14 ms·

What a bizarre press release that accompanies this... https://blog.google/products/search/google-finance-makes-investing-information-more-accessible/ https://bl

by oramit 6y ago

What a bizarre press release that accompanies this... https://blog.google/products/search/google-finance-makes-investing-information-more-accessible/ https://blog.google/products/search/google-finance-makes-inv... Google Finance used to have all these features. They were already implemented and working fine in 2009! The original chart tool was much better than the current version. You could see every dividend that was issued, splits, add moving averages, etc. Then they "simplified" it by removing all the best features and are now adding them back? Why would I bother to use this when they have so thoroughly torched their goodwill by senselessly killing off working (and good!) products?

londons_explore 6y ago
The world of computers is "reinvent, but slightly different". Remember the "Briefcase" sync feature of windows 95... Now compare that to Dropbox syncing... Pretty much the same thing 25 years on. Different UI, same principle.
- adwww 6y ago
  I never did get what the Briefcase was supposed to do. It was so poorly explained that that was it's purpose. Perhaps because I didn't have any networked computers, and the utility of a Dropbox via floppy disk was so limited...
  - helmholtz 6y ago
    Completely off-topic rant incoming, but Microsoft has very often sucked at advertising itself. Here's a more recent example. I bought a Windows Phone way back when. It was amazing. My favourite feature of it, believe it or not, was the keyboard. I have a sneaky suspicion that they used MS Word's dictionary somehow, because it could correct typos not just when the wrong letter was typed (for instance, typing 'aentence' instead of 'sentence'), but also words typed in the wrong order ('snetence'). It was delightful. I could type as fast as I wanted, confident that auto-correct would take care of any errors. Then I moved to Android, and I could not believe how appalling the keyboard was. But it seems that no one else was talking about it, because android users just didn't know of the excellence that existed out there. Then, at some point, Microsoft went ahead and ruined their keyboard when they went to Windows Phone 10 or 8.1 I can't remember, and I've been searching for perfection ever since. GBoard, with it's fucking emoji page is an affront to engineering.
    - toast0 6y ago
      > Then, at some point, Microsoft went ahead and ruined When Microsoft does things like this, and it's not clearly a dumb product decision, it's often to avoid a patent that they don't want to license or fight. I've been using 'simple keyboard' on Android, because it's just a g-d keyboard, but it doesn't do good spell check either. I didn't particularly notice spell check getting worse when I left windows phone, but there was a lot of other stuff going on.
    - x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
      >....but Microsoft has very often sucked at advertising itself. The MS team that did Clippy would like to have a word with you...
  - marcosdumay 6y ago
    If I remember it correctly, the briefcase was able to synchronize by floppy. It was an awesome piece of software, that nobody knew about.
    - throwaway201103 6y ago
      Yes the idea was that you'd have files that you wanted to use on different computers (e.g. at work office and at home). At the end of the work day you'd sync the files to floppy, take the floppy home, and sync it to your home machine. Remember at the time many people did not have laptops. They often didn't have home internet either. Maybe they had AOL, or maybe nothing. They also didn't have a work VPN or any way to access files on their work computer.
    - londons_explore 6y ago
      It was also a good 'lock in'. If your work used Windows, you needed Windows at home too to be able to use Briefcase.
goodluckchuck 6y ago
They "simplified" their own maintenance by supporting fewer features.
- pgrote 6y ago
  You are 100% correct. There are those among us that overlook this as the reason for new releases and discontinuing products. I know I've experienced a point where the decision is made to discontinue something as adding what is needed to move forward will require too much investment versus benefit.
alexharrisnyc 6y ago
Just curious what you do use, I don't spend a lot of time using this product but when I did I struggled to find a good alternative.
- fibers 6y ago
  As far as simple interfaces are concerned for the average layperson yahoo finance is as good as it gets since google literally gimped their finance product in such a stupid fashion since they didnt know how to monetize it. So not only did you have a competitor pick up marketshare, but also offer a premium sub feature that does not compete with their insanely good free public api. what a stupid company
  - camjohnson26 6y ago
    MarketWatch has some of the features but Google Finance used to have almost everything. It was the easiest way to see financial ratios, previous year finances, and basic screening. There’s a few free stock screeners out there like finviz but they’re all less intuitive than Google was.
magwa101 6y ago
Remember "Talk"
esseti 6y ago
so the update was today since september?
crazygringo 6y ago
Yes but they were implemented in Flash. So obviously they didn't choose to remove features, they were forced to rebuild it from scratch. And along the way, instead of it being a standalone product (which was really only justified because of competition from Yahoo Finance etc.), it made more sense for it to be simply part of Search, and so give simpler results. Does that make sense? I don't think they torched anyone's goodwill here. It's not senseless -- to the contrary, there was a lot of sense to what they did. If you want a serious finance tool, Google (or Apple) stock "apps" are probably not going to be the right choice in the first place.
- acdha 6y ago
  The Flash switch could explain a few months but they had years to do a small project which much smaller companies did for more complicated projects. This seems a lot more like the usual Google problem where everyone involved moved on and nobody had an incentive to do maintenance work.
- SQueeeeeL 6y ago
  They could've just ported features to HTML5. Not sure why you're trying to justify clearly sketchy behavior of billion dollar company, but maybe Google's recruiters scour HN, so I might be the crazy one
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
    Assuming the project had any headcount to do so. But Google has (apparently) not invested much in Google Finance which is . . . fine? Tons of alternatives. Are we now saying it's a bad thing when Google cedes part of the web ecosystem to other companies? I have no idea what you're getting at with the comment about Google recruiters.
    - Seanambers 6y ago
      Google doesn't cede anything, they just wait for a bit and then come out and destroy the market for the other tools.
xnx 6y ago
I also hate it when apps/services move backward in terms of features. I'll still give them credit when they start to move in the correct direction again, even if they would have been better off not screwing things up in the first place.

by oramit 6y ago

londons_explore 6y ago

The world of computers is "reinvent, but slightly different". Remember the "Briefcase" sync feature of windows 95... Now compare that to Dropbox syncing... Pretty much the same thing 25 years on. Different UI, same principle.

adwww 6y ago
I never did get what the Briefcase was supposed to do. It was so poorly explained that that was it's purpose. Perhaps because I didn't have any networked computers, and the utility of a Dropbox via floppy disk was so limited...
- helmholtz 6y ago
  Completely off-topic rant incoming, but Microsoft has very often sucked at advertising itself. Here's a more recent example. I bought a Windows Phone way back when. It was amazing. My favourite feature of it, believe it or not, was the keyboard. I have a sneaky suspicion that they used MS Word's dictionary somehow, because it could correct typos not just when the wrong letter was typed (for instance, typing 'aentence' instead of 'sentence'), but also words typed in the wrong order ('snetence'). It was delightful. I could type as fast as I wanted, confident that auto-correct would take care of any errors. Then I moved to Android, and I could not believe how appalling the keyboard was. But it seems that no one else was talking about it, because android users just didn't know of the excellence that existed out there. Then, at some point, Microsoft went ahead and ruined their keyboard when they went to Windows Phone 10 or 8.1 I can't remember, and I've been searching for perfection ever since. GBoard, with it's fucking emoji page is an affront to engineering.
  - toast0 6y ago
    > Then, at some point, Microsoft went ahead and ruined When Microsoft does things like this, and it's not clearly a dumb product decision, it's often to avoid a patent that they don't want to license or fight. I've been using 'simple keyboard' on Android, because it's just a g-d keyboard, but it doesn't do good spell check either. I didn't particularly notice spell check getting worse when I left windows phone, but there was a lot of other stuff going on.
  - x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
    >....but Microsoft has very often sucked at advertising itself. The MS team that did Clippy would like to have a word with you...
- marcosdumay 6y ago
  If I remember it correctly, the briefcase was able to synchronize by floppy. It was an awesome piece of software, that nobody knew about.
  - throwaway201103 6y ago
    Yes the idea was that you'd have files that you wanted to use on different computers (e.g. at work office and at home). At the end of the work day you'd sync the files to floppy, take the floppy home, and sync it to your home machine. Remember at the time many people did not have laptops. They often didn't have home internet either. Maybe they had AOL, or maybe nothing. They also didn't have a work VPN or any way to access files on their work computer.
  - londons_explore 6y ago
    It was also a good 'lock in'. If your work used Windows, you needed Windows at home too to be able to use Briefcase.

goodluckchuck 6y ago

They "simplified" their own maintenance by supporting fewer features.

pgrote 6y ago
You are 100% correct. There are those among us that overlook this as the reason for new releases and discontinuing products. I know I've experienced a point where the decision is made to discontinue something as adding what is needed to move forward will require too much investment versus benefit.

alexharrisnyc 6y ago

Just curious what you do use, I don't spend a lot of time using this product but when I did I struggled to find a good alternative.

fibers 6y ago
As far as simple interfaces are concerned for the average layperson yahoo finance is as good as it gets since google literally gimped their finance product in such a stupid fashion since they didnt know how to monetize it. So not only did you have a competitor pick up marketshare, but also offer a premium sub feature that does not compete with their insanely good free public api. what a stupid company
- camjohnson26 6y ago
  MarketWatch has some of the features but Google Finance used to have almost everything. It was the easiest way to see financial ratios, previous year finances, and basic screening. There’s a few free stock screeners out there like finviz but they’re all less intuitive than Google was.

magwa101 6y ago

Remember "Talk"

esseti 6y ago

so the update was today since september?

crazygringo 6y ago

Yes but they were implemented in Flash. So obviously they didn't choose to remove features, they were forced to rebuild it from scratch. And along the way, instead of it being a standalone product (which was really only justified because of competition from Yahoo Finance etc.), it made more sense for it to be simply part of Search, and so give simpler results. Does that make sense? I don't think they torched anyone's goodwill here. It's not senseless -- to the contrary, there was a lot of sense to what they did. If you want a serious finance tool, Google (or Apple) stock "apps" are probably not going to be the right choice in the first place.

acdha 6y ago
The Flash switch could explain a few months but they had years to do a small project which much smaller companies did for more complicated projects. This seems a lot more like the usual Google problem where everyone involved moved on and nobody had an incentive to do maintenance work.
SQueeeeeL 6y ago
They could've just ported features to HTML5. Not sure why you're trying to justify clearly sketchy behavior of billion dollar company, but maybe Google's recruiters scour HN, so I might be the crazy one
- asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
  Assuming the project had any headcount to do so. But Google has (apparently) not invested much in Google Finance which is . . . fine? Tons of alternatives. Are we now saying it's a bad thing when Google cedes part of the web ecosystem to other companies? I have no idea what you're getting at with the comment about Google recruiters.
  - Seanambers 6y ago
    Google doesn't cede anything, they just wait for a bit and then come out and destroy the market for the other tools.

xnx 6y ago

I also hate it when apps/services move backward in terms of features. I'll still give them credit when they start to move in the correct direction again, even if they would have been better off not screwing things up in the first place.