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That's an impressively long list but some of those entries are a bit of a stretch. Google Nexus, for example, was rebranded as Google Pixel. Most people wouldn'

That's an impressively long list but some of those entries are a bit of a stretch. Google Nexus, for example, was rebranded as Google Pixel. Most people wouldn't describe rebranding as "killing" a product.

judge2020 6y ago
A quick list: Angular: v1 is "dead", but is still receiving major version updates https://angular.io/guide/updating-to-version-10 https://angular.io/guide/updating-to-version-10 Hangouts: meet.google.com Password Checkup: integrated into Chrome, Firefox has its own thing as well. Google Photos Print: it's just no longer a subscription service that automatically selects photos (who would want something to pick a photo book's photos for you??). https://www.google.com/photos/printing/ https://www.google.com/photos/printing/ Shoelace: Kind of disingenuous to include Area 120 projects, which are experiments by design. Google Chrome Apps: Sunset in favor of PWAs which don't rely on Chrome Web Store? sign me up! Dragonfly: Was never public so I don't see this as 'killed'. I think these different announcement types should be noted or properly filtered, maybe by noting the app that replaces the app, eg "alternative: google meet".
- arthtyagi 6y ago
  I agree with some of what you're saying but Hangouts didn't JUST get rebranded. Meet was introduced while Hangouts was still alive.
  - codyogden 6y ago
    Creator here. I was just trying to gather updated information on Hangouts a couple days ago. I try to keep the list as accurate as possible. I'm probably going to move it (or even remove it), but haven't had any solid info either way come my way. Thread from Twitter talking about Hangouts: https://twitter.com/killedbygoogle/status/1312596627186688000 https://twitter.com/killedbygoogle/status/131259662718668800...
- d_rc 6y ago
  Angular being the latest addition there.. I agree, I wouldn't really say that 1.7 development being discontinued is a "death" of Angular. Really not.
  - chrismorgan 6y ago
    AngularJS is dead. Angular continues. As a non-user, the impression I got on the release of Angular 2 was roughly “we’re making a new product that shares some similarities with AngularJS, and we’ll continue to maintain both indefinitely, but all active development will be on this new product that we’ve decided to name ‘Angular’ just to confuse everyone”.
  - 0xy 6y ago
    It was a mercy killing.
- blaisio 6y ago
  The point is they create a huge amount of hassle for users by constantly killing/replacing/renaming products, and it also shows that they aren't doing any effective long-term planning. That's what makes people mad. Angular: I agree that angular is not dead, people can still use v1 if they want to. This does not count. Hangouts: the new version has different pricing, different features, different name, different URL, different apps... this absolutely counts (and is one of the most egregious examples) Password checkup: the extension worked fine, but they intentionally disabled it. Any references to it on the web now have to be updated to refer to password checkup in the browser. Anyone who knows how to use the extension has to relearn how to use it in the browser. This counts. Google Photos Print: yes the original was stupid, but it was still a product and is now gone. This counts. Shoelace: yeah this never really launched in the first place. This doesn't count. Google Chrome Apps: I mean really? Anything that requires rewriting parts of an app to make it work counts! Dragonfly: this was never released, it doesn't count. But it is important that people know about this, it is an example of Google quite blatantly being evil.
  - jeffbee 6y ago
    > they aren't doing any effective long-term planning They do, you just don't grok it. These applications are just toys. They are the result of the plan but not the plan itself. The plan is to just bury a ton of fiber, build a ton of computers, hire a ton of developers, and see what the heck happens. The plan is so successful that they can build and deploy these apps for almost no marginal cost, which is why they also probably feel free to just throw them away.
    - Judgmentality 6y ago
      No - Google does not have some brilliant master plan we are unable to understand. If you're really arguing that their "plan" is to just spend money and see what sticks, then I'd say they absolutely deserve criticism for being fucking clueless idiots.
      - jeffbee 6y ago
        We are discussing the issue here in the very cathedral of "spend money and see what sticks". That's the whole silicon valley venture strategy. If you think of Google as a large-scale startup incubator with a very efficient private cloud in house, then you will understand the long tail of their product lineup much better.
- Rebelgecko 6y ago
  Are PWAs comparable with Chrome apps? IIRC games like Bastion were able to use native code (maybe WASM fills the gap?)
- dafoex 6y ago
  The only real issue I have with ditching chrome apps in favour of PWAs it all the lost work in making web apps look and feel native. Now we have to live with a half-browser wrapper that may or may not have the forward and back buttons as fallback in order to use PWAs that the developer never expected to be "installed" to a computer.
andoriyu 6y ago
nah, Nexus was partner phones. Pixel is actually made and designed by google.
dafoex 6y ago
Same with Google Goggles, which was replaced by Google Lens. It wasn't just a simple rebranding as the two existed at the same time momentarily, but no functionality was really lost.

judge2020 6y ago

A quick list: Angular: v1 is "dead", but is still receiving major version updates https://angular.io/guide/updating-to-version-10 https://angular.io/guide/updating-to-version-10 Hangouts: meet.google.com Password Checkup: integrated into Chrome, Firefox has its own thing as well. Google Photos Print: it's just no longer a subscription service that automatically selects photos (who would want something to pick a photo book's photos for you??). https://www.google.com/photos/printing/ https://www.google.com/photos/printing/ Shoelace: Kind of disingenuous to include Area 120 projects, which are experiments by design. Google Chrome Apps: Sunset in favor of PWAs which don't rely on Chrome Web Store? sign me up! Dragonfly: Was never public so I don't see this as 'killed'. I think these different announcement types should be noted or properly filtered, maybe by noting the app that replaces the app, eg "alternative: google meet".

arthtyagi 6y ago
I agree with some of what you're saying but Hangouts didn't JUST get rebranded. Meet was introduced while Hangouts was still alive.
- codyogden 6y ago
  Creator here. I was just trying to gather updated information on Hangouts a couple days ago. I try to keep the list as accurate as possible. I'm probably going to move it (or even remove it), but haven't had any solid info either way come my way. Thread from Twitter talking about Hangouts: https://twitter.com/killedbygoogle/status/1312596627186688000 https://twitter.com/killedbygoogle/status/131259662718668800...
d_rc 6y ago
Angular being the latest addition there.. I agree, I wouldn't really say that 1.7 development being discontinued is a "death" of Angular. Really not.
- chrismorgan 6y ago
  AngularJS is dead. Angular continues. As a non-user, the impression I got on the release of Angular 2 was roughly “we’re making a new product that shares some similarities with AngularJS, and we’ll continue to maintain both indefinitely, but all active development will be on this new product that we’ve decided to name ‘Angular’ just to confuse everyone”.
- 0xy 6y ago
  It was a mercy killing.
blaisio 6y ago
The point is they create a huge amount of hassle for users by constantly killing/replacing/renaming products, and it also shows that they aren't doing any effective long-term planning. That's what makes people mad. Angular: I agree that angular is not dead, people can still use v1 if they want to. This does not count. Hangouts: the new version has different pricing, different features, different name, different URL, different apps... this absolutely counts (and is one of the most egregious examples) Password checkup: the extension worked fine, but they intentionally disabled it. Any references to it on the web now have to be updated to refer to password checkup in the browser. Anyone who knows how to use the extension has to relearn how to use it in the browser. This counts. Google Photos Print: yes the original was stupid, but it was still a product and is now gone. This counts. Shoelace: yeah this never really launched in the first place. This doesn't count. Google Chrome Apps: I mean really? Anything that requires rewriting parts of an app to make it work counts! Dragonfly: this was never released, it doesn't count. But it is important that people know about this, it is an example of Google quite blatantly being evil.
- jeffbee 6y ago
  > they aren't doing any effective long-term planning They do, you just don't grok it. These applications are just toys. They are the result of the plan but not the plan itself. The plan is to just bury a ton of fiber, build a ton of computers, hire a ton of developers, and see what the heck happens. The plan is so successful that they can build and deploy these apps for almost no marginal cost, which is why they also probably feel free to just throw them away.
  - Judgmentality 6y ago
    No - Google does not have some brilliant master plan we are unable to understand. If you're really arguing that their "plan" is to just spend money and see what sticks, then I'd say they absolutely deserve criticism for being fucking clueless idiots.
    - jeffbee 6y ago
      We are discussing the issue here in the very cathedral of "spend money and see what sticks". That's the whole silicon valley venture strategy. If you think of Google as a large-scale startup incubator with a very efficient private cloud in house, then you will understand the long tail of their product lineup much better.
Rebelgecko 6y ago
Are PWAs comparable with Chrome apps? IIRC games like Bastion were able to use native code (maybe WASM fills the gap?)
dafoex 6y ago
The only real issue I have with ditching chrome apps in favour of PWAs it all the lost work in making web apps look and feel native. Now we have to live with a half-browser wrapper that may or may not have the forward and back buttons as fallback in order to use PWAs that the developer never expected to be "installed" to a computer.

andoriyu 6y ago

nah, Nexus was partner phones. Pixel is actually made and designed by google.

dafoex 6y ago

Same with Google Goggles, which was replaced by Google Lens. It wasn't just a simple rebranding as the two existed at the same time momentarily, but no functionality was really lost.