>there are a couple, but that's because they have so many more products than any other company. I'm sure if you looked at it percentage wise, they're actually probably on the lower end compared to most other companies. First cut from just checking Wikipedia. Number of google services: 117. Number of discontinued google services: 43. So what's that.. about 40%?
- glandium 9y ago
  If 117 is the number of currently active google services, that's 43 / (43 + 117), so about 27%. Still a lot, though.
  - FooHentai 9y ago
    Ah thanks, missed that!
- shakil 9y ago
  I'd say 0, since eyeballing the list almost none of them seem to be B2B type products. This is by far the most pervasive comment on HN regarding Google ("Oh, they launched something, don't use it because they will retire it soon. Look what happened to Reader!"). Its also completely misleading when applied to Google Cloud Platform which has been around for almost 9 years now without deprecating any service. Disclaimer: I work for Google Cloud Platform
  - FooHentai 9y ago
    >I'd say 0, since eyeballing the list almost none of them seem to be B2B type products. If moving the goalposts is allowed then fair enough, it can be any number you choose. >This is by far the most pervasive comment on HN regarding Google ("Oh, they launched something, don't use it because they will retire it soon. Look what happened to Reader!"). Yes, hello, reality calling - Google has a PR problem, as a direct result of canceling services. This PR problem is bleeding into their commercial offerings precisely because of their reliance and cultivation of grassroots, technology-minded consumer mind share. "Man, I killed all those bees but for some reason now my honey production has dropped right off. Could there be a connection???" Someone did not properly cost this into the decision to terminate those services, and it's now biting the organization. It should be.
    - nindalf 9y ago
      He's not moving the goalposts. This thread is about a b2b product, which he claims are unlikely to be shut down. If you're trying to extrapolate about a b2b product from past experience about free software, you should justify that.
mikestew 9y ago
I don't understand how people keep bringing up Google product shutdowns as if literally half their products get discontinued Even if you don’t, I hope Google understands it, and then learns from it. Wanna take a guess at why Microsft kept FoxPro around for so long? One of the reasons was if MS axed it, they’d lose those developers, many forever. Not until they had a good transition story that utilized MS products could they dare discontinue it. And to this day some will still say MS bought Fox Software for the tech and killed FoxPro...despite it being kept around for over ten years. Point being, MS did the right thing by FoxPro in my eyes, and it is still used as an example of MS discontinuing products. Google has most definitely not done right by some products, so perhaps that will help you understand why people keep bringing it up.
- GiorgioG 9y ago
  A company I used to work for still uses FoxPro to this day. A friend of mine at another company is still using VB6 for their core app (though they are planning a rewrite in .NET/C#.) Give Microsoft a hand - their discontinued wares still manage to work on the latest Windows releases. Sure, Google’s offerings are online, so there’s an ongoing cost associated with keeping the lights on, but if Google wants companies to trust them, it’s going to have to stop discontinuing products when they get bored with them.
- skrebbel 9y ago
  > Wanna take a guess at why Microsft kept FoxPro around for so long? One of the reasons was if MS axed it, they’d lose those developers, many forever. Still they axed Silverlight only a few years after they launched it. Lots and lots of enterprisey stuff was built with it and then all that stuff was suddenly unsupported.
fauria 9y ago
> Can you even name me 5 big products they've ended which had a huge impact. - Analog Efex Pro - Color Efex Pro - Silver Efex Pro - Viveza - HDR Efex Pro - Sharpener Pro - Dfine
- manigandham 9y ago
  These were big products? Hasn't Photoshop advanced to the point that these plugins are no longer needed?
coldtea 9y ago
>I don't understand how people keep bringing up Google product shutdowns as if literally half their products get discontinued. Because it feels like half of their products DO get discontinued. And because it doesn't matter if it's half or not. As if 20% would be a better number? One would be foolish to fully trust any company that shut down 1-2 products they were using. But it would take a special kind of stupid to trust new products by Google who has shut down over a dozen of their products, including widely promoted ones, from Glass and Wave to Video, Reader and so on.
- ehsankia 9y ago
  Again, you say "feels" like, and I agree it's a common trope that shows up in almost every single Google thread, which is why I explicitly asked for people to name real products that are gone. I'm actually curious how many people can even remember or name, because to me, it has become more of a myth than reality.
K0SM0S 9y ago
Indeed, I see them as middle of the road. In my very anecdotal perception, by order of 'less reliable' to 'most reliable' in terms of product continuity, of the big 5 my list goes as follows: 1. Apple (Aperture, "Smart" features from OSX absent from iOS, APIs that force almost complete re-writes, generally culling of PC/corporate friendly products such as Server etc). 2. Facebook, seems like they experiment a lot (which is good) but too often fail to label things as beta. And they change 'features' way too often for my taste (I seldom use their services so far, at least on a personal level). 3. Google (Google Read for news strikes me as the biggest loss personally, my news were never the same afterwards as I never considered putting in so much time carefully selecting RSS feeds etc. if they could go away just like that; eventually I don't even read most news anymore). They have a less-than-stellar record on mobile apps, but then again that's a moving sector where it's hard to be consistent over "LTS" kind of periods. 4. Microsoft, but at this point I have to commend how much long-term support they put into most of their products, sometimes it's even too much to have to put up with legacy features that hinder modern paradigms (particularly on Windows 10, ofc). 5. Amazon, simply because I've yet to encounter a case of product/service being put out of service. I wonder who agrees/disagrees around here.
CJefferson 9y ago
It only takes one product you relied on heavily, to make sure you never get locked in like that again.

obmelvin 9y ago

People also bring it up for products like this, which is related tangentially to Ads or google cloud offerings. Google is not going to shut something like this down that enhances their revenue

iaw 9y ago
>Google is not going to shut something like this down that enhances their revenue Right now this product is losing substantial amounts of money, we're talking on the order of tens of millions USD per year. If the net present cost of support exceeds the net present value of the product revenue stream Google has every right to cull it. It's their prerogative as a business. My prerogative as a business consumer (when I am in that position) makes me wary of being reliant on the whims of a multi-billion dollar company whose primary revenues are generated from ads for my analytics needs. It's quite possible Google Data Studio is going to be the next big thing for the company, it's just as possible it doesn't get the desired traction and ends up culled from their offerings.

FooHentai 9y ago

>there are a couple, but that's because they have so many more products than any other company. I'm sure if you looked at it percentage wise, they're actually probably on the lower end compared to most other companies. First cut from just checking Wikipedia. Number of google services: 117. Number of discontinued google services: 43. So what's that.. about 40%?

glandium 9y ago
If 117 is the number of currently active google services, that's 43 / (43 + 117), so about 27%. Still a lot, though.
- FooHentai 9y ago
  Ah thanks, missed that!
shakil 9y ago
I'd say 0, since eyeballing the list almost none of them seem to be B2B type products. This is by far the most pervasive comment on HN regarding Google ("Oh, they launched something, don't use it because they will retire it soon. Look what happened to Reader!"). Its also completely misleading when applied to Google Cloud Platform which has been around for almost 9 years now without deprecating any service. Disclaimer: I work for Google Cloud Platform
- FooHentai 9y ago
  >I'd say 0, since eyeballing the list almost none of them seem to be B2B type products. If moving the goalposts is allowed then fair enough, it can be any number you choose. >This is by far the most pervasive comment on HN regarding Google ("Oh, they launched something, don't use it because they will retire it soon. Look what happened to Reader!"). Yes, hello, reality calling - Google has a PR problem, as a direct result of canceling services. This PR problem is bleeding into their commercial offerings precisely because of their reliance and cultivation of grassroots, technology-minded consumer mind share. "Man, I killed all those bees but for some reason now my honey production has dropped right off. Could there be a connection???" Someone did not properly cost this into the decision to terminate those services, and it's now biting the organization. It should be.
  - nindalf 9y ago
    He's not moving the goalposts. This thread is about a b2b product, which he claims are unlikely to be shut down. If you're trying to extrapolate about a b2b product from past experience about free software, you should justify that.

mikestew 9y ago

I don't understand how people keep bringing up Google product shutdowns as if literally half their products get discontinued Even if you don’t, I hope Google understands it, and then learns from it. Wanna take a guess at why Microsft kept FoxPro around for so long? One of the reasons was if MS axed it, they’d lose those developers, many forever. Not until they had a good transition story that utilized MS products could they dare discontinue it. And to this day some will still say MS bought Fox Software for the tech and killed FoxPro...despite it being kept around for over ten years. Point being, MS did the right thing by FoxPro in my eyes, and it is still used as an example of MS discontinuing products. Google has most definitely not done right by some products, so perhaps that will help you understand why people keep bringing it up.

GiorgioG 9y ago
A company I used to work for still uses FoxPro to this day. A friend of mine at another company is still using VB6 for their core app (though they are planning a rewrite in .NET/C#.) Give Microsoft a hand - their discontinued wares still manage to work on the latest Windows releases. Sure, Google’s offerings are online, so there’s an ongoing cost associated with keeping the lights on, but if Google wants companies to trust them, it’s going to have to stop discontinuing products when they get bored with them.
skrebbel 9y ago
> Wanna take a guess at why Microsft kept FoxPro around for so long? One of the reasons was if MS axed it, they’d lose those developers, many forever. Still they axed Silverlight only a few years after they launched it. Lots and lots of enterprisey stuff was built with it and then all that stuff was suddenly unsupported.

fauria 9y ago

> Can you even name me 5 big products they've ended which had a huge impact. - Analog Efex Pro - Color Efex Pro - Silver Efex Pro - Viveza - HDR Efex Pro - Sharpener Pro - Dfine

manigandham 9y ago
These were big products? Hasn't Photoshop advanced to the point that these plugins are no longer needed?

coldtea 9y ago

>I don't understand how people keep bringing up Google product shutdowns as if literally half their products get discontinued. Because it feels like half of their products DO get discontinued. And because it doesn't matter if it's half or not. As if 20% would be a better number? One would be foolish to fully trust any company that shut down 1-2 products they were using. But it would take a special kind of stupid to trust new products by Google who has shut down over a dozen of their products, including widely promoted ones, from Glass and Wave to Video, Reader and so on.

ehsankia 9y ago
Again, you say "feels" like, and I agree it's a common trope that shows up in almost every single Google thread, which is why I explicitly asked for people to name real products that are gone. I'm actually curious how many people can even remember or name, because to me, it has become more of a myth than reality.

K0SM0S 9y ago

Indeed, I see them as middle of the road. In my very anecdotal perception, by order of 'less reliable' to 'most reliable' in terms of product continuity, of the big 5 my list goes as follows: 1. Apple (Aperture, "Smart" features from OSX absent from iOS, APIs that force almost complete re-writes, generally culling of PC/corporate friendly products such as Server etc). 2. Facebook, seems like they experiment a lot (which is good) but too often fail to label things as beta. And they change 'features' way too often for my taste (I seldom use their services so far, at least on a personal level). 3. Google (Google Read for news strikes me as the biggest loss personally, my news were never the same afterwards as I never considered putting in so much time carefully selecting RSS feeds etc. if they could go away just like that; eventually I don't even read most news anymore). They have a less-than-stellar record on mobile apps, but then again that's a moving sector where it's hard to be consistent over "LTS" kind of periods. 4. Microsoft, but at this point I have to commend how much long-term support they put into most of their products, sometimes it's even too much to have to put up with legacy features that hinder modern paradigms (particularly on Windows 10, ofc). 5. Amazon, simply because I've yet to encounter a case of product/service being put out of service. I wonder who agrees/disagrees around here.

CJefferson 9y ago

It only takes one product you relied on heavily, to make sure you never get locked in like that again.