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The product has been around 10 years, and they're giving over a year notice before killing it. Sure, Google kills off another product... But the comments here

The product has been around 10 years, and they're giving over a year notice before killing it. Sure, Google kills off another product... But the comments here are a bit silly.

tyingq 7y ago
Count up the collective hours spent figuring out why your printer no longer works and finding a new solution. The vast majority of people using it won't see this news. If Google doesn't make the Chromebook transition seamless and invisible, it'll be even worse.
- dmix 7y ago
  Native print was originally offered in 2017 and they’ll have until 2021 to migrate to it.
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    Does Native Print work over the Internet? That's what Cloud Print did
kerng 7y ago
I am waiting for the day they kill Chromebook or Gsuites - its sometimes difficult to follow why they do terminate certain products. In this case it will hurt enterprises, a market Google desperately tries to enter...
kllrnohj 7y ago
Counter-argument: Just let it sit there and keep working? Outside of security patches, if there even are any, there's always the option of "just stop touching it." After all, the whole pitch of elastic compute is you only pay for what you use. It's not like resources are being freed up for other things here. The software industry is always on this treadmill of churn, leading to stable products continuing to have a constant maintenance burden. But that's not an intrinsic property of the area. It's a thing we do because... we can? We want to? But it's not required. Silo it off and just leave it be.
- arkanciscan 7y ago
  See: Google Play Music
  - FactolSarin 7y ago
    Which I still prefer to YouTube music, it's theoretical replacement
- q3k 7y ago
  > Counter-argument: Just let it sit there and keep working? Outside of security patches, if there even are any, there's always the option of "just stop touching it." That's not exactly possible with a monorepo that has no branches and everything has to be maintained 'in step'. Any time a library breaks API, all dependents must pass tests, and/or be fixed so that they do. Any time a runtime API breaks (think things like interfaces to runtime authentication, compute scheduling, database services, network bandwidth scheduling), updated services must be made to conform and then be rolled out. As with real life, this might mean getting a 1 or 2 year old deployment system (configuration for production, roll out code, ...) undusted, understood, probably fixed in turn, etc. As such, some SRE/SWE team _must_ be responsible for projects that are in the "don't touch"/maintenance phase. This is very unsexy, toil-y and you don't get promoted for it - and as such barely anyone wants to do it at Google.
  - formercoder 7y ago
    This. Someone has to be in OWNERS and it’s difficult to find people willing to do this because fixing breakage due to API changes isn’t going to be on anyone’s OKRs. And if it’s not on your OKRs, it’s not contributing to your promo.
    - eecc 7y ago
      Which proves the futility of these OKR metrics. Once the metric becomes the objective, it loses any usefulness, indeed it becomes the opposite
syshum 7y ago
Just another Example of KilledbyGoogle And one Reason (of many) why I will NEVER buy a Google Stadia Game or put anything mission critical on a Google Product /. Service
president 7y ago
I'm not a big proponent of Google but I agree. Most companies jettison under-performing projects but since Google is a juggernaut, I think they get extra flack for it.
- lonelappde 7y ago
  What does underperforming mean? Cloud Print isn't a standalone product, it's part of the overall Google account service, which the company is deeply invested in.
2OEH8eoCRo0 7y ago
If you think the comments here are silly take a look at what /r/android thinks https://old.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/dzqr2d/google_cloud_print_is_shutting_down_in_2021/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/dzqr2d/google_clou...
Johnny555 7y ago
Isn't Google Cloud Print built into some printers? So some people may have had a purchase decision based on a feature thats going away in a year. Seems like a reason to be upset even with a year's notice.
fudged71 7y ago
Consider that Cloud Print certified printers are on store shelves and will likely be sold for the next 6+ months.

The product has been around 10 years, and they're giving over a year notice before killing it. Sure, Google kills off another product... But the comments here are a bit silly.

tyingq 7y ago

Count up the collective hours spent figuring out why your printer no longer works and finding a new solution. The vast majority of people using it won't see this news. If Google doesn't make the Chromebook transition seamless and invisible, it'll be even worse.

dmix 7y ago
Native print was originally offered in 2017 and they’ll have until 2021 to migrate to it.
- lonelappde 7y ago
  Does Native Print work over the Internet? That's what Cloud Print did

kerng 7y ago

I am waiting for the day they kill Chromebook or Gsuites - its sometimes difficult to follow why they do terminate certain products. In this case it will hurt enterprises, a market Google desperately tries to enter...

kllrnohj 7y ago

Counter-argument: Just let it sit there and keep working? Outside of security patches, if there even are any, there's always the option of "just stop touching it." After all, the whole pitch of elastic compute is you only pay for what you use. It's not like resources are being freed up for other things here. The software industry is always on this treadmill of churn, leading to stable products continuing to have a constant maintenance burden. But that's not an intrinsic property of the area. It's a thing we do because... we can? We want to? But it's not required. Silo it off and just leave it be.

arkanciscan 7y ago
See: Google Play Music
- FactolSarin 7y ago
  Which I still prefer to YouTube music, it's theoretical replacement
q3k 7y ago
> Counter-argument: Just let it sit there and keep working? Outside of security patches, if there even are any, there's always the option of "just stop touching it." That's not exactly possible with a monorepo that has no branches and everything has to be maintained 'in step'. Any time a library breaks API, all dependents must pass tests, and/or be fixed so that they do. Any time a runtime API breaks (think things like interfaces to runtime authentication, compute scheduling, database services, network bandwidth scheduling), updated services must be made to conform and then be rolled out. As with real life, this might mean getting a 1 or 2 year old deployment system (configuration for production, roll out code, ...) undusted, understood, probably fixed in turn, etc. As such, some SRE/SWE team _must_ be responsible for projects that are in the "don't touch"/maintenance phase. This is very unsexy, toil-y and you don't get promoted for it - and as such barely anyone wants to do it at Google.
- formercoder 7y ago
  This. Someone has to be in OWNERS and it’s difficult to find people willing to do this because fixing breakage due to API changes isn’t going to be on anyone’s OKRs. And if it’s not on your OKRs, it’s not contributing to your promo.
  - eecc 7y ago
    Which proves the futility of these OKR metrics. Once the metric becomes the objective, it loses any usefulness, indeed it becomes the opposite

syshum 7y ago

Just another Example of KilledbyGoogle And one Reason (of many) why I will NEVER buy a Google Stadia Game or put anything mission critical on a Google Product /. Service

president 7y ago

I'm not a big proponent of Google but I agree. Most companies jettison under-performing projects but since Google is a juggernaut, I think they get extra flack for it.

lonelappde 7y ago
What does underperforming mean? Cloud Print isn't a standalone product, it's part of the overall Google account service, which the company is deeply invested in.

2OEH8eoCRo0 7y ago

If you think the comments here are silly take a look at what /r/android thinks https://old.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/dzqr2d/google_cloud_print_is_shutting_down_in_2021/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/dzqr2d/google_clou...

Johnny555 7y ago

Isn't Google Cloud Print built into some printers? So some people may have had a purchase decision based on a feature thats going away in a year. Seems like a reason to be upset even with a year's notice.

fudged71 7y ago

Consider that Cloud Print certified printers are on store shelves and will likely be sold for the next 6+ months.