3 ms·
It's less about them killing products and more about them following the same frustrating sequence of steps (for products that people actually liked): 1. Releas
by filoleg 8y ago
It's less about them killing products and more about them following the same frustrating sequence of steps (for products that people actually liked):
1. Release a product, make it decently good.
2. Kill it in a few years after it has gotten widely adopted.
3. Release an alternative product that does the same thing, but, a lot of times, worse than the original and/or with missing functionality from the old one that people actually care about.
4. Bonus step: make it really confusing (looking at you, Hangouts => Allo/Duo).
5. Repeat the cycle.
Notable examples of it that come to mind:
* Messaging: GChat => Hangouts => Allo/Duo => I got tired of keeping up with that they are pushing now
* Music streaming: Google Music => Google Play Music [just a rename, I think] => YouTube Remix => YouTube Music
* First party Android experience: Google Play Edition => [I feel like I am missing something in-between here] => Android One + Android Go
- pjmlp 8y agoFrom developers point of view each Android release feels like a platform reboot.
- scep12 8y agoAgree messaging was bad, but music is still in progress so let's reserve judgement on whether or not that ends up being an OK transition or not. GPE -> Android Go does not fit the mold of the "cycle" you're talking about. Further, Android Go is substantially better than Android One. Do you have any other examples?
- filoleg 8y agoSee, that's part of the problem. As an end-user, to me all those sound kinda samey and fill the same niche, but technically are different products. As for others, I personally stopped using non-essential google products (i.e., the ones I believe that Google is unlikely to screw up without completely destroying faith in the company, like GMail or Maps), so I can't come up with anything. If you are curious, you can check out https://killedbygoogle.com/ https://killedbygoogle.com/ and see if there is anything there that might fit the bill. Disclaimer: I have zero affiliation with that website. I found it by trying to look up a list of killed off Google products, hoping it would bring up some memories. Then I realized that there are way too many products on the list for me to parse through, and the website has a nice and clean UI/UX that I am not ashamed to share here.