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The article has been on HN for an hour. It has 8 comments, 5 of which were my first thought - why on earth would you expect this service to hang around, based o

The article has been on HN for an hour. It has 8 comments, 5 of which were my first thought - why on earth would you expect this service to hang around, based on Google's track record? Wether it lasts or not, this surely has to be an issue for Google innovations going forward? If the perception is that any new thing will die, especially not-consumer-scale things, then how do they build traction?

refulgentis 5y ago
The people who believe this are going to keep believing it, there's not really anything to dissuade them. A priori anything might be cancelled could be and is worthless. Most don't have that extreme of a position, Reader and Allo were the last big deprecations.
- inlined 5y ago
  I can’t think of a single google cloud product that’s gone GA and then been shut down. Google has different attitudes towards consumer and enterprise products.
  - pxeboot 5y ago
    Google Cloud Print was shutdown [1]. [1] https://www.google.com/cloudprint/learn/ https://www.google.com/cloudprint/learn/
    - jvolkman 5y ago
      Despite the name I don't think that was actually part of GCP.
    - seized 5y ago
      I was salty about that too, but it wasn't a Google Cloud Platform (GCP) product. It just had cloud in its name.
    - jrockway 5y ago
      That's just poor branding. Google Cloud Print was not part of Google Cloud Platform. (I feel like Google just doesn't understand branding. I remember when they launched the Pixel C after the Chromebook Pixel, and it ran Android instead of ChromeOS. What was once a Chrome brand became an Android brand. I guess because Chrome was doing pretty well at the time, and Android just reminded people of slow phones that ran out of battery instantly. Sigh!)
    - jamesmishra 5y ago
      The name is "Google (Cloud Print)" not "(Google Cloud) Print"
  - jfoster 5y ago
    It's not part of Google Cloud (I think?) but I bet the majority of Google Cloud customers have been using Universal Analytics. https://twitter.com/YoungbloodJoe/status/1504107839262011403 https://twitter.com/YoungbloodJoe/status/1504107839262011403
- user3939382 5y ago
  From what I’ve heard, which could be wrong since it’s just second-hand anecdotes —- internal Google promotions favor people who start and launch new projects rather than maintain old ones. If that’s true, Google’s products aren’t subject to cancelation in the way that any given web service is. https://killedbygoogle.com/ https://killedbygoogle.com/ In any case, given their ethical bankruptcy, I wouldn’t use anything from them given the choice. https://www.stallman.org/google.html https://www.stallman.org/google.html
  - jvolkman 5y ago
    Stallman's pages for Amazon and Apple are both longer. https://www.stallman.org/amazon.html https://www.stallman.org/amazon.html https://www.stallman.org/apple.html https://www.stallman.org/apple.html
- bruce511 5y ago
  Google Plus? Hangouts? Maps got a 7000% price increase... No user support for blocked accounts? My point is though that while you say "most don't have that extreme a position", I'm not sure what % it is. And does that perception, that it exists at all, hinder them from future rollout?
ggm 5y ago
A mechanistic certificate issuance service which is explicitly capable of being re-homed under another TA: Just use ACME compliant certbot calls to letsencrypt and you will have a certificate about "you" which validates under another TA. I get your beef with google service availability longterm and the google list of killed products, but this is an instance of a service which in true Internet form "routes around damage" This isn't the killer "what if google stop" problem area. ACME based certification doesn't care: find another TA, and move on with your life.
- kadoban 5y ago
  For now. In a couple of years when Google gets bored and breaks the spec in incompatible ways, then the lock-in begins.
  - binkHN 5y ago
    Yes; the embrace, extend, extinguish playbook.
    - ggm 5y ago
      If they change the spec and certbot follows them, I doubt it will deprecate the non-google approaches. If they do something novel like enable multi-level wildcarding not just the terminal leftmost *. form, People might get stuck on how that works, but it would probably require chrome to change too. mainly I suspect this is to pacify people inside GKE who don't like calling outside of the protected space to get certificates to exist.
- bruce511 5y ago
  I guess my point is, LE exists, I'm using it already, why would I switch? Assuming there is a reason to switch, the switch back is not without cost. Ergo, either way, I'm not using this. Then again I don't use GCP for the same reason. My bigger point is that logical or not, my perception appears to be common. And that may hurt Google's ability to get traction with unique services in the future. No one cares about Google's CA, but perhaps this perception issue is a real problem?
mcpherrinm 5y ago
One of the advantages of using the standard ACME protocol is that you will be able to very easily switch CAs should you need to. It could possibly even be automatically switched on the fly, if one CA has some sort of outage. That’s a nice advantage for improving reliability and flexibility. This is presumably a core feature of Google Cloud, and if you’re already using their other cloud products, I can’t imagine being too worried about features randomly going away. (Disclaimer: While I work for Let’s Encrypt, this is my own opinion and not necessarily that of my employers)
- bruce511 5y ago
  I agree 100%. So if my Initial reaction to a _standard_ service is "no way", then what chance do they have for a unique future service offering? The cert issuer is not the issue - the (general?) opinion of Google maybe is... And that's before we take customer service into the equation.
lofties 5y ago
The big difference here is that their ACME server is part of Google Cloud. Google Cloud is a paid service and in the 5 years of using it, I cannot remember any gcloud service being deprecated, without a similar alternative being introduced. (e.g cloud image registry being replaced with artifact registry)
- markdown 5y ago
  Not true at all. They gutted GAE Standard Environment and turned it into a shell of its former self.
  - waych 5y ago
    To be fair, that was well longer than 5 years ago.
    - smaudet 5y ago
      So (had to look it up) Reader was infamously the shuttered project that first caused a lot of backlash...that went for 8 years. They closed it due to "declining usage" i.e. they could not monetize well. Play Music died after 9 years, and that even featured paid souscriptions...the logic of "paid for and around" doesnt seem to be a solid argument, esp for a company making money primarily off of data - as of 2021 their cloud business is only 5% of their revenue, ~74% of their revenue is ad based the rest is devices (nest, phones), and Youtube. I think its pretty reasonable to be concerned about the longevity of this product - maybe we will be wrong, but.
      - ithkuil 5y ago
        Both examples were not google cloud products. Not all paid products fit the same category as B2B enterprise yadda yadda
        smaudet 5y ago
        Not really the point - they have 5% market share with those B2B products, and a history of axing stuff that they don't think makes enough money.
aeturnum 5y ago
It's fascinating to me how thoroughly Google has managed to poison the well for their services. Many of the people aren't even swayed by the connection to a revenue-generating service. I understand! I wouldn't use this unless it was much, much easier than using letsencrypt - even in a GCP ecosystem. I don't trust them any more than anyone else.
- antonvs 5y ago
  > It's fascinating to me how thoroughly Google has managed to poison the well for their services. What's fascinating to me is the apparent irrationality, from people who otherwise tend to pride themselves on being rational. I can understand people saying they'll never deal with Google again because they killed their favorite free product or whatever. That's fair. But the attempt to justify that position as some sort of rational risk calculation, taking the actual facts of the matter into account, is misguided. In some cases this is due to a lack of info and disinterest in correcting that, but many other cases just seem to be emotion masquerading as a thought process.
  - bruce511 5y ago
    Of course it's emotional, all decisions are to some degree emotional. And I would suggest that if they'd just killed reader, then OK, stuff like that happens. But Google has killed a Lot of things. Probably for good reason. But they get a reputation for being "flighty" when it comes to new things. Sure it's emotional, but that reputation comes into my thinking when I make product choices. I'll use HERE maps over Google maps etc. And I'm not terribly inclined to make their stuff part of my critical work flow. So sure I'll Google search and YouTube all day long. But I'll use AWS or Azure over GCP. 90% because I can get someone on the phone. 9% because I wonder when Google will decide to kill GCP. And 1% because I don't trust the Google AI not ti just terminate my account with no recourse.
deleted 5y ago
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refulgentis 5y ago

The people who believe this are going to keep believing it, there's not really anything to dissuade them. A priori anything might be cancelled could be and is worthless. Most don't have that extreme of a position, Reader and Allo were the last big deprecations.

inlined 5y ago
I can’t think of a single google cloud product that’s gone GA and then been shut down. Google has different attitudes towards consumer and enterprise products.
- pxeboot 5y ago
  Google Cloud Print was shutdown [1]. [1] https://www.google.com/cloudprint/learn/ https://www.google.com/cloudprint/learn/
  - jvolkman 5y ago
    Despite the name I don't think that was actually part of GCP.
  - seized 5y ago
    I was salty about that too, but it wasn't a Google Cloud Platform (GCP) product. It just had cloud in its name.
  - jrockway 5y ago
    That's just poor branding. Google Cloud Print was not part of Google Cloud Platform. (I feel like Google just doesn't understand branding. I remember when they launched the Pixel C after the Chromebook Pixel, and it ran Android instead of ChromeOS. What was once a Chrome brand became an Android brand. I guess because Chrome was doing pretty well at the time, and Android just reminded people of slow phones that ran out of battery instantly. Sigh!)
  - jamesmishra 5y ago
    The name is "Google (Cloud Print)" not "(Google Cloud) Print"
- jfoster 5y ago
  It's not part of Google Cloud (I think?) but I bet the majority of Google Cloud customers have been using Universal Analytics. https://twitter.com/YoungbloodJoe/status/1504107839262011403 https://twitter.com/YoungbloodJoe/status/1504107839262011403
user3939382 5y ago
From what I’ve heard, which could be wrong since it’s just second-hand anecdotes —- internal Google promotions favor people who start and launch new projects rather than maintain old ones. If that’s true, Google’s products aren’t subject to cancelation in the way that any given web service is. https://killedbygoogle.com/ https://killedbygoogle.com/ In any case, given their ethical bankruptcy, I wouldn’t use anything from them given the choice. https://www.stallman.org/google.html https://www.stallman.org/google.html
- jvolkman 5y ago
  Stallman's pages for Amazon and Apple are both longer. https://www.stallman.org/amazon.html https://www.stallman.org/amazon.html https://www.stallman.org/apple.html https://www.stallman.org/apple.html
bruce511 5y ago
Google Plus? Hangouts? Maps got a 7000% price increase... No user support for blocked accounts? My point is though that while you say "most don't have that extreme a position", I'm not sure what % it is. And does that perception, that it exists at all, hinder them from future rollout?

ggm 5y ago

A mechanistic certificate issuance service which is explicitly capable of being re-homed under another TA: Just use ACME compliant certbot calls to letsencrypt and you will have a certificate about "you" which validates under another TA. I get your beef with google service availability longterm and the google list of killed products, but this is an instance of a service which in true Internet form "routes around damage" This isn't the killer "what if google stop" problem area. ACME based certification doesn't care: find another TA, and move on with your life.

kadoban 5y ago
For now. In a couple of years when Google gets bored and breaks the spec in incompatible ways, then the lock-in begins.
- binkHN 5y ago
  Yes; the embrace, extend, extinguish playbook.
  - ggm 5y ago
    If they change the spec and certbot follows them, I doubt it will deprecate the non-google approaches. If they do something novel like enable multi-level wildcarding not just the terminal leftmost *. form, People might get stuck on how that works, but it would probably require chrome to change too. mainly I suspect this is to pacify people inside GKE who don't like calling outside of the protected space to get certificates to exist.
bruce511 5y ago
I guess my point is, LE exists, I'm using it already, why would I switch? Assuming there is a reason to switch, the switch back is not without cost. Ergo, either way, I'm not using this. Then again I don't use GCP for the same reason. My bigger point is that logical or not, my perception appears to be common. And that may hurt Google's ability to get traction with unique services in the future. No one cares about Google's CA, but perhaps this perception issue is a real problem?

mcpherrinm 5y ago

One of the advantages of using the standard ACME protocol is that you will be able to very easily switch CAs should you need to. It could possibly even be automatically switched on the fly, if one CA has some sort of outage. That’s a nice advantage for improving reliability and flexibility. This is presumably a core feature of Google Cloud, and if you’re already using their other cloud products, I can’t imagine being too worried about features randomly going away. (Disclaimer: While I work for Let’s Encrypt, this is my own opinion and not necessarily that of my employers)

bruce511 5y ago
I agree 100%. So if my Initial reaction to a _standard_ service is "no way", then what chance do they have for a unique future service offering? The cert issuer is not the issue - the (general?) opinion of Google maybe is... And that's before we take customer service into the equation.

lofties 5y ago

The big difference here is that their ACME server is part of Google Cloud. Google Cloud is a paid service and in the 5 years of using it, I cannot remember any gcloud service being deprecated, without a similar alternative being introduced. (e.g cloud image registry being replaced with artifact registry)

markdown 5y ago
Not true at all. They gutted GAE Standard Environment and turned it into a shell of its former self.
- waych 5y ago
  To be fair, that was well longer than 5 years ago.
  - smaudet 5y ago
    So (had to look it up) Reader was infamously the shuttered project that first caused a lot of backlash...that went for 8 years. They closed it due to "declining usage" i.e. they could not monetize well. Play Music died after 9 years, and that even featured paid souscriptions...the logic of "paid for and around" doesnt seem to be a solid argument, esp for a company making money primarily off of data - as of 2021 their cloud business is only 5% of their revenue, ~74% of their revenue is ad based the rest is devices (nest, phones), and Youtube. I think its pretty reasonable to be concerned about the longevity of this product - maybe we will be wrong, but.
    - ithkuil 5y ago
      Both examples were not google cloud products. Not all paid products fit the same category as B2B enterprise yadda yadda
      - smaudet 5y ago
        Not really the point - they have 5% market share with those B2B products, and a history of axing stuff that they don't think makes enough money.

aeturnum 5y ago

It's fascinating to me how thoroughly Google has managed to poison the well for their services. Many of the people aren't even swayed by the connection to a revenue-generating service. I understand! I wouldn't use this unless it was much, much easier than using letsencrypt - even in a GCP ecosystem. I don't trust them any more than anyone else.

antonvs 5y ago
> It's fascinating to me how thoroughly Google has managed to poison the well for their services. What's fascinating to me is the apparent irrationality, from people who otherwise tend to pride themselves on being rational. I can understand people saying they'll never deal with Google again because they killed their favorite free product or whatever. That's fair. But the attempt to justify that position as some sort of rational risk calculation, taking the actual facts of the matter into account, is misguided. In some cases this is due to a lack of info and disinterest in correcting that, but many other cases just seem to be emotion masquerading as a thought process.
- bruce511 5y ago
  Of course it's emotional, all decisions are to some degree emotional. And I would suggest that if they'd just killed reader, then OK, stuff like that happens. But Google has killed a Lot of things. Probably for good reason. But they get a reputation for being "flighty" when it comes to new things. Sure it's emotional, but that reputation comes into my thinking when I make product choices. I'll use HERE maps over Google maps etc. And I'm not terribly inclined to make their stuff part of my critical work flow. So sure I'll Google search and YouTube all day long. But I'll use AWS or Azure over GCP. 90% because I can get someone on the phone. 9% because I wonder when Google will decide to kill GCP. And 1% because I don't trust the Google AI not ti just terminate my account with no recourse.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]