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Everyone is criticizing Google for ending many of their services lately. However, are we being biased? Considering a very high amount of various different servi

Everyone is criticizing Google for ending many of their services lately. However, are we being biased? Considering a very high amount of various different services Google is offering (much more than any other typical company), it would make sense that their discontinuing rate would be higher than others as well. Someone should do a statistics check or comparison vs. other big companies for a more accurate assessment. The fact that Google gets reported on the news more often may make their service cancellation rate appear with a higher frequency as well. It's fashionable to blame Google for most things these days, but in honesty, if Google were truly evil they could have done much worse things. Considering all the data and technologies they possess, Google has the power to destroy any companies or competitors if they really wanted to. For example, throughout all these years I could never understand how Google allowed Yelp to become what they are today. Google own all the core technologies in that space: search, map, mobile OS. They literally have all the home fied advantages, yet Google decided to take a step back and allowed Yelp to take the lead. They could have easily destroyed Yelp anytime they wanted to but they never did that. To me personally, Google is probably the most reasonable and undervalued company out there. With similar power in their hands, other companies would have just gone all out and probably be extremely evil for a crazy amount of profits in return, but for Google they have always refrained themselves from doing exactly that. Too bad most people just never considered this angle.

scottlocklin 7y ago
> Everyone is criticizing Google for ending many of their services lately. However, are we being biased? I dunno; I don't really care about any of it; I've never trusted them enough to use any of their products I wasn't actually giving them money for. >Considering all the data and technologies they possess, Google has the power to destroy any companies or competitors if they really wanted to. Lolwut? No, actually, they don't. They didn't beat Yelp in the early days because they weren't in the game. They may eventually do so, as Yelp degenerates into a stupid protection racket, but hopefully this entire idea goes away, as until they solve the sibyl problem, its a horse shit idea. And if they started doing crap like this (for no reason, mind you: google is an ad company), they'd very likely end up lots of little baby googles the way ATT did. They probably will anyway. And good riddance to bad rubbish. Of course they've long since jumped the shark, and even removed the "don't be evil" part of their corporate motto.
blihp 7y ago
Sure, they can spin up and shut down any service they want any time and that's their right. But the price they pay is that many no longer trust their services to be around long term and make purchasing/adoption decisions accordingly. This feeds back into what are likely less impressive uptake numbers. At some point, their lack of commitment to their own products/services becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

scottlocklin 7y ago

> Everyone is criticizing Google for ending many of their services lately. However, are we being biased? I dunno; I don't really care about any of it; I've never trusted them enough to use any of their products I wasn't actually giving them money for. >Considering all the data and technologies they possess, Google has the power to destroy any companies or competitors if they really wanted to. Lolwut? No, actually, they don't. They didn't beat Yelp in the early days because they weren't in the game. They may eventually do so, as Yelp degenerates into a stupid protection racket, but hopefully this entire idea goes away, as until they solve the sibyl problem, its a horse shit idea. And if they started doing crap like this (for no reason, mind you: google is an ad company), they'd very likely end up lots of little baby googles the way ATT did. They probably will anyway. And good riddance to bad rubbish. Of course they've long since jumped the shark, and even removed the "don't be evil" part of their corporate motto.

blihp 7y ago

Sure, they can spin up and shut down any service they want any time and that's their right. But the price they pay is that many no longer trust their services to be around long term and make purchasing/adoption decisions accordingly. This feeds back into what are likely less impressive uptake numbers. At some point, their lack of commitment to their own products/services becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.