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I've been considering pasting this: https://killedbygoogle.com/ https://killedbygoogle.com/ every time the argument comes up. Maybe Google proponents will make

I've been considering pasting this: https://killedbygoogle.com/ https://killedbygoogle.com/ every time the argument comes up. Maybe Google proponents will make one for other companies notorious for killing services, but at least for now, the Google Graveyard grows.

modzu 7y ago
that site is a bit disingenuous -- it doesn't distinguish between projects that were merely upgraded/renamed/deprecated for good reason for example, "secure google search" was "killed" but all this means is that instead of having to type "secure.google.com" to use encryption, google made HTTPS the default... there are lots of legitimate examples so such exaggerations seem unneccessary
- Svip 7y ago
  Odd. I can't find "secure google search" on the website. Are you confusing it with "Encrypted Search", that allowed you to search anonymously?
  - modzu 7y ago
    see that's what i mean; "encrypted search" is on the list, which is referencing this: https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/7631341?hl=en https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/7631341?hl=en and does not have anything more to do with "anonymous" searching
    - Svip 7y ago
      OK, but then that's different. Because you were complaining that they were not differentiating between actual killed services and things that naturally reached their end of life, but in this case, the site is actually wrong. It clearly says that it provided provided users with anonymous search, which gives the impression of something like DuckDuckGo or Startpage. But that's not what's happening, and I think that's worse than your original complaint.
      - jcrites 7y ago
        For the curious, here is the about page for encrpted.google.com from 2010: https://web.archive.org/web/20100524223335/http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?answer=173733&hl=en https://web.archive.org/web/20100524223335/http://www.google... > Note that SSL search does not reduce the data that Google receives and logs when you search, or change the listing of these terms in your Web History
        codyogden 7y ago
        The page you linked to is for "Google Search over SSL" and is not the same thing. Searches performed at encrypted.google.com (not just google.com with SSL) were not available in any user-facing capacity in one's Google account. It did not store the search queries in user-facing history, and did not use those terms for future search suggestions.
        icebraining 7y ago
        That's curious. I can't find any statement from Google saying that this was intended, though; seems more an oversight than a feature.
Andrex 7y ago
Pasting the same thing over and over in different threads regardless of context isn't exactly arguing in good faith or inviting nuanced discussion, so I wouldn't go that route myself...
- staticautomatic 7y ago
  It's not regardless of context. It's because of context.
  - AlphaSite 7y ago
    It also is context.
- TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
  People new to the discussion may not have seen this page, so there’s that.
artursapek 7y ago
What a ridiculous website. Yes, the company that possibly writes more software than any other in the world has a lot of deprecated/dead software projects. Who would have thought? This would be more effective at making its point if it highlighted projects whose deprecation was particularly ungraceful/disruptive/careless, and explain how.
- jankiehodgpodge 7y ago
  When compared to other online services companies Google closes down a huge amount of products that still have a large user base or viable alternatives. You only need to look at how many messenging apps they've come up with over the years to see that there is something wrong with the way they manage their products. I'm a big user of Play music but can see the signs a mile off that it's being pushed into closing because of YouTube music, a service is straight up worse so I'll have to look around for alternatives.
- la_barba 7y ago
  No, actually, its YOU who hasn't understood the point of the website. The website aims to be a simple list of discontinued products. Now that you know what the point of the website is, you can decide for yourself if you want to visit it.
cortesoft 7y ago
I don't quite get what people expect... do they think that once google creates something, they are obligated to continue it indefinitely? That seems like an unreasonable expectation.
- kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
  I expect a "smart hub" to interoperate with a broad variety of devices. I expect existing banner features to not be revoked over petty turf wars. Google just made themselves irrelevant in yet another market.
- bunderbunder 7y ago
  No company is, and expecting any company to continue spending money on maintaining a service even if they've decided it isn't profitable is pollyannaish. To that end, I'm not sure I see the value in framing this specifically as a Google thing. Google is maybe the most visible because of how many products it has, and how popular many of them are. But really, this sort of thing is a problem that's inherent to any IoT devices that rely on proprietary cloud services, in whole or in part.
  - walterbell 7y ago
    There's a difference between an IoT manufacturer going out of business, which causes related software services to terminate, and an IoT manufacturer failing to deliver on device claims made before the sale took place.
    - bunderbunder 7y ago
      There's also a difference between how we want things to work, and how they actually do. These services typically include some language in the EULA to the effect of, "We can disable parts of this device from our end, for any reason, at any time." And agreeing to those is almost certainly precondition for using the device. Which absolutely sucks. But it's the legal and consumer protection environment we live in right now. Pretending it isn't is -- hang the downvotes, I'm gonna double down on this -- pollyannaish. Until things change, your only real recourse as a consumer is to refuse to buy products that are sold under those sorts of terms. Which, unfortunately, does mean steering clear of IoT devices that rely on proprietary cloud services.
lettergram 7y ago
Huh didn’t realize YouTube annotations was killed off. Gotta say, most annoying thing to me was discontinuing support for the Nexus 6p after only 2 years. Made me switch to iPhone for ever.
- bonzini 7y ago
  YouTube annotations unfortunately were misused for spamming purposes. It is one of the few cases where you can say good riddance.
  - herohamp 7y ago
    If you found them annoying you could always disable them, I was rather fond of them, people did lots of cool stuff with them. Like choose you're own adventure videos, and 3kliksphilips CSGO skin showcase videos. I think they should have kept them. They kept bitching about them not working on mobile but that's only because they chose not to support mobile
  - mcbits 7y ago
    Annotations were also used to correct errors in educational videos after the videos were published. The errors are still there, but the corrections are gone. They replaced annotations with "cards" which are 100% spam.
  - alxlaz 7y ago
    E-mail is also often misused for spamming purposes, and Gmail -- which is easy to sign up for and trusted by mail servers worldwide -- is often used for scams. Should we expect it to be terminated as well? Any solution that allows you to write stuff on the Interwebs can be misused for spam. The solution that every company is expected to come up with, of course, is a good anti-spam mechanism. Youtube annotations were a solution offered for free. It probably didn't make any sense for Google to implement a good (and expensive) anti-spam mechanism for it. But let's call it for what it is -- a cost-cutting measure made at the expense of users, most of whom are non-paying. There's no point in bringing up technical matters, there aren't any.
- 7y ago
panarky 7y ago
Would love to see a comparison of products "killed by Google" to products "killed by Microsoft" or even "killed by General Electric". I'd bet a week's paycheck that Google's list would be the shorter one.
- fragmede 7y ago
  Microsoft was founded in 1975, and GE was founded in 1892 (!), to Google's 1998, but there are likely angles that would make it interesting. Number killed/number alive? Number killed since y2k? etc
- sterlind 7y ago
  Microsoft hasn't killed many online services, and besides Azure doesn't have dominant control of the internet like Google does. MS kills support for old box products and hardware devices, but that doesn't mean you can't still use them! (Also, what would we even kill? Bing? MSN?) When Google pulls the plug on Nest, they burn an entire ecosystem, and piss off the people they should be working with on IoT. It's really stupid strategy.
  - bryanrasmussen 7y ago
    I gotta say, I would never develop anything on Google because I would worry I end up with some little niche business that brings a little extra for my efforts and then they'll kill it. It's an added risk.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  Not really. GE may have stopped making a radio your parents bought in 1948, but it's perfectly possible it still works. How many perfectly functional devices have GE bricked simply because they were bored of supporting them? MS Windows drivers support just about every ancient crusty device MS ever made - apparently forever. It's the web obsession with having every trivial action go through an online server - for data gathering - that breaks the consumer's implied contract with hardware devices: That they should simply work until physically beyond economic repair. Most of those simple web API actions could function just as well on the LAN, so the device could function indefinitely - you'd just lose remote access when the Google API server shuttered. The 99% case of controlling lights or thermostat whilst in the home would still work, just no longer remotely from a hotel 1,000 miles away.
wtvanhest 7y ago
I didn't realize they killed chromecast audio. Pretty frustrating. I may not have committed so much to their echosystem in Dec.
- lrem 7y ago
  They stopped selling it, once the stockpile run dry and the demand didn't warrant making another batch. Which was when I found a shop with them in stock and bought three. I believe they'll stay supported for a while. Disclaimer: I work at Google, but don't have insider knowledge on this.
  - StudentStuff 7y ago
    When will Google stop updating Chromecast Audio? As we've seen with recent Chromebook mass-end of supporting, Google is happy to leave devices bought 18+ months ago in a vulnerable, insecure state even when it'd be easy to keep life support on (like delivering a secure browser to these perfectly fine laptops, or providing minimal security patches to embedded devices). It seems like Google really can't handle long term support of anything that isn't wildly successful (200+ million users), and even for those things that hit said benchmark, long term support is bumpy, inconsistent and unpredictable.
- Insanity 7y ago
  The chromecast audio was a pretty cool device! Kind of a shame that they killed it off. I'm kind of being wary of google in general, they have a tendency to kill things I like :P

modzu 7y ago

that site is a bit disingenuous -- it doesn't distinguish between projects that were merely upgraded/renamed/deprecated for good reason for example, "secure google search" was "killed" but all this means is that instead of having to type "secure.google.com" to use encryption, google made HTTPS the default... there are lots of legitimate examples so such exaggerations seem unneccessary

Svip 7y ago
Odd. I can't find "secure google search" on the website. Are you confusing it with "Encrypted Search", that allowed you to search anonymously?
- modzu 7y ago
  see that's what i mean; "encrypted search" is on the list, which is referencing this: https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/7631341?hl=en https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/7631341?hl=en and does not have anything more to do with "anonymous" searching
  - Svip 7y ago
    OK, but then that's different. Because you were complaining that they were not differentiating between actual killed services and things that naturally reached their end of life, but in this case, the site is actually wrong. It clearly says that it provided provided users with anonymous search, which gives the impression of something like DuckDuckGo or Startpage. But that's not what's happening, and I think that's worse than your original complaint.
    - jcrites 7y ago
      For the curious, here is the about page for encrpted.google.com from 2010: https://web.archive.org/web/20100524223335/http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?answer=173733&hl=en https://web.archive.org/web/20100524223335/http://www.google... > Note that SSL search does not reduce the data that Google receives and logs when you search, or change the listing of these terms in your Web History
      - codyogden 7y ago
        The page you linked to is for "Google Search over SSL" and is not the same thing. Searches performed at encrypted.google.com (not just google.com with SSL) were not available in any user-facing capacity in one's Google account. It did not store the search queries in user-facing history, and did not use those terms for future search suggestions.
        icebraining 7y ago
        That's curious. I can't find any statement from Google saying that this was intended, though; seems more an oversight than a feature.

Andrex 7y ago

Pasting the same thing over and over in different threads regardless of context isn't exactly arguing in good faith or inviting nuanced discussion, so I wouldn't go that route myself...

staticautomatic 7y ago
It's not regardless of context. It's because of context.
- AlphaSite 7y ago
  It also is context.
TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
People new to the discussion may not have seen this page, so there’s that.

artursapek 7y ago

What a ridiculous website. Yes, the company that possibly writes more software than any other in the world has a lot of deprecated/dead software projects. Who would have thought? This would be more effective at making its point if it highlighted projects whose deprecation was particularly ungraceful/disruptive/careless, and explain how.

jankiehodgpodge 7y ago
When compared to other online services companies Google closes down a huge amount of products that still have a large user base or viable alternatives. You only need to look at how many messenging apps they've come up with over the years to see that there is something wrong with the way they manage their products. I'm a big user of Play music but can see the signs a mile off that it's being pushed into closing because of YouTube music, a service is straight up worse so I'll have to look around for alternatives.
la_barba 7y ago
No, actually, its YOU who hasn't understood the point of the website. The website aims to be a simple list of discontinued products. Now that you know what the point of the website is, you can decide for yourself if you want to visit it.

cortesoft 7y ago

I don't quite get what people expect... do they think that once google creates something, they are obligated to continue it indefinitely? That seems like an unreasonable expectation.

kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
I expect a "smart hub" to interoperate with a broad variety of devices. I expect existing banner features to not be revoked over petty turf wars. Google just made themselves irrelevant in yet another market.
bunderbunder 7y ago
No company is, and expecting any company to continue spending money on maintaining a service even if they've decided it isn't profitable is pollyannaish. To that end, I'm not sure I see the value in framing this specifically as a Google thing. Google is maybe the most visible because of how many products it has, and how popular many of them are. But really, this sort of thing is a problem that's inherent to any IoT devices that rely on proprietary cloud services, in whole or in part.
- walterbell 7y ago
  There's a difference between an IoT manufacturer going out of business, which causes related software services to terminate, and an IoT manufacturer failing to deliver on device claims made before the sale took place.
  - bunderbunder 7y ago
    There's also a difference between how we want things to work, and how they actually do. These services typically include some language in the EULA to the effect of, "We can disable parts of this device from our end, for any reason, at any time." And agreeing to those is almost certainly precondition for using the device. Which absolutely sucks. But it's the legal and consumer protection environment we live in right now. Pretending it isn't is -- hang the downvotes, I'm gonna double down on this -- pollyannaish. Until things change, your only real recourse as a consumer is to refuse to buy products that are sold under those sorts of terms. Which, unfortunately, does mean steering clear of IoT devices that rely on proprietary cloud services.

lettergram 7y ago

Huh didn’t realize YouTube annotations was killed off. Gotta say, most annoying thing to me was discontinuing support for the Nexus 6p after only 2 years. Made me switch to iPhone for ever.

bonzini 7y ago
YouTube annotations unfortunately were misused for spamming purposes. It is one of the few cases where you can say good riddance.
- herohamp 7y ago
  If you found them annoying you could always disable them, I was rather fond of them, people did lots of cool stuff with them. Like choose you're own adventure videos, and 3kliksphilips CSGO skin showcase videos. I think they should have kept them. They kept bitching about them not working on mobile but that's only because they chose not to support mobile
- mcbits 7y ago
  Annotations were also used to correct errors in educational videos after the videos were published. The errors are still there, but the corrections are gone. They replaced annotations with "cards" which are 100% spam.
- alxlaz 7y ago
  E-mail is also often misused for spamming purposes, and Gmail -- which is easy to sign up for and trusted by mail servers worldwide -- is often used for scams. Should we expect it to be terminated as well? Any solution that allows you to write stuff on the Interwebs can be misused for spam. The solution that every company is expected to come up with, of course, is a good anti-spam mechanism. Youtube annotations were a solution offered for free. It probably didn't make any sense for Google to implement a good (and expensive) anti-spam mechanism for it. But let's call it for what it is -- a cost-cutting measure made at the expense of users, most of whom are non-paying. There's no point in bringing up technical matters, there aren't any.
7y ago

panarky 7y ago

Would love to see a comparison of products "killed by Google" to products "killed by Microsoft" or even "killed by General Electric". I'd bet a week's paycheck that Google's list would be the shorter one.

fragmede 7y ago
Microsoft was founded in 1975, and GE was founded in 1892 (!), to Google's 1998, but there are likely angles that would make it interesting. Number killed/number alive? Number killed since y2k? etc
sterlind 7y ago
Microsoft hasn't killed many online services, and besides Azure doesn't have dominant control of the internet like Google does. MS kills support for old box products and hardware devices, but that doesn't mean you can't still use them! (Also, what would we even kill? Bing? MSN?) When Google pulls the plug on Nest, they burn an entire ecosystem, and piss off the people they should be working with on IoT. It's really stupid strategy.
- bryanrasmussen 7y ago
  I gotta say, I would never develop anything on Google because I would worry I end up with some little niche business that brings a little extra for my efforts and then they'll kill it. It's an added risk.
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
Not really. GE may have stopped making a radio your parents bought in 1948, but it's perfectly possible it still works. How many perfectly functional devices have GE bricked simply because they were bored of supporting them? MS Windows drivers support just about every ancient crusty device MS ever made - apparently forever. It's the web obsession with having every trivial action go through an online server - for data gathering - that breaks the consumer's implied contract with hardware devices: That they should simply work until physically beyond economic repair. Most of those simple web API actions could function just as well on the LAN, so the device could function indefinitely - you'd just lose remote access when the Google API server shuttered. The 99% case of controlling lights or thermostat whilst in the home would still work, just no longer remotely from a hotel 1,000 miles away.

wtvanhest 7y ago

I didn't realize they killed chromecast audio. Pretty frustrating. I may not have committed so much to their echosystem in Dec.

lrem 7y ago
They stopped selling it, once the stockpile run dry and the demand didn't warrant making another batch. Which was when I found a shop with them in stock and bought three. I believe they'll stay supported for a while. Disclaimer: I work at Google, but don't have insider knowledge on this.
- StudentStuff 7y ago
  When will Google stop updating Chromecast Audio? As we've seen with recent Chromebook mass-end of supporting, Google is happy to leave devices bought 18+ months ago in a vulnerable, insecure state even when it'd be easy to keep life support on (like delivering a secure browser to these perfectly fine laptops, or providing minimal security patches to embedded devices). It seems like Google really can't handle long term support of anything that isn't wildly successful (200+ million users), and even for those things that hit said benchmark, long term support is bumpy, inconsistent and unpredictable.
Insanity 7y ago
The chromecast audio was a pretty cool device! Kind of a shame that they killed it off. I'm kind of being wary of google in general, they have a tendency to kill things I like :P