That was the point. Google wanted to hold itself to a higher standard, because by being held to a higher standard, the product and the organization improved mo

That was the point. Google wanted to hold itself to a higher standard, because by being held to a higher standard, the product and the organization improved more than if they didn't have that standard. And the Internet environment of the 00s was such that consumers would make their own judgment about products, so if a PR kerfuffle happened, it was basically free advertising because people would go check out the product to see what all the fuss was about, and then find the product actually improved their lives, and then stick around as repeat users. It started to change around 2011, for a few reasons: a.) Google ran out of headroom to improve their core products, so increasingly changes were met with "Eh, whatever" rather than "This is really cool!" and b.) perception started to dominate reality, so what the press said about a product became more important than people's actual experience using the product. Those are related: when a product is unquestionably good, you ignore what everyone else says about it, but when it's questionably good other peoples' opinions matters a lot more. But the combined effect was that it became more effective to pursue short-term wins that generate a positive press cycle (and to avoid negative press cycles) than to pursue risky new product cycles that speak for themselves. When perception dominates reality, managing that perception becomes more important than improving reality.