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How does a company like Google end up doing this? I'm assuming a decision like this has multiple stakeholders? Is there nobody in the room who is the voice of t

by websap 5y ago

How does a company like Google end up doing this? I'm assuming a decision like this has multiple stakeholders? Is there nobody in the room who is the voice of the customer?

dylan604 5y ago
Remember, at Google, you the user of the service/product are not the customer. The companies buying access to the data harvested from you about you is the customer to Google's mind.
- batuhanicoz 5y ago
  For most of their offerings, this is correct. I would argue this product is different since you actually pay for the hardware and the software it runs on it. Different expectations than an ad supported service.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    The price you paid is for the hardware you purchased to the manufacture. The ability to run Googly assistant is just software running on that device for free from Googs. It would only be natural for Googs to harvest in all of that usage data so they can sell access to that data to their customers.
advisedwang 5y ago
Big companies can be very risk averse. E.g. legal raises some risk, then nobody is going to push back as then they could be blamed for legal fallout.
the_other 5y ago
Yes, but everyone else just throws popcorn at them.
rodgerd 5y ago
> Is there nobody in the room who is the voice of the customer? No. Google have an institutional contempt for humanity. Just look at the support: david.king Gold Product Expert Volunteer since 2011 (not a Google employee) They can't even be bothered hiring people to support their offerings.
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> How does a company like Google end up doing this? I haven't worked at Google, but I have worked on other hardware that you might own if you're in the Hacker News demographic. Usually what happens is someone wants to make some breaking changes somewhere, or otherwise stop supporting some old feature/API/use case. Or maybe nobody wants to deal with some old system that isn't a hot ticket on their promotion path. Everyone is incentivized to work on new features, new products, and other forward-looking things, so it's not hard to get approval to just abandon something for which the cash flow has already occurred in favor of some future initiative. Customer outrage is temporary. Some may swear off your products, but a surprising number will just shrug and buy something new, so the company wins. Frustrating, but it's how things work at big companies who control large portions of the market.
- websap 5y ago
  I don't work at Google, but do at a large tech firm. Backward compatibility is sacrosanct, breaking older clients, means getting approvals many levels up in the chain, writing decision docs and showing data about what % of customers will be affected. We don't even build consumer products. "Customer outrage is temporary." -> Till it's not. If I could migrate my gmail (not even sure how many services I'd need to update) and use something else for Maps, I'd be off of all Google services.
  - progman32 5y ago
    > We don't even build consumer products. Might that be the difference?
    - websap 5y ago
      Backwards compatibility would be even more important in that case. I've worked in product teams and we did all sorts of experiments to understand customer usecases before making a decision like this.
notreallyserio 5y ago
How do they continue to find engineers willing remove features from customer devices without even the courtesy of a) ensuring the link shown does not 404 and b) ensuring the link explains includes an honest and accurate explanation of the problem?

by websap 5y ago

How does a company like Google end up doing this? I'm assuming a decision like this has multiple stakeholders? Is there nobody in the room who is the voice of the customer?

dylan604 5y ago

Remember, at Google, you the user of the service/product are not the customer. The companies buying access to the data harvested from you about you is the customer to Google's mind.

batuhanicoz 5y ago
For most of their offerings, this is correct. I would argue this product is different since you actually pay for the hardware and the software it runs on it. Different expectations than an ad supported service.
- dylan604 5y ago
  The price you paid is for the hardware you purchased to the manufacture. The ability to run Googly assistant is just software running on that device for free from Googs. It would only be natural for Googs to harvest in all of that usage data so they can sell access to that data to their customers.

advisedwang 5y ago

Big companies can be very risk averse. E.g. legal raises some risk, then nobody is going to push back as then they could be blamed for legal fallout.

the_other 5y ago

Yes, but everyone else just throws popcorn at them.

rodgerd 5y ago

> Is there nobody in the room who is the voice of the customer? No. Google have an institutional contempt for humanity. Just look at the support: david.king Gold Product Expert Volunteer since 2011 (not a Google employee) They can't even be bothered hiring people to support their offerings.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

> How does a company like Google end up doing this? I haven't worked at Google, but I have worked on other hardware that you might own if you're in the Hacker News demographic. Usually what happens is someone wants to make some breaking changes somewhere, or otherwise stop supporting some old feature/API/use case. Or maybe nobody wants to deal with some old system that isn't a hot ticket on their promotion path. Everyone is incentivized to work on new features, new products, and other forward-looking things, so it's not hard to get approval to just abandon something for which the cash flow has already occurred in favor of some future initiative. Customer outrage is temporary. Some may swear off your products, but a surprising number will just shrug and buy something new, so the company wins. Frustrating, but it's how things work at big companies who control large portions of the market.

websap 5y ago
I don't work at Google, but do at a large tech firm. Backward compatibility is sacrosanct, breaking older clients, means getting approvals many levels up in the chain, writing decision docs and showing data about what % of customers will be affected. We don't even build consumer products. "Customer outrage is temporary." -> Till it's not. If I could migrate my gmail (not even sure how many services I'd need to update) and use something else for Maps, I'd be off of all Google services.
- progman32 5y ago
  > We don't even build consumer products. Might that be the difference?
  - websap 5y ago
    Backwards compatibility would be even more important in that case. I've worked in product teams and we did all sorts of experiments to understand customer usecases before making a decision like this.

notreallyserio 5y ago

How do they continue to find engineers willing remove features from customer devices without even the courtesy of a) ensuring the link shown does not 404 and b) ensuring the link explains includes an honest and accurate explanation of the problem?