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You’ve just got to look back through history and you’ll see the same thing play out, and controversially it’s not actually the worst play in the long run. 1) p

You’ve just got to look back through history and you’ll see the same thing play out, and controversially it’s not actually the worst play in the long run. 1) pick a high risk / high reward opportunity 2) invest heavily in the fundamental tech behind it and see if it works out 3) when it doesn’t work out, shut it down, take the tech you built and use it for something. So for example, let’s look at dart. There was never any way it was going to work, really… but, at the time, maaaaybe, it could have worked. …and google would have owned the web stack entirely. …but, they’ve put it to work in flutter now and that’s going ok. The point I’m making is that if you look at this from the perspective of investment in fundamental technology (Ie. Steaming video say) what’s better? A) develop it with no specific use case B) work really hard on a very difficult use case that might end up failing If you can afford it, the latter is maybe not the worst way of doing it. You end up with battle tested technology and no users to bother you for the made-in-a-rush service you made to go with it. You could easily argue that more successfully outcomes could come from less risky investments… but do you want 50 kind of bleh services in your portfolio? I don’t think google does. They want a few unicorns. You don’t get unicorns by playing it safe. So… I’m not saying it’s the right strategy, or even a good one, but from that perspective you can see why you’d try. Bet: we’ll see something fancy using the streaming tech roll out eventually, probably linked to a more successful existing product, it will be unremarkable and well liked by most people.

josephg 4y ago
The counterpoint is that their strategy is burning trust in their brand. New products depend on early adopters to mature and grow. But I’ve been burned by Google’s product ADHD so many times now that I refuse to be an early adopter of any of their products. If gmail came out today, I’d assume it would be shut down in a few years and I wouldn’t touch it. The only Google products I’d use today are Android, Chrome, Search, Gmail and sometimes firebase or Meet. I think Google meet is the only thing in that list less than 10 years old. (And even then it’s just rebranded Hangouts). Every time Google shuts down a product, they hurt their reputation. They’re pissing in the pool that future Google products need to survive. At this point I don’t know if Google can make successful new products because nobody trusts their follow through.
- MattPalmer1086 4y ago
  Yes, completely agree, same here. I don't touch Google products any more, and it's mostly because I don't trust they will remain available. I only use the products that are very unlikely to go away quickly. Search, Gmail and Android. I'd like to get off Gmail for other reasons, but it's a pain. And I mostly use DuckDuckGo for search these days.
  - kelnos 4y ago
    > I'd like to get off Gmail for other reasons, but it's a pain. I used to think that, but I was actually surprised how easy it was to get off GMail. I gave Fastmail my credit card number, clicked a few buttons in their UI to get my mail transferred over, moved my MX records, and I was done. I ended up migrating contacts, too, but that was just a couple more clicks in Fastmail's UI, as they have an OAuth flow that interacts directly with Google's APIs. I still haven't migrated my calendar, and a few other email-adjacent things, but it's fine; it can all operate this way until I'm ready. Edit: right after posting, realized you might be using an @gmail.com address, so yeah, migrating off GMail in that case is much harder than if you have a custom domain.
    - MattPalmer1086 4y ago
      Exactly! When I finally do migrate, it will use my own domain.
    - technion 4y ago
      I've always used a custom domain not with google, but the reason I would find it hard to get off gmail is the list of sites that only offer a 'login with gmail' with the only alternative being 'login with facebook'. And the list is getting consistently bigger, with many developers getting in on the trend of "passwords are too risky, just let Google handle it". If there is ever a day Google turns off sso for free Gmail users it will be a big one.
      - Macha 4y ago
pas 4y ago
flutter may be ok, but it's again something that's hard to relate to, because it's using fuckin Dart. and artificial barrier. they should use TS. or kotlin or Swift ... or just Java. look at React. the simplest piece of shit and it's eating the world because people got into the cult of React. similarly with Go. ... streaming tech: they'll just fold it into YouTube somehow. unicorns: did they ever launch any since Gmail?
- wokwokwok 4y ago
  Android Maps Docs Go /shrug I dunno, I think it’s fair to say they’ve had a few winners.
  - michaelt 4y ago
    Android, by acquiring Android Inc. Maps, by acquiring Keyhole and Where 2 Technologies. Docs, by acquiring Upstartle. YouTube, by buying YouTube Inc. Got any winners that they started themselves instead of acquiring? Credit where it's due though: A lot of companies destroy their acquisitions, which hasn't happened in these cases.
    - UncleMeat 4y ago
      Photos. More than 1B users at this point.
  - pas 4y ago
    Okay, Drive/Docs/Photos qualifies I think. (But also fuck 'em for ruining Picasa :D) Google Workspaces has to be a money printer. Go doesn't make them money directly. Similarly k8s is great, but doesn't make them money. (At best it's the classic commoditize your complement strategy. Though I have no idea where Go comes from. Well, I guess if you hire enough language developers you're bound to eventually get a new language, even if it's a bit meh, so they at least matched React in that.)
    - Macha 4y ago
      My feeling was Go was a project that came out of the idea of making a language to reflect the ethos of their C++ style guide from years ago. The focus on reducing complexity felt like a way to make it easy for them to hire/onboard grads etc.
pragmatic 4y ago
Is flutter going ok? It’s a product I’ve shied away from because Google. Angular (and angularjs before it) are typical Google engineering. (Too much rxjs solutioning in search of a problem to solve. Compare it to svelte using an observable interface to get 80% of the benefit with the rest of the absolute insanity that junior devs bounce off and make angular a dreaded framework compared to react, vue, svelte) Google is an anti-brand at this point.

josephg 4y ago

The counterpoint is that their strategy is burning trust in their brand. New products depend on early adopters to mature and grow. But I’ve been burned by Google’s product ADHD so many times now that I refuse to be an early adopter of any of their products. If gmail came out today, I’d assume it would be shut down in a few years and I wouldn’t touch it. The only Google products I’d use today are Android, Chrome, Search, Gmail and sometimes firebase or Meet. I think Google meet is the only thing in that list less than 10 years old. (And even then it’s just rebranded Hangouts). Every time Google shuts down a product, they hurt their reputation. They’re pissing in the pool that future Google products need to survive. At this point I don’t know if Google can make successful new products because nobody trusts their follow through.

MattPalmer1086 4y ago
Yes, completely agree, same here. I don't touch Google products any more, and it's mostly because I don't trust they will remain available. I only use the products that are very unlikely to go away quickly. Search, Gmail and Android. I'd like to get off Gmail for other reasons, but it's a pain. And I mostly use DuckDuckGo for search these days.
- kelnos 4y ago
  > I'd like to get off Gmail for other reasons, but it's a pain. I used to think that, but I was actually surprised how easy it was to get off GMail. I gave Fastmail my credit card number, clicked a few buttons in their UI to get my mail transferred over, moved my MX records, and I was done. I ended up migrating contacts, too, but that was just a couple more clicks in Fastmail's UI, as they have an OAuth flow that interacts directly with Google's APIs. I still haven't migrated my calendar, and a few other email-adjacent things, but it's fine; it can all operate this way until I'm ready. Edit: right after posting, realized you might be using an @gmail.com address, so yeah, migrating off GMail in that case is much harder than if you have a custom domain.
  - MattPalmer1086 4y ago
    Exactly! When I finally do migrate, it will use my own domain.
  - technion 4y ago
    I've always used a custom domain not with google, but the reason I would find it hard to get off gmail is the list of sites that only offer a 'login with gmail' with the only alternative being 'login with facebook'. And the list is getting consistently bigger, with many developers getting in on the trend of "passwords are too risky, just let Google handle it". If there is ever a day Google turns off sso for free Gmail users it will be a big one.
    - Macha 4y ago

pas 4y ago

flutter may be ok, but it's again something that's hard to relate to, because it's using fuckin Dart. and artificial barrier. they should use TS. or kotlin or Swift ... or just Java. look at React. the simplest piece of shit and it's eating the world because people got into the cult of React. similarly with Go. ... streaming tech: they'll just fold it into YouTube somehow. unicorns: did they ever launch any since Gmail?

wokwokwok 4y ago
Android Maps Docs Go /shrug I dunno, I think it’s fair to say they’ve had a few winners.
- michaelt 4y ago
  Android, by acquiring Android Inc. Maps, by acquiring Keyhole and Where 2 Technologies. Docs, by acquiring Upstartle. YouTube, by buying YouTube Inc. Got any winners that they started themselves instead of acquiring? Credit where it's due though: A lot of companies destroy their acquisitions, which hasn't happened in these cases.
  - UncleMeat 4y ago
    Photos. More than 1B users at this point.
- pas 4y ago
  Okay, Drive/Docs/Photos qualifies I think. (But also fuck 'em for ruining Picasa :D) Google Workspaces has to be a money printer. Go doesn't make them money directly. Similarly k8s is great, but doesn't make them money. (At best it's the classic commoditize your complement strategy. Though I have no idea where Go comes from. Well, I guess if you hire enough language developers you're bound to eventually get a new language, even if it's a bit meh, so they at least matched React in that.)
  - Macha 4y ago
    My feeling was Go was a project that came out of the idea of making a language to reflect the ethos of their C++ style guide from years ago. The focus on reducing complexity felt like a way to make it easy for them to hire/onboard grads etc.

pragmatic 4y ago

Is flutter going ok? It’s a product I’ve shied away from because Google. Angular (and angularjs before it) are typical Google engineering. (Too much rxjs solutioning in search of a problem to solve. Compare it to svelte using an observable interface to get 80% of the benefit with the rest of the absolute insanity that junior devs bounce off and make angular a dreaded framework compared to react, vue, svelte) Google is an anti-brand at this point.