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Stories like this are why I will never buy a product like Stadia from Google. There is zero guarantee the product and games purchased on the platform will be u

Stories like this are why I will never buy a product like Stadia from Google. There is zero guarantee the product and games purchased on the platform will be usable next month (exaggerating a bit) or next year. This extends to all things Google. When building a new product, I push hard to use any alternative to Google because the future of their products is so uncertain. Sure, there are a few Google products that can be reasonably relied upon, but that list is small.

myko 6y ago
I'm a big fan of Stadia but really can't argue against this thought process. It would be nice if Google had some way of marking products that were potentially going to be cancelled vs those that have passed the threshold and will not go away unless Google is in danger of going away completely. Reader really looks like the breaking of a dam in hindsight.
- MengerSponge 6y ago
  'member when Google threw away their innovative social network in order to break the "+" boolean search operator?
- Osiris 6y ago
  If Stadia were just a monthly subscription and you could play all the games, it wouldn't be hard to swallow because they just stop charging you when the service goes down and you got your value out of it while you had it. It's the "purchasing" of the digital good that's the problem because you loose access to something that you think you "own" when in fact it's more of a lease.
  - throwawaycuriou 6y ago
    I understand the confusion around Stadia pricing tiers, but if you buy a game on the service you can play it without any monthly fee. It's comparable to the lease you make with Valve with the expectation of Steam being around forever.
    - fiblye 6y ago
      There wasn’t any confusion. Their point was they’d much rather pay a monthly fee, because as it is, paying full price to “own” a Stadia game is ridiculous because Stadia is going to end up dead like most other google services and all the games you “own” will likely disappear.
    - gambiting 6y ago
      The problem is that Valve doesn't have a history of just cancelling their products and shutting their customers out. Google does, and an extensive one. So when they offer a service where you can buy software and said software will only work for as long as Stadia is around, I don't trust Google that service will exist in 3 years. And once it finally dies what will Google do? Give everyone AdWord vouchers?
    - mech422 6y ago
      Except on steam, you can install your purchases locally. So you can probably play them directly (Hmm..I should try and see)
abnry 6y ago
I mean, do you ever doubt that Search, Gmail, or YouTube will ever get shelved? Seems like only the niche things get binned.
- kohtatsu 6y ago
  The 3 you came up with are extremely low hanging fruit.
- dorkinspace 6y ago
  Those 3 along with maps, ads, and a handful of others make up the list of "safe" Google products. I agree with you though, it is the niche products that get shutdown. My point is that being an early adopter of Google products is a very risky move. Until a product is adopted by the masses and profitable, it should not be considered safe.
  - at-fates-hands 6y ago
    Back in the day, I used to be all in on the Google bandwagon. I was in on Wave, Buzz, Meebo and bunch of others. After a few years of cycling through the standard phases: 1) Wow this is really cool 2) Wow I'm starting to use this everyday 3) Wow my friends should know about 4) Google is killing this Once you get over the idea their killing something you started to rely on and then you experience their "customer service" a few times you just wonder if its actually about trying to make the world a better place, or just adding revenue to their bottom line. My conclusion a long time ago was not to use them for anything personal and FFS nothing I would have my business rely on.
    - Izkata 6y ago
      Several years later, Wave was especially disappointing to me: It was Slack, before Slack was a thing. They just didn't know how to market Wave, so no one knew why it was useful. If Wave was first released a couple years later, with identical functionality, I think it would've done well.
- fastball 6y ago
totalZero 6y ago
Ever since Google told me to buzz off when I contacted them about the bootloop of death that bricked my Nexus 6P immediately after an automatic software update, I haven't bought a single hardware product marketed by them or supported by them. I won't even let myself use Google Fi. They earned my distrust.
- kyrra 6y ago
  (Googler, opinion is my own) I think one big thing that differs between the Nexus line and the Pixel line of phones is who was actually supporting the phone after its sale. The Nexus phones were these shared branding between Google and the makers (LG, HTC, whoever). So it led to some pointing at the other person when there were problems. With the Pixel line, Google fully owns support of the devices, which makes it a bit easier for Google to deal with customer support issues like this.
  - m0xte 6y ago
    Ah yes the famed google customer support. Spent five days trying to get a g-suite dashboard error fixed immediately after provisioning. Eventually I switched to O365 with no regrets. And then there was the bricked chromecast from hell which they wouldn’t even acknowledge. Switched to Apple TV with no regrets. Add the usual quality control (how many years did my android phone alarm not go off or my SD card get trashed with photos on). Nope!
  - totalZero 6y ago
    That's a poor (and partially false) defense for Google's handling of the Bootloop of Death, for the following reasons: I bought Google's flagship handset online from the Google Store. It was branded as the "Google Nexus 6P", it was shipped to me by Google, and it bricked itself while booting after a Google-supplied Android update. Google provided and managed the warranty. I had one warranty claim with them prior to my phone bricking itself, handled entirely by Google; Huawei was not involved in that claim at all. My relationship as a consumer of a Google product is with Google, not with its contract manufacturer. The Bootloop of Death affected multiple SKUs across different Nexus models. The 5X was manufactured by LG for Google, and the 6P was manufactured by Huawei for Google. The Bootloop of Death was present on both models. If Google has a quarrel with Huawei, LG, or another contract manufacturer over the cost of managing a defect, that's their prerogative. However, I am not party to that quarrel. I am just a customer who bought Google's flagship handset. Google suggested that I contact the nearest Huawei service center...in mainland China. The company took an arrogant "who, me?" attitude toward its flagship handset, and tried to weasel its way out of dealing with valid customer complaints, rather than taking some semblance of responsibility for an obvious problem. > The Nexus phones were these shared branding between Google and the makers (LG, HTC, whoever) This is not true. The Nexus 6P was marketed by Google, not in a shared manner. You're thinking of the Nexus 6, a Motorola-made device that preceded the 6P and was offered in some markets without Google branding. > With the Pixel line, Google fully owns support of the devices, which makes it a bit easier for Google to deal with customer support issues like this. Google fully owned support for the Nexus 6P until the bootloop issue came around, at which point Google changed its policies. Also, Pixel devices have been manufactured by competing handset manufacturers for Google (Pixel 2 phones were manufactured by HTC and LG). The result of my experience is that I will never, so long as I live, ever buy another Google hardware product. Not a single one. I will not buy a Nest Thermostat. I will not buy a Chromecast. If my best friend has a lapse in judgment and makes the mistake of buying a Pixelbook, I will wait for him to leave it on the couch, unintentionally sit on it, and buy him a 16" Macbook Pro as a replacement -- apologizing profusely all the while, unlike Google support which was ostensibly trained not to use the phrase, "I'm sorry." Every time someone tries to defend Google for its handling of the Nexus Bootloop of Death fiasco, I add twenty years to the length of time that the trustees of my estate will prohibit my assets from being used to buy Google hardware products after I am dead and gone.
Marsymars 6y ago
> There is zero guarantee the product and games purchased on the platform will be usable next month (exaggerating a bit) or next year. Keep in mind that this is a conscious decision. Google could easily provide a contractual guarantee to Stadia customers.
- facorreia 6y ago
  Absolutely. The fact that they choose to not provide this guarantee is a major red flag and a strong reason for me to not spend money on that platform. On the other hand, I have zero concern that my digital licenses of XBox or PlayStation games will vanish within the next couple decades.
  - rlayton2 6y ago
    Well, you should have a little concern. On my switch, I can buy games either digitally or physically for just about the same price. I buy most games physically, as one cannot guarantee the server that downloads games will work in 10 years (my Wii doesn't do this type of stuff now, but its less integral). Pretty much any online game will be shut down, its just a case of when.
    - smileybarry 6y ago
      > as one cannot guarantee the server that downloads games will work in 10 years While true, the pain point with Stadia is you have no downloads, for better and for worse. If Nintendo take their download servers down, you can still play all of your downloaded purchases. On that note, I have much more faith in Nintendo's future handling of digital purchases this time around. They've put a lot more effort into the Switch's digital services compared to the Wii, which at times felt like an afterthought with the whole "WiiWare" artificial gatekeeping fiasco.
pjmlp 6y ago
What about B̶r̶i̶l̶l̶o̶, A̶n̶d̶r̶o̶i̶d̶ ̶T̶h̶i̶n̶g̶s̶ (no news since [1]) Or A̶n̶d̶r̶o̶i̶d̶ ̶W̶e̶a̶r̶, W̶e̶a̶r̶ ̶O̶S̶ (no news since [2]) [1] - https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2019/02/an-update-on-android-things.html https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2019/02/an-update-... [2] - https://blog.google/products/wear-os/investing-wear-os-ecosystem/ https://blog.google/products/wear-os/investing-wear-os-ecosy...

myko 6y ago

I'm a big fan of Stadia but really can't argue against this thought process. It would be nice if Google had some way of marking products that were potentially going to be cancelled vs those that have passed the threshold and will not go away unless Google is in danger of going away completely. Reader really looks like the breaking of a dam in hindsight.

MengerSponge 6y ago
'member when Google threw away their innovative social network in order to break the "+" boolean search operator?
Osiris 6y ago
If Stadia were just a monthly subscription and you could play all the games, it wouldn't be hard to swallow because they just stop charging you when the service goes down and you got your value out of it while you had it. It's the "purchasing" of the digital good that's the problem because you loose access to something that you think you "own" when in fact it's more of a lease.
- throwawaycuriou 6y ago
  I understand the confusion around Stadia pricing tiers, but if you buy a game on the service you can play it without any monthly fee. It's comparable to the lease you make with Valve with the expectation of Steam being around forever.
  - fiblye 6y ago
    There wasn’t any confusion. Their point was they’d much rather pay a monthly fee, because as it is, paying full price to “own” a Stadia game is ridiculous because Stadia is going to end up dead like most other google services and all the games you “own” will likely disappear.
  - gambiting 6y ago
    The problem is that Valve doesn't have a history of just cancelling their products and shutting their customers out. Google does, and an extensive one. So when they offer a service where you can buy software and said software will only work for as long as Stadia is around, I don't trust Google that service will exist in 3 years. And once it finally dies what will Google do? Give everyone AdWord vouchers?
  - mech422 6y ago
    Except on steam, you can install your purchases locally. So you can probably play them directly (Hmm..I should try and see)

abnry 6y ago

I mean, do you ever doubt that Search, Gmail, or YouTube will ever get shelved? Seems like only the niche things get binned.

kohtatsu 6y ago
The 3 you came up with are extremely low hanging fruit.
dorkinspace 6y ago
Those 3 along with maps, ads, and a handful of others make up the list of "safe" Google products. I agree with you though, it is the niche products that get shutdown. My point is that being an early adopter of Google products is a very risky move. Until a product is adopted by the masses and profitable, it should not be considered safe.
- at-fates-hands 6y ago
  Back in the day, I used to be all in on the Google bandwagon. I was in on Wave, Buzz, Meebo and bunch of others. After a few years of cycling through the standard phases: 1) Wow this is really cool 2) Wow I'm starting to use this everyday 3) Wow my friends should know about 4) Google is killing this Once you get over the idea their killing something you started to rely on and then you experience their "customer service" a few times you just wonder if its actually about trying to make the world a better place, or just adding revenue to their bottom line. My conclusion a long time ago was not to use them for anything personal and FFS nothing I would have my business rely on.
  - Izkata 6y ago
    Several years later, Wave was especially disappointing to me: It was Slack, before Slack was a thing. They just didn't know how to market Wave, so no one knew why it was useful. If Wave was first released a couple years later, with identical functionality, I think it would've done well.
fastball 6y ago

totalZero 6y ago

Ever since Google told me to buzz off when I contacted them about the bootloop of death that bricked my Nexus 6P immediately after an automatic software update, I haven't bought a single hardware product marketed by them or supported by them. I won't even let myself use Google Fi. They earned my distrust.

kyrra 6y ago
(Googler, opinion is my own) I think one big thing that differs between the Nexus line and the Pixel line of phones is who was actually supporting the phone after its sale. The Nexus phones were these shared branding between Google and the makers (LG, HTC, whoever). So it led to some pointing at the other person when there were problems. With the Pixel line, Google fully owns support of the devices, which makes it a bit easier for Google to deal with customer support issues like this.
- m0xte 6y ago
  Ah yes the famed google customer support. Spent five days trying to get a g-suite dashboard error fixed immediately after provisioning. Eventually I switched to O365 with no regrets. And then there was the bricked chromecast from hell which they wouldn’t even acknowledge. Switched to Apple TV with no regrets. Add the usual quality control (how many years did my android phone alarm not go off or my SD card get trashed with photos on). Nope!
- totalZero 6y ago
  That's a poor (and partially false) defense for Google's handling of the Bootloop of Death, for the following reasons: I bought Google's flagship handset online from the Google Store. It was branded as the "Google Nexus 6P", it was shipped to me by Google, and it bricked itself while booting after a Google-supplied Android update. Google provided and managed the warranty. I had one warranty claim with them prior to my phone bricking itself, handled entirely by Google; Huawei was not involved in that claim at all. My relationship as a consumer of a Google product is with Google, not with its contract manufacturer. The Bootloop of Death affected multiple SKUs across different Nexus models. The 5X was manufactured by LG for Google, and the 6P was manufactured by Huawei for Google. The Bootloop of Death was present on both models. If Google has a quarrel with Huawei, LG, or another contract manufacturer over the cost of managing a defect, that's their prerogative. However, I am not party to that quarrel. I am just a customer who bought Google's flagship handset. Google suggested that I contact the nearest Huawei service center...in mainland China. The company took an arrogant "who, me?" attitude toward its flagship handset, and tried to weasel its way out of dealing with valid customer complaints, rather than taking some semblance of responsibility for an obvious problem. > The Nexus phones were these shared branding between Google and the makers (LG, HTC, whoever) This is not true. The Nexus 6P was marketed by Google, not in a shared manner. You're thinking of the Nexus 6, a Motorola-made device that preceded the 6P and was offered in some markets without Google branding. > With the Pixel line, Google fully owns support of the devices, which makes it a bit easier for Google to deal with customer support issues like this. Google fully owned support for the Nexus 6P until the bootloop issue came around, at which point Google changed its policies. Also, Pixel devices have been manufactured by competing handset manufacturers for Google (Pixel 2 phones were manufactured by HTC and LG). The result of my experience is that I will never, so long as I live, ever buy another Google hardware product. Not a single one. I will not buy a Nest Thermostat. I will not buy a Chromecast. If my best friend has a lapse in judgment and makes the mistake of buying a Pixelbook, I will wait for him to leave it on the couch, unintentionally sit on it, and buy him a 16" Macbook Pro as a replacement -- apologizing profusely all the while, unlike Google support which was ostensibly trained not to use the phrase, "I'm sorry." Every time someone tries to defend Google for its handling of the Nexus Bootloop of Death fiasco, I add twenty years to the length of time that the trustees of my estate will prohibit my assets from being used to buy Google hardware products after I am dead and gone.

Marsymars 6y ago

> There is zero guarantee the product and games purchased on the platform will be usable next month (exaggerating a bit) or next year. Keep in mind that this is a conscious decision. Google could easily provide a contractual guarantee to Stadia customers.

facorreia 6y ago
Absolutely. The fact that they choose to not provide this guarantee is a major red flag and a strong reason for me to not spend money on that platform. On the other hand, I have zero concern that my digital licenses of XBox or PlayStation games will vanish within the next couple decades.
- rlayton2 6y ago
  Well, you should have a little concern. On my switch, I can buy games either digitally or physically for just about the same price. I buy most games physically, as one cannot guarantee the server that downloads games will work in 10 years (my Wii doesn't do this type of stuff now, but its less integral). Pretty much any online game will be shut down, its just a case of when.
  - smileybarry 6y ago
    > as one cannot guarantee the server that downloads games will work in 10 years While true, the pain point with Stadia is you have no downloads, for better and for worse. If Nintendo take their download servers down, you can still play all of your downloaded purchases. On that note, I have much more faith in Nintendo's future handling of digital purchases this time around. They've put a lot more effort into the Switch's digital services compared to the Wii, which at times felt like an afterthought with the whole "WiiWare" artificial gatekeeping fiasco.

pjmlp 6y ago

What about B̶r̶i̶l̶l̶o̶, A̶n̶d̶r̶o̶i̶d̶ ̶T̶h̶i̶n̶g̶s̶ (no news since [1]) Or A̶n̶d̶r̶o̶i̶d̶ ̶W̶e̶a̶r̶, W̶e̶a̶r̶ ̶O̶S̶ (no news since [2]) [1] - https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2019/02/an-update-on-android-things.html https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2019/02/an-update-... [2] - https://blog.google/products/wear-os/investing-wear-os-ecosystem/ https://blog.google/products/wear-os/investing-wear-os-ecosy...