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I stopped having a positive view of Google due to their poor explanation for shutting down Google Reader. They explained they were shutting it down due to decl

I stopped having a positive view of Google due to their poor explanation for shutting down Google Reader. They explained they were shutting it down due to declining usage and they are pouring all of their energy into fewer product, however, as Google had a reputation for building cool and free stuff back then, it seemed reasonable to me that they could have maintain it in a frozen state or provide a longer transition period. This invited alternative theories about intentionally killing RSS for Google+.

pirsquare 4y ago
Remember Stadia? Google doesn't give a fuck about their users or customers. I would rather trust my money with Bernie Madoff than Google. I'm a 4 yrs customer with Google Cloud and they shutdown all my servers last friday. 3 days now and they still haven't gave me a resolution. Context: https://www.onvoard.com/blog/our-production-servers-was-suspended-by-google-cloud https://www.onvoard.com/blog/our-production-servers-was-susp...
- apengwin 4y ago
  Bernie Madoff's dead, though.
- lrem 4y ago
  Huh? I thought Stadia users were treated well, with refunds on everything they bought?
  - shapefrog 4y ago
    > Remember Stadia? Yeah I paid for some hardware, paid for some software, used it all for a couple of years and then they gave me all my money back. It was, as far as customer experiences go - excellent.
- maccard 4y ago
  I'm usually one for blaming the big company and arcane processes, but this squarely your fault. You missed emails asking for verification, and had your account suspended because of it. This will happen to you again on AWS or any other provider. Stadia was disappointing, but they refunded everyone everything they had ever spent. Short of keeping the service running for free forever I'm not sure what more they could have done.
  - pirsquare 4y ago
    "You missed emails asking for verification" Did you saw the title of the email? "Important Information for your Account". It reads more like an informational email. How many important emails you've received this week? Could've been worded "[Action Required]", "Account Suspension Notice" etc. And they didn't even drop a notification when my servers were shutdown. "This will happen to you again on AWS or any other provider." Can't really agree to this. I read all the horror stories and GCloud is the only one who would suspend you for something like this. I need to be very clear, the suspension is not due to fraudulent issue. It's due to "missing some paperwork". I've been paying using the same card for the past 4 yrs. Then voila they choose to suddenly dropped you an informational email and suspend you 10 days later. How many saas apps are you using? 10, 20? Imagine if everyone pulls up something like this would you even have time to run your business? See similar horror stories below. AWS doesn't pull this shit. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32547912 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32547912 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33737577 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33737577 And lastly, when something like this happens, the minimal they could do is to get my servers back asap. But you know what? I've been trying all my means to get them to it back at least temp but nobody there gives a fuck. It's all the "none of my business" attitude between their teams. Here's one more thing that I didn't mentioned. I replied to their verification team 3 times within an hour last friday. You know what happened? Their support team told me "their verification team" already replied to ask for more details when they haven't even read my replies (done all checks on my end can 100% confirm my msg was the last one out). And they've been dead silence over 3 days already. They don't give a fuck about screwing you and don't understand or care about the criticalness of their role.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - aniforprez 4y ago
      Your whole story boils down to you not properly reading an email that even says "Important Information". I don't understand how that part isn't your fault. They even tell you that your account will be suspended in the email. How do you not have a special filter to route emails from critical service providers? And I don't agree that GCP is "the only one that will suspend you for things like this". AWS can and has suspended accounts for arcane reasons though support was reasonably helpful enough I sympathise with the abysmal support though obviously. GCP has horrid support and deserve to be called out. I wouldn't recommend GCP to anyone
- ayewo 4y ago
  Yikes. Inspite of leadership changes by hiring from Oracle, it’s clear GCP will be stuck in 3rd place for a while. You can’t treat long standing customers (even with a modest spend) like dirt and hope to somehow edge out Azure or AWS. Submitted your link for discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35133917 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35133917
pydry 4y ago
When the first rumors of Google+ swirled I figured that Google Reader would be used to seed it. I really found it baffling that they didn't do that. It felt like they needlessly kneecapped plus's launch.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  Google tried integrating other services with G+, including both YouTube and Google Calendar (!!!). Neither went well, or were well accepted, including especially by Google fanboiim.
  - wolpoli 4y ago
    Google Reader was a publish-subscribe platform with chronological/per site newsfeed whereas Google+ was a peer-to-peer platform with an algorithm newsfeed. I didn't appreciate the difference at the time, but the philosophy was completely different and I couldn't come up with any idea that could fit Google Reader into the Google+ vision.
    - dredmorbius 4y ago
      G+ launched with a feature called "Sparks" in which people could subscribe to terms --- essentially saved searches --- which would surface general Web content in the G+ stream. There's a description of these here: <https://www.pcworld.com/article/481842/google_plus_day_9_playing_with_sparks.html https://www.pcworld.com/article/481842/google_plus_day_9_pla...>, and a video ad/promo: <https://yewtu.be/watch?v=MRkAdTflltc https://yewtu.be/watch?v=MRkAdTflltc>. They were explicitly compared to Reader in this piece: <https://geekbeat.tv/how-to-use-google-sparks/ https://geekbeat.tv/how-to-use-google-sparks/> (found serendiptously whilst looking for some general examples / references as I write this comment). This strikes me as similar to the spirit of Reader, though of course without the site-specific subscription of RSS. Conceptually, the idea of including RSS results in the stream wouldn't have been much of a stretch. Regardless, that feature was axed pretty early in G+ history. What irked most about the forced amalgamation of G+ and other Google services was the context sheer and violation of boundaries and social significance of various activities. In particular, suddenly G+ conversations based on YouTube links were now listed at YouTube under the video's comments, and comments from YouTube now appeared in G+ discussion streams. I responded by deleting all my own G+ posts of YouTube links, and deleting all content from the linked YouTube account (I'd used it little regardless). When G+ finally merged G+ and YouTube profiles, after about a year of my repeatedly stating "no, don't do that", and based solely on the fact that I'd used the same email address to register for each, it was a tremendous violation. Numerous other people felt similarly. The three top stories on HN that day were about the forced merger. Two of them were links to my own posts on G+. The original links are of course now dead, though I archived nearly all my own posts at the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. <https://imgur.com/YgEjUuI https://imgur.com/YgEjUuI> <https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2013-11-16 https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2013-11-16> There might have been other ways to

pirsquare 4y ago

Remember Stadia? Google doesn't give a fuck about their users or customers. I would rather trust my money with Bernie Madoff than Google. I'm a 4 yrs customer with Google Cloud and they shutdown all my servers last friday. 3 days now and they still haven't gave me a resolution. Context: https://www.onvoard.com/blog/our-production-servers-was-suspended-by-google-cloud https://www.onvoard.com/blog/our-production-servers-was-susp...

apengwin 4y ago
Bernie Madoff's dead, though.
lrem 4y ago
Huh? I thought Stadia users were treated well, with refunds on everything they bought?
- shapefrog 4y ago
  > Remember Stadia? Yeah I paid for some hardware, paid for some software, used it all for a couple of years and then they gave me all my money back. It was, as far as customer experiences go - excellent.
maccard 4y ago
I'm usually one for blaming the big company and arcane processes, but this squarely your fault. You missed emails asking for verification, and had your account suspended because of it. This will happen to you again on AWS or any other provider. Stadia was disappointing, but they refunded everyone everything they had ever spent. Short of keeping the service running for free forever I'm not sure what more they could have done.
- pirsquare 4y ago
  "You missed emails asking for verification" Did you saw the title of the email? "Important Information for your Account". It reads more like an informational email. How many important emails you've received this week? Could've been worded "[Action Required]", "Account Suspension Notice" etc. And they didn't even drop a notification when my servers were shutdown. "This will happen to you again on AWS or any other provider." Can't really agree to this. I read all the horror stories and GCloud is the only one who would suspend you for something like this. I need to be very clear, the suspension is not due to fraudulent issue. It's due to "missing some paperwork". I've been paying using the same card for the past 4 yrs. Then voila they choose to suddenly dropped you an informational email and suspend you 10 days later. How many saas apps are you using? 10, 20? Imagine if everyone pulls up something like this would you even have time to run your business? See similar horror stories below. AWS doesn't pull this shit. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32547912 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32547912 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33737577 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33737577 And lastly, when something like this happens, the minimal they could do is to get my servers back asap. But you know what? I've been trying all my means to get them to it back at least temp but nobody there gives a fuck. It's all the "none of my business" attitude between their teams. Here's one more thing that I didn't mentioned. I replied to their verification team 3 times within an hour last friday. You know what happened? Their support team told me "their verification team" already replied to ask for more details when they haven't even read my replies (done all checks on my end can 100% confirm my msg was the last one out). And they've been dead silence over 3 days already. They don't give a fuck about screwing you and don't understand or care about the criticalness of their role.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - aniforprez 4y ago
    Your whole story boils down to you not properly reading an email that even says "Important Information". I don't understand how that part isn't your fault. They even tell you that your account will be suspended in the email. How do you not have a special filter to route emails from critical service providers? And I don't agree that GCP is "the only one that will suspend you for things like this". AWS can and has suspended accounts for arcane reasons though support was reasonably helpful enough I sympathise with the abysmal support though obviously. GCP has horrid support and deserve to be called out. I wouldn't recommend GCP to anyone
ayewo 4y ago
Yikes. Inspite of leadership changes by hiring from Oracle, it’s clear GCP will be stuck in 3rd place for a while. You can’t treat long standing customers (even with a modest spend) like dirt and hope to somehow edge out Azure or AWS. Submitted your link for discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35133917 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35133917

pydry 4y ago

When the first rumors of Google+ swirled I figured that Google Reader would be used to seed it. I really found it baffling that they didn't do that. It felt like they needlessly kneecapped plus's launch.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dredmorbius 4y ago
Google tried integrating other services with G+, including both YouTube and Google Calendar (!!!). Neither went well, or were well accepted, including especially by Google fanboiim.
- wolpoli 4y ago
  Google Reader was a publish-subscribe platform with chronological/per site newsfeed whereas Google+ was a peer-to-peer platform with an algorithm newsfeed. I didn't appreciate the difference at the time, but the philosophy was completely different and I couldn't come up with any idea that could fit Google Reader into the Google+ vision.
  - dredmorbius 4y ago
    G+ launched with a feature called "Sparks" in which people could subscribe to terms --- essentially saved searches --- which would surface general Web content in the G+ stream. There's a description of these here: <https://www.pcworld.com/article/481842/google_plus_day_9_playing_with_sparks.html https://www.pcworld.com/article/481842/google_plus_day_9_pla...>, and a video ad/promo: <https://yewtu.be/watch?v=MRkAdTflltc https://yewtu.be/watch?v=MRkAdTflltc>. They were explicitly compared to Reader in this piece: <https://geekbeat.tv/how-to-use-google-sparks/ https://geekbeat.tv/how-to-use-google-sparks/> (found serendiptously whilst looking for some general examples / references as I write this comment). This strikes me as similar to the spirit of Reader, though of course without the site-specific subscription of RSS. Conceptually, the idea of including RSS results in the stream wouldn't have been much of a stretch. Regardless, that feature was axed pretty early in G+ history. What irked most about the forced amalgamation of G+ and other Google services was the context sheer and violation of boundaries and social significance of various activities. In particular, suddenly G+ conversations based on YouTube links were now listed at YouTube under the video's comments, and comments from YouTube now appeared in G+ discussion streams. I responded by deleting all my own G+ posts of YouTube links, and deleting all content from the linked YouTube account (I'd used it little regardless). When G+ finally merged G+ and YouTube profiles, after about a year of my repeatedly stating "no, don't do that", and based solely on the fact that I'd used the same email address to register for each, it was a tremendous violation. Numerous other people felt similarly. The three top stories on HN that day were about the forced merger. Two of them were links to my own posts on G+. The original links are of course now dead, though I archived nearly all my own posts at the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. <https://imgur.com/YgEjUuI https://imgur.com/YgEjUuI> <https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2013-11-16 https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2013-11-16> There might have been other ways to