4 ms·

This knee-jerk-ism is tiresome. There are plenty of products that Google has retired, and plenty of products that Google has continued to invest in. Just like a

• hk__2 9y ago
  Well it’s so common Wikipedia has a dedicated category for them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Discontinued_Google_acquisitions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Discontinued_Google_a...
  • mg74 9y ago
    And is it anymore than other big corporation? That pages lists 24 products, which doesn't seem that much to me. There have been plenty of stories about retired products at FB, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, etc. Im not disputing that Google does this, but ever since Google Reader was stopped this has become a stock comment on basically every HN discussion on Google products (other than search & ads) and has long ceased to have any value at all, and seems to be just accepted as some gospel without any evidence that this is a bigger problem with Google than the other tech giants.
    • adam12 9y ago
      > And is it anymore than other big corporation? I don't think hk__2 is promoting another big corporation.
      • joshuamorton 9y ago
        I don't think hk__2 was promoting Google.
    • lucideer 9y ago
      in jannes' and hk__2's defence, that Wikipedia category page looks very incomplete. I'm sure the number is far higher than 24. Perhaps it's HN apophenia but Google's record of discontinuance does not seem insignificant - it is valid for anyone to be skeptical of their ability to maintain any newer product in the medium term. That said, I think anyone who's followed Firebase closely since the acquisition should have reasons to have more confidence in their commitment in this one particular case.
  • srcmap 9y ago
    The list forgot "Google Desktop Search" - One of my favorite google product. I like it so much that I even found a old copy to install on windows 10. 6 years after it is discontinue and still much more useful and much faster than windows 10's search bar.
    • deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    • hk__2 9y ago
      That’s because it’s a list of discontinued acquisitions. Google Desktop is in the list of discontinued Google software: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Discontinued_Google_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Discontinued_Google_s...
      • jannes 9y ago
        Quickoffice and Picasa seem to be in both lists, by the way. Technically the second list should almost be a superset of the first list, I suppose.
• interstitial 9y ago
  It's actually refreshing. The cheerleading-era is over (finally). FANG-exits are bad for everyone in the long run, and increasingly in the short run. I hope SV gets a grip on that.
• grouseway 9y ago
  No, it's justified. They earned that reputation. The problem is the google isn't forthright about it's plans. They just let some products languish forever without any communication. If you're lucky (like a firebase user) you will get a giant code dump of new features after 18 months of radio silence. If you're unlucky (like a google app engine standard user) then maybe they will announce a shutdown. It could go either way - you will never know what's coming. Yes you will get time to migrate away, but you're not really treated like a partner. At some point they said google code wasn't getting new features because they couldn't find anyone who wanted to work on it. WTF? That's what employees are for right? I cannot understand this company. Why waste peoples time with projects that are just rounding errors next to adwords.
  • s17n 9y ago
    It was probably an unstaffed 20% project all along.