6 ms·

Android? Waymo? Tensorflow? I get what people are saying but it's not like Google's been coming out with nothing new and useful for over a decade.

crucifiction 9y ago
They acquired Android. Waymo and Tensorflow are cool r&d but not businesses.
- joshuamorton 9y ago
  Are you suggesting that Google did not innovate at all with regard to Android? That the product they purchased in 2005 was essentially the same as the one they began offering in 2008, or the one today? (just as an example, android was redesigned in response to the iPhone) Waymo appears to be on track to a business? Are you suggesting that, with tensorflow, innovation doesn't count if its infrastructural and not consumer-facing?
  - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
    Android is a bit old of an example, but I'd argue it's not a good one for the parent's point. I would argue Google's last in-house consumer success probably is Google Drive? Circa 2012 or so. Everything newer has been a rebranded acquisition, a clone of a competitor's product, a failure, or a combination of the three. Google+: Fail. Allo? LOL! (Let's talk about Duo, Hangouts Meet, Helpouts, etc.) The third or fourth rebranding of Google Wallet? Okay. Inbox caused an internal riot at Google when they tried to replace Gmail with it. Currents? Newsstand? At the end of the day, almost all profit at Google still comes from ads, and all of their success comes from abusing monopolies they developed ten years ago, like Search, Android, and Chrome. You guys are Oracle. With a brighter colored logo. ---- Waymo is built on hype, not substance, it only works in limited areas which are excrutiatingly mapped in advance, and most of the marketing videos showed capability that predated the cars actually being so capable: They're staged. I suspect actual car manufacturers will far surpass Google's own offerings here, they have experience and they get how to make a consumer product that lasts more than three years without needing to be replaced.
    - golfer 9y ago
      With your consistent anti-Google bias, I'm not surprised you posted this. But every large company has hits and misses. You can't name a large tech company without plenty of failures. That's just how it works. They all try things, and many of them don't work out. The projects that succeed are fed, and the projects that fail get shelved.
      - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
        It's not that they have failures, it's that I find so few successes. Note that if you have a pro-Google bias, it's pretty easy to dismiss legitimate points as "anti-Google bias". Unless you're going to characterize a 13-year-veteran Googler like Yegge as "anti-Google", maybe you should realize the bias is yours.
        golfer 9y ago
        Google has 7 different products with a billion users [0]. So few successes indeed. [0] https://www.popsci.com/google-has-7-products-with-1-billion-users https://www.popsci.com/google-has-7-products-with-1-billion-...
    - joshuamorton 9y ago
      >Duo A success by pretty much any metric (no seriously). Yes, its essentially facetime, but I don't really think that matters. It still was the right decision. (and don't get me wrong I have some issues with Google's messaging strategy, but Duo isn't reasonably one of them). >Inbox I must have missed that? Also, you kinda glossed over the whole infrastructure thing. Is infrastructural innovation not innovation? >At the end of the day, almost all profit at Google still comes from ads, Sure, but a quick check says that Google's revenue from not-ads today is about the same as Google's total revenue when they released android. >and most of the marketing videos showed capability that predated the cars actually being so capable So is your argument that Google isn't the innovator in the space, or that they won't be successful? Because I think both of those are totally wrong, but I want to clarify. And in both cases, who do you think the innovators were, and who do you think will instead be successful? >They're staged. I, don't have words, this is just denial of reality. Tesla staged and inflated its autonomy. Waymo (and, to be clear, other companies, like Cruise) haven't. I see their vehicles driving around every day. The data on this is pretty compelling: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/disengagement_report_2016 https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/disen... (waymo: 600K miles, Cruise ~10K, everyone else: <1K) Waymo is also active in the most areas (Bay Area, Tahoe, Phoenix, Kirkland, now Atlanta apparently). I'm curious what leads you to believe that Waymo is somehow not innovative and not successful. Who on earth is doing better?
- guyzero 9y ago
  “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.” Both you and Yegge label things you like as "innovative" and dismiss others as "not innovative" while never clearly articulating what this means. "cool but not R&D businesses" Yegge complains that Android was not an innovation but then says "Jeff Bezos is an exception. He innovates all the time, and he doesn’t fear failure. Many of his innovation attempts fall flat, but he almost never throws the idea away." So somehow Android isn't innovation but Fire tablets are. Seems inconsistent.
wehadfun 9y ago
No, Try Chromebook, Chromecast, Google Docs, Angular

crucifiction 9y ago

They acquired Android. Waymo and Tensorflow are cool r&d but not businesses.

joshuamorton 9y ago
Are you suggesting that Google did not innovate at all with regard to Android? That the product they purchased in 2005 was essentially the same as the one they began offering in 2008, or the one today? (just as an example, android was redesigned in response to the iPhone) Waymo appears to be on track to a business? Are you suggesting that, with tensorflow, innovation doesn't count if its infrastructural and not consumer-facing?
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  Android is a bit old of an example, but I'd argue it's not a good one for the parent's point. I would argue Google's last in-house consumer success probably is Google Drive? Circa 2012 or so. Everything newer has been a rebranded acquisition, a clone of a competitor's product, a failure, or a combination of the three. Google+: Fail. Allo? LOL! (Let's talk about Duo, Hangouts Meet, Helpouts, etc.) The third or fourth rebranding of Google Wallet? Okay. Inbox caused an internal riot at Google when they tried to replace Gmail with it. Currents? Newsstand? At the end of the day, almost all profit at Google still comes from ads, and all of their success comes from abusing monopolies they developed ten years ago, like Search, Android, and Chrome. You guys are Oracle. With a brighter colored logo. ---- Waymo is built on hype, not substance, it only works in limited areas which are excrutiatingly mapped in advance, and most of the marketing videos showed capability that predated the cars actually being so capable: They're staged. I suspect actual car manufacturers will far surpass Google's own offerings here, they have experience and they get how to make a consumer product that lasts more than three years without needing to be replaced.
  - golfer 9y ago
    With your consistent anti-Google bias, I'm not surprised you posted this. But every large company has hits and misses. You can't name a large tech company without plenty of failures. That's just how it works. They all try things, and many of them don't work out. The projects that succeed are fed, and the projects that fail get shelved.
    - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
      It's not that they have failures, it's that I find so few successes. Note that if you have a pro-Google bias, it's pretty easy to dismiss legitimate points as "anti-Google bias". Unless you're going to characterize a 13-year-veteran Googler like Yegge as "anti-Google", maybe you should realize the bias is yours.
      - golfer 9y ago
        Google has 7 different products with a billion users [0]. So few successes indeed. [0] https://www.popsci.com/google-has-7-products-with-1-billion-users https://www.popsci.com/google-has-7-products-with-1-billion-...
  - joshuamorton 9y ago
    >Duo A success by pretty much any metric (no seriously). Yes, its essentially facetime, but I don't really think that matters. It still was the right decision. (and don't get me wrong I have some issues with Google's messaging strategy, but Duo isn't reasonably one of them). >Inbox I must have missed that? Also, you kinda glossed over the whole infrastructure thing. Is infrastructural innovation not innovation? >At the end of the day, almost all profit at Google still comes from ads, Sure, but a quick check says that Google's revenue from not-ads today is about the same as Google's total revenue when they released android. >and most of the marketing videos showed capability that predated the cars actually being so capable So is your argument that Google isn't the innovator in the space, or that they won't be successful? Because I think both of those are totally wrong, but I want to clarify. And in both cases, who do you think the innovators were, and who do you think will instead be successful? >They're staged. I, don't have words, this is just denial of reality. Tesla staged and inflated its autonomy. Waymo (and, to be clear, other companies, like Cruise) haven't. I see their vehicles driving around every day. The data on this is pretty compelling: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/disengagement_report_2016 https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/disen... (waymo: 600K miles, Cruise ~10K, everyone else: <1K) Waymo is also active in the most areas (Bay Area, Tahoe, Phoenix, Kirkland, now Atlanta apparently). I'm curious what leads you to believe that Waymo is somehow not innovative and not successful. Who on earth is doing better?
guyzero 9y ago
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.” Both you and Yegge label things you like as "innovative" and dismiss others as "not innovative" while never clearly articulating what this means. "cool but not R&D businesses" Yegge complains that Android was not an innovation but then says "Jeff Bezos is an exception. He innovates all the time, and he doesn’t fear failure. Many of his innovation attempts fall flat, but he almost never throws the idea away." So somehow Android isn't innovation but Fire tablets are. Seems inconsistent.

wehadfun 9y ago

No, Try Chromebook, Chromecast, Google Docs, Angular