5 ms·

Basically all of googles products produce significantly worse value for the consumer so that google can squeeze out extra profits. It’s only a matter of time be

Basically all of googles products produce significantly worse value for the consumer so that google can squeeze out extra profits. It’s only a matter of time before they start losing market share

Icathian 6y ago
I would argue that GSuite, Google Drive, and Gmail (the only things I currently pay Google for) all offer pretty excellent value, even at the free tier (for those which have one).
- symplee 6y ago
  Just for comparison, what percentage of their overall yearly revenue do those three products represent?
  - justicezyx 6y ago
    That's the point. The ads revenue subsides other products. And that's always Google's argument of upholding that business model. Google claims ads-supported internet is key to retain the free offering.
- acdha 6y ago
  I used to think that but G Suite hasn't notably improved in years and I don't think everyone bailing to Office 365 / Teams is doing so out of blind loyalty to Microsoft. Google needs to take the user experience seriously — things which aren't a Real Engineer's Favorite Problems™ are often just as important.
  - judge2020 6y ago
    In my opinion, the Office 365 trend still stems from Microsoft's desktop monopoly and everyone being trained/taught on Microsoft Office. GSuite is doing just fine but I know of startups and "hip" medium-sized companies choosing it over Office 365 since so many people don't want to change from using MS Office; having to retrain your employees to use Docs, Sheets, and Drive might be too big of a cost.
    - Goronmon 6y ago
      My admittedly limited experience with Google's offerings for Docs, Sheets, etc was they were noticeably inferior and limited compared to Microsoft's. In my opinion, its more likely that professionals who heavily use those tools are going to favor MS offerings over Google's compared to people who only need to occasionally created simple word documents or spreadsheets with a handful of columns.
      - mywittyname 6y ago
        The more I use G Suite, the more I hate it. There are so many edge cases that I encounter in professional use that I never did when using these tools for personal stuff. I miss Excel the most.
    - pubutil 6y ago
      Part of the necessity of Office at the company I work is that they use macros in Excel to help with certain tasks. Looking at it now, GSheets has macros but I’m not sure that they’re as functional as a VBA macro. GDocs has found a nice spot in one of our departments as a scheduling tool, though.
    - ocdtrekkie 6y ago
      As an IT person, I am constantly shocked by the obscure Microsoft Office features users depend on to do their jobs and consider their job impossible without. Often features I personally have never heard of and find unholy and abhorrent by nature. G Suite has none of those features. Docs has more in common with WordPad than Word. It's unsurprising offices that switch to it end up switching back as Microsoft has finally stepped up it's collaborative editing game. And that's before we even get into things like Excel and Access which are basically automation for people who can't write JavaScript.
    - tracker1 6y ago
      That's just not the case here... o365+Teams is above and beyond a better experience than GDocs, even in Linux... Since January, they even fixed all the issues I had with Teams in Linux (unofficial and official apps). I really wanted to like GDocs, it's just a really poor experience in general.
  - mattkevan 6y ago
    Been using G Suite at various companies I’ve worked on for a decade and it’s not improved much at all. Docs, sheets and slides are still limited and the iOS app versions are a joke. All that’s happened is that Gmail gets slower with each redesign. One of the biggest boosts to my productivity was reverting back to the old html only version.
    - acdha 6y ago
      Yeah, my experience recently really reminds me of 90s Microsoft just coasting — except that they forgot to get that level of marketshare first.
  - ximeng 6y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18948715 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18948715 Also Excel not standing still. Google missing opportunities here. They have made improvements though - Google sheets can now work on Excel format files without changing the format. However they have managed to break copy and paste, with trademark Google lack of service. (https://support.google.com/docs/thread/33960847?hl=en https://support.google.com/docs/thread/33960847?hl=en - and I see other problems with borders randomly appearing in pasted cells)
- jmpman 6y ago
  I’d pay for Gmail, as all my important personal emails went there. However, I didn’t realize that Gmail was deleting my old emails. If they were more clear that if I didn’t pay, they were going to select, then I’d pay. Now I’m just pissed at Google. If they offered me to pay money to make my deleted emails available, and then lock me into a trivial monthly fee ($10?), I’d jump on it.
  - Tyr42 6y ago
    Wait what? Is this enterprise where it was deleting old emails?
  - kentosi 6y ago
    Do you have a source claiming that Gmail is deleting old emails?
- CoolGuySteve 6y ago
  I use GSuite for work, the interface is slower than Eudora on a 486, it breaks a lot of formatting from Outlook users, and for some reason Docs and Sheets documents are confusingly in different places. It leaves a lot to be desired, I’m not sure Office could be much worse.
  - tracker1 6y ago
    I'm generally amazed how well the o365 stuff actually works... I do wish I could edit Visio documents online though, viewing seems to work okay-ish. I'm also not sure if/what they'll come up for Access. While I like JS, I think the shift towards JS/TS for macros in online versions is seeing some resistance to. All of this said, still leaps and bounds better than gdocs.

Basically all of googles products produce significantly worse value for the consumer so that google can squeeze out extra profits. It’s only a matter of time before they start losing market share

Icathian 6y ago

I would argue that GSuite, Google Drive, and Gmail (the only things I currently pay Google for) all offer pretty excellent value, even at the free tier (for those which have one).

symplee 6y ago
Just for comparison, what percentage of their overall yearly revenue do those three products represent?
- justicezyx 6y ago
  That's the point. The ads revenue subsides other products. And that's always Google's argument of upholding that business model. Google claims ads-supported internet is key to retain the free offering.
acdha 6y ago
I used to think that but G Suite hasn't notably improved in years and I don't think everyone bailing to Office 365 / Teams is doing so out of blind loyalty to Microsoft. Google needs to take the user experience seriously — things which aren't a Real Engineer's Favorite Problems™ are often just as important.
- judge2020 6y ago
  In my opinion, the Office 365 trend still stems from Microsoft's desktop monopoly and everyone being trained/taught on Microsoft Office. GSuite is doing just fine but I know of startups and "hip" medium-sized companies choosing it over Office 365 since so many people don't want to change from using MS Office; having to retrain your employees to use Docs, Sheets, and Drive might be too big of a cost.
  - Goronmon 6y ago
    My admittedly limited experience with Google's offerings for Docs, Sheets, etc was they were noticeably inferior and limited compared to Microsoft's. In my opinion, its more likely that professionals who heavily use those tools are going to favor MS offerings over Google's compared to people who only need to occasionally created simple word documents or spreadsheets with a handful of columns.
    - mywittyname 6y ago
      The more I use G Suite, the more I hate it. There are so many edge cases that I encounter in professional use that I never did when using these tools for personal stuff. I miss Excel the most.
  - pubutil 6y ago
    Part of the necessity of Office at the company I work is that they use macros in Excel to help with certain tasks. Looking at it now, GSheets has macros but I’m not sure that they’re as functional as a VBA macro. GDocs has found a nice spot in one of our departments as a scheduling tool, though.
  - ocdtrekkie 6y ago
    As an IT person, I am constantly shocked by the obscure Microsoft Office features users depend on to do their jobs and consider their job impossible without. Often features I personally have never heard of and find unholy and abhorrent by nature. G Suite has none of those features. Docs has more in common with WordPad than Word. It's unsurprising offices that switch to it end up switching back as Microsoft has finally stepped up it's collaborative editing game. And that's before we even get into things like Excel and Access which are basically automation for people who can't write JavaScript.
  - tracker1 6y ago
    That's just not the case here... o365+Teams is above and beyond a better experience than GDocs, even in Linux... Since January, they even fixed all the issues I had with Teams in Linux (unofficial and official apps). I really wanted to like GDocs, it's just a really poor experience in general.
- mattkevan 6y ago
  Been using G Suite at various companies I’ve worked on for a decade and it’s not improved much at all. Docs, sheets and slides are still limited and the iOS app versions are a joke. All that’s happened is that Gmail gets slower with each redesign. One of the biggest boosts to my productivity was reverting back to the old html only version.
  - acdha 6y ago
    Yeah, my experience recently really reminds me of 90s Microsoft just coasting — except that they forgot to get that level of marketshare first.
- ximeng 6y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18948715 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18948715 Also Excel not standing still. Google missing opportunities here. They have made improvements though - Google sheets can now work on Excel format files without changing the format. However they have managed to break copy and paste, with trademark Google lack of service. (https://support.google.com/docs/thread/33960847?hl=en https://support.google.com/docs/thread/33960847?hl=en - and I see other problems with borders randomly appearing in pasted cells)
jmpman 6y ago
I’d pay for Gmail, as all my important personal emails went there. However, I didn’t realize that Gmail was deleting my old emails. If they were more clear that if I didn’t pay, they were going to select, then I’d pay. Now I’m just pissed at Google. If they offered me to pay money to make my deleted emails available, and then lock me into a trivial monthly fee ($10?), I’d jump on it.
- Tyr42 6y ago
  Wait what? Is this enterprise where it was deleting old emails?
- kentosi 6y ago
  Do you have a source claiming that Gmail is deleting old emails?
CoolGuySteve 6y ago
I use GSuite for work, the interface is slower than Eudora on a 486, it breaks a lot of formatting from Outlook users, and for some reason Docs and Sheets documents are confusingly in different places. It leaves a lot to be desired, I’m not sure Office could be much worse.
- tracker1 6y ago
  I'm generally amazed how well the o365 stuff actually works... I do wish I could edit Visio documents online though, viewing seems to work okay-ish. I'm also not sure if/what they'll come up for Access. While I like JS, I think the shift towards JS/TS for macros in online versions is seeing some resistance to. All of this said, still leaps and bounds better than gdocs.