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Google Poly is shutting down
- lqet 6y agoWill there be any Google products left at the end of 2021?
- tomcam 6y agoIf you were running Google, what would your strategy be regarding products that can’t support themselves?
- zepto 6y agoPretty much no Google products support themselves apart from GCP and Search.
- 0x53 6y agoNot to release products without a plan to support them for a certain amount of time.
- udia 6y agoMake the source code publicly available under a permissive open source license so the community can run the software. Scrape/generate a read-only archive of the site and host the static files for the next ~2 years before finally dropping the domain.
- izacus 6y agoDid you implement this policy at any of your companies? How did it go and how much time did it take to release the software?
- gokhan 6y agoLess spray & pray in the first place? It's already clear that their product strategy is fruitless, can you name a Google product from the last 5 years that stuck, loved by masses and deserves to be kept operational by their own measures? I would try switching to spending the money on acquisitions.
- iainmerrick 6y agoKeep them running and eat the cost. Even if they can’t do that every time, it should at least be one of the options under consideration. I feel like there’s often an argument that “keeping it running costs more than you think, because it would need updating” (or “it depends on legacy infrastructure that’s going away”), but I’m skeptical of that in the general case. Other than possibly security issues, there’s often little to get in the way of servers running happily with little or no maintenance for years.
- tomcam 6y ago> Even if they can’t do that every time, it should at least be one of the options under consideration. Do you know whether it was considered? > Other than possibly security issues, there’s often little to get in the way of servers running happily with little or no maintenance for years. Security costs alone can be substantial. Whose department should take the budget hit for maintaining a no longer viable project? Whose reputation should be dinged for running a non viable product?
- iainmerrick 6y agoDo you know whether it was considered? In this particular case, I don’t know, although the lack of any positive examples to point to suggests that it’s not an option that’s typically given any weight in decision-making. Whose department should take the budget hit for maintaining a no longer viable project? Speaking as a user, I don’t care. Isn’t Google swimming in profit? (I realize of course that you don’t achieve the kind of success in the first place that brings those colossal profits without making hard-nosed decisions along the way -- arguably) Whose reputation should be dinged for running a non viable product? Again, speaking as a user, I’d put value in keeping the “non-viable” product around, if it were one I happened to use. I’m not expecting my answer to change anything, but it’s a general answer to a general question. What could they do differently? Answer: eat the loss.
- danjac 6y agoYes because how else will Google employees get their bonuses? The question is whether the products started in 2021 will last until 2022...
- dvh 6y agoThree new messaging apps.
- TeMPOraL 6y agoDepends. Did anyone measure the rate of Google creating vs. shutting down products?
- mrcarruthers 6y agocolour me surprised google is shutting down another product /s
- tomcam 6y agoDo you consider it bad that they experiment with new products?
- randiantech 6y agoMaybe Google should label those experimental products more clearly, so users are aware and align expectations.
- theandrewbailey 6y agoLike adding a "beta" label?
- ashtonkem 6y agoIf they’re going to kill them at the same rate? Yes.
- tomcam 6y agoWhy? Seems to it’s like running a VC fund. One hit could justify all those experiments in perpetuity.
- ashtonkem 6y agoI have very little interest in what happens behind the product so long as it both works and continues to work. Google experiments like crazy, and appears to kill off products just as quickly. The fact that they occasionally get a “hit” and earn hundreds of millions does not offset my fear that anything of theirs I depend on will be cancelled without warning.
- megaunicorn123 6y ago
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- CraftThatBlock 6y agoJune 30, 2020 is in the past? Did they mean 2021?
- lqet 6y agoYes, it's written in the description: > Your assets will be available at poly.google.com until June 30, 2021
- danielsamuels 6y ago> We appreciate you trusting us to host your assets and provide a space where they can shine. I doubt they will in future.
- ChuckNorris89 6y agosurprised Pikachu face Does Google have any more space in their graveyard?
- tandr 6y agoIt is a Google's graveyard. They will sunset this one (stop accepting new "bodies") after 2 to 5 years, and open a new, "improved" one, with worse UX and lost features.
- faitswulff 6y agoI didn’t even know this existed in the first place.
- ducktective 6y agohttps://killedbygoogle.com/ https://killedbygoogle.com/
- cryptos 6y agoWhat a luck that there is still a free grave available! ;-) Someday, the Google graveyard will look like this: http://www.worldwartours.be/files/img_9456_1.jpg http://www.worldwartours.be/files/img_9456_1.jpg
- chromanoid 6y agoFail Fast, Fail Often...
- harryf 6y agoWow - first time I've seen that. Some are a little over-eager... Hangouts for example basically continues as Google Meet. What I wonder is how many startups were effectively killed by these dead products, either by destroying a business model and chances of getting investors or through acqui-hiring the best talent?
- grawprog 6y ago>We appreciate you trusting us to host your assets and provide a space where they can shine. Well, I guess that was a mistake for whoever did. That almost reads like a hint of self awareness for their continued killing of things they release.
- VikingCoder 6y agoYou act like there's zero value to having someone else host your assets FOR A WHILE. There is value. Yes, there's also cost to having to re-host your assets somewhere else.
- grawprog 6y agoI didn't say there was zero value, my statement also came with the assumption that upon starting this service, google never made it clear it would be temporary. I may be wrong about that. Also, not everyone can afford to re-host their assets, not everyone will be able to, some might not even realize it'll be lost. The broken trust comes from the idea that google likely promoted this as something that will be a new ongoing community that's now being shutdown unceremoniously. The lack of trust towards Google's products come not just from the services they're providing they shut down, but they try to build up communities then abandon them with no recourse. It wasn't just the assets they hosted, it was the people they were trying to bring together that are now scattered again because they trusted google.
- VikingCoder 6y ago"google never made it clear it would be temporary" Why would you ever assume any service is permanent? "The broken trust comes from the idea that google likely promoted this as something that will be a new ongoing community" Anyone who "trusted" that a free service would work forever is being unrealistic. "they try to build up communities then abandon them with no recourse" They're hosting open source content. You can fork that. Anyone can fork it. If your content were hosted on Poly, you could use Takeout to download all of it in one go. "that are now scattered again because they trusted google" If there's any blame here, I would think it would be that there's not a group of people (like us at HN) who work closely with sites like Poly to back them up before they are shut down. Once we have a track record, we can ask Google to say not just, "We're shutting Poly down," but "and it's moving to Hacker News Back Things Up .com." If someone wants to bridge that gap, moving this content to the Internet Archive or something, that sounds worthwhile.
- Hitton 6y agoClassic Google. Announcing shutting down of service no one has even heard before.
- janlaureys 6y agoDidn't really know about this platform, but to me it looks like it could perfectly be kept in some kind of read-only mode without costing all that much for Google.
- lima 6y agoThe cost is ongoing maintenance of the code base, reponding to security issues and such, not the server hosting.
- buzzerbetrayed 6y agoA read-only site would have very little of that sort of thing.
- ma2rten 6y agoAlso it can’t really be read only because of things like GDPR compliance.
- Yetanfou 6y agoStatic pages do not have a code base, they're just data to be served on demand.
- bserge 6y agoCould they open source it? Or does the codebase include Google secrets? I don't know much about this, just wondering...
- seph-reed 6y agoThere's no PM, so I'm just commenting way in the past. I'm guessing you're a guy who's neither a model, super rich, or hyper charismatic?
- VikingCoder 6y agoHow much should Google pay for something that's not getting much usage?
- bnt 6y agoAt this point, why is anyone relying on Google APIs (or even GCP!) for serious work? It feels like Google is contempt with Search, Ads and Android.
- tclancy 6y agoNow that is a Freudian slip!
- sergiotapia 6y agoIs that a Freudian slip, DALE?!
- Axsuul 6y agoGoogle Poly looks like a fun experiment that unfortunately didn't pan out to their expectations. Google APIs/GCP have paying users that businesses depend on. It wouldn't be fair to have them in the same room.
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- supermatt 6y agoIt’s one of the main features of the $20 tiltbrush app. People ARE paying for it.
- chaostheory 6y agoI was about to ask if TiltBrush relied on this. Thanks for confirming. It's hard to buy anything made by Google that hasn't been around for close to a decade, unless you don't care whether or not that product stays around.
- throwaway129013 6y agoWhat's really scary is that people rely on golang ignoring that it is entirely corporate-driven. (Go ahead and downvote me a ton)
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- kichimi 6y ago2025: Google Search is shutting down
- flohofwoe 6y agoYet another Google service which I only know about by reading the news that it is shutting down. This one looks pretty great. Would be nice to see announcements when those things are launching, not when they are shutting down ;)
- ma2rten 6y agoEvery time Google is shutting down a product there are the same kind of reactions like “I will not trust google running anything more than a year”, “killedbygoogle.com”. I’m wondering, have you ever heard about this product? I for one have no clue what this is. How many more products does google have that you never heard about and that are not shut down?
- rm_-rf_slash 6y agoCounterpoint: since Google has firmly established a reputation for killing their own products, people who would otherwise find value in certain Google products (beyond search ads gmail and android) avoid them and never hear about them to begin with. I wonder if they are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy: google launches a product, people avoid it assuming it’ll get killed off, google says the user metrics don’t justify the investment, and they kill it.
- CartyBoston 6y agoin this they behave like a short-term gain focused stock market
- cj 6y agoI think HN tends to overplay google's product discontinuations. If you ask someone who doesn't read HN if they've ever been frustrated with Google shutting down a product, my guess is 95%+ of people wouldn't be able to remember a single product that was shut down that they used. One solution for Google might be to brand the products without the "Google" name prefix, until Google is absolutely sure it will be around for a decade+.
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- daralthus 6y agoI wonder what will happen to TiltBrush after this?
- devteambravo 6y agoI hope that Google Tilt brush doesn't follow. It's really the main reason I obtained a VR headset...
- johnx123-up 6y agoDidn't see https://poly.google.com/ https://poly.google.com/ before! Who are the competitors/alternatives?
- mdre 6y agoSketchfab
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- dudul 6y agoI had never heard of this thing before. I know there is this running joke of Google killing their stuff all the time, but do they just suck at launching, or at least promoting, services?
- dustingetz 6y agoIn an economy balanced less towards megacorps, a specialized hosting business might thrive
- jacques_chester 6y agoIf I was Thomas Kurian I would be going scorched earth on people in other Google divisions doing this. Every single closure, no matter how minute, hurts GCP's chances.
- ceph_ 6y agoThomas Kurian is an empty suit. There is not leadership coming from him in any meaningful way. Especially involving actions that require him to try to make changes outside of the cloud org.
- jacques_chester 6y ago> Thomas Kurian is an empty suit. Well if they need someone to wear his suit but yell in an angry Australian accent to get it done, I'm available at reasonable rates.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- tannerbrockwell 6y agoGoogle is an organization run by engineers. They have no concept of marketing, or product placement or community engagement. They build for an audience of engineers, and if a wider cross-section of the population embraces a product that is purely by happenstance rather than design. As an enterprise they appear to have AD/HD, these products are launched and supported for awhile and then dropped. It is baked into the corporate culture, and I don't think it will or can change.
- VikingCoder 6y agoInnovation is over here, and Stagnation is over there. You can't expect them to a) Innovate, and b) Pay forever for something that's not succeeding. You may draw the line differently, but in this specific instance, I think you're being unfair.
- zehaeva 6y agoDid no one notice that this service was set to shut down 6 months ago? Why is this news now?
- supermatt 6y agoThey are still listing it as a major feature of their $20 tiltbrush app. They are still publishing their unity asset encouraging people to use it as a runtime asset library. I’m going to see if I can get a refund on tiltbrush. I don’t want to reward this kind of behaviour.
- arjonagelhout 6y agoThis is the main issue for me. With the Oculus Quest and Tilt Brush having poor export options, I have no other choice than to use either Sketchfab - which has limited uploads - or Google Poly. The ecosystem works when all services are kept alive, but when one falls, you are left with a useless piece of software. This is a shame, because the expressiveness and ease-of-use of Tilt Brush is unmatched on the Quest.
- chaostheory 6y agoI haven't used Tilt Brush enough, but does this mean that Tilt Brush also dead or are there other export options?
- supermatt 6y agoThere are other export options, but they are a PITA - which is why poly is listed as a major feature. People in VR art communities are particularly disappointed with this announcement.
- com2kid 6y agoKind of sad, the platform looks to be a sort of creative commons / remixing community for 3d assets. Usage seems super low, features models and scenes (which are all really good!) have likes in the mid double digits. It is unfortunate that a larger community didn't really spring up, from what I can see the artwork that is there is good. I suggest everyone spend some time going through and looking at some rather nice 3d scenes!
- residentfoam 6y agoClearly a project built for the sole purpose of getting a promotion and then move on. I wonder why would they ever even consider building this thing oO.
- andybak 6y agoDoes anyone know if the Internet Archive has any plans to scrape the content? Poly is not only a critical component of several VR apps I use, it's a repository of some incredible Tilt Brush artwork and part of the history of modern VR. I'm dreading the imminent upcoming news about Tilt Brush itself. And Google Earth VR which is a true cultural treasure. And just finally - in case it isn't clear - fuck Google.
- sp332 6y agoDo you mean the Internet Archive? Jason Scott @textfiles retweeted the announcement, so they are at least aware of it. He's also a member of Archive Team (not affiliated with IA, but often upload scrapes there when they are done).
- andybak 6y ago> Do you mean the Internet Archive? Yes - thanks. Fixed.
- khazhoux 6y agoWe simultaneously criticize Google for not innovating, and for taking bets that don't pan out long-term. Pick a lane? Perhaps the problem here is simply Google needs to more loudly tag their products with "Beta"? I remembered in the mid-aught's, every google product was "in Beta."
- hated 6y agoYour one stop shop for all things killed by Google https://killedbygoogle.com/ https://killedbygoogle.com/
- spicyramen 6y agoProbably already known but people at Google get promoted because of launching new products, nobody gets promoted for maintaining an existing product. Is a mafia, Product Managers, Engineers, TPMs that want to go to next level all play the same game and the organization allows it. Ok product is released, then the team moves to the next sexy thing, and the product end up being replaced by some new team members or contractors take over and at the end, product just dies. Even worst in Cloud just playing catch-up with AWS and the same history repeats just that know you have Enterprise customers which wouldn't be happy...and what this causes is that externally and internally you have bunch of products doing the same things (messenger apps, notebooks)
- pjmlp 6y agoFor those that aren't aware, Poly was introduced at a Google IO, alongside Sceneform and Filament, frameworks for 3D development on Android with focus on AR/VR, with managed and native APIs. Their development is on maintenance mode for months now, and even the Android team is using Unity or pure C++ frameworks, instead of Java, or now Kotlin first APIs. Just waiting for them to lose interest on Android, ChromeOS or even Chrome!
- bhouston 6y agoWait, Filament is on life support? There is activity there: https://github.com/google/filament/graphs/contributors https://github.com/google/filament/graphs/contributors https://github.com/google/filament/releases https://github.com/google/filament/releases
- pjmlp 6y agoAh, still alive. Then again, Sceneform was the nicer high level API, with Studio tooling integration, here is still pretty much DYI.
- icod 6y agoI'm still missing Google+, which was a really great and useful place before they thought they had to mimic Facebook with the post-centric design with no regards to comments. The original design of Google+ was made me fall in love with it. Also the people, complete different spirit from the Facebook garbage.
- VikingCoder 6y agoSo, can we download everything that we can, and host it somewhere else? No, really? I see some of the content has a license that would appear to allow it. But do any of us have the time, energy, and resources to sit down and do it? This certainly isn't the first or last time some website with interesting content is going to go down. Maybe we should all get better at forking open source content as a matter of course. If we don't, then I think criticizing Google for not being willing to host it is pretty lame.
- tti 6y agoYou could. I wouldn't be surprised if someone had already reposted everything on Sketchfab.
- bhouston 6y agoMicrosoft Remix, which was similar, was also shutdown: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remix_3D https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remix_3D Facebook also stopped hosting glTF. There is definitely a pullback from the giants with regards to their web-based 3D efforts.
- a_e_k 6y agoThat's too bad. I remember finding some really nice scans/reconstructions by CyArk of historical locations and objects there: https://poly.google.com/user/4U4FhbhDQdR https://poly.google.com/user/4U4FhbhDQdR Used to be you could download low-res OBJs and they made for some nice quick test scenes for rendering. Sadly, that seems to be gone now as well. I guess https://openheritage3d.org/ https://openheritage3d.org/ is the better place for that now.