5 ms·

Yep. People used to make fun of Microsoft for their org chart where devdiv was holding a gun to everyone threatening to set fire to the building if Win32 was ev

Yep. People used to make fun of Microsoft for their org chart where devdiv was holding a gun to everyone threatening to set fire to the building if Win32 was ever touched, but at least it was between massive orgs within a single massive org. Google has a bunch of managers all vying to get their own promotions and will not hesitate to fuck over both users and other teams just for their moment of glory at Google I/O. And all of this stems from the fact that there's no leadership at Google, with an absolute inability to rally troops together on a single, common goal.

cmrdporcupine 3y ago
The problem at its root is despite this stuff being the major external public appearance of Google, it is in fact all just a side show to the real Google -- which is all data centre hosted core services stuff doing ads, search, etc. Behind all that stuff is an incredibly competent smart SRE team keeping the lights on and keeping things very efficient and reliable. And some boring but diligent SWEs writing the rather boring code to do all that boring stuff. That's what the real Google is, but it's invisible to the public. But all that ads money needs to be spent somewhere. And you can't grow your staff forever doing "boring" stuff. And if there's an exciting interesting project inside Google it's flies to shit, people stepping over each other for promotion.
- BlueTemplar 3y ago
  It's indirectly noticeable by YouTube not having gone out of business despite a free model with high costs. Note also how its biggest competitor, Twitch, is owned by another data center giant : Amazon (AWS).
  - mschuster91 3y ago
    The only way YouTube and Twitch can stay in business is because their respective owners have the scale to demand massive, massive peering discounts from "last-mile" ISPs and, at least in the case of Google, can avoid middle men on the intercontinental fiber links as they simply have their own cables where they don't need to pay rents to anyone.
  - pas 3y ago
    YouTube has a lot of ads nowadays. Of course it can do that because it's in a quasi-monopolistic position, which is a direct result of Google cross-financing it from search ads revenue. (Similarly how Chrome got into its own position.)
lynx23 3y ago
Since I read about Amanda Rosenberg, I am not surprised anymore. Actually, I am glad YouTube is the only Google product that I am using.
marcosdumay 3y ago
> but at least it was between massive orgs AFAIK they fixed the infighting more than a decade ago. That's why you don't see it causing problems. But also AFAIK (because I was never there), forced competition got all the way into single developers.

cmrdporcupine 3y ago

The problem at its root is despite this stuff being the major external public appearance of Google, it is in fact all just a side show to the real Google -- which is all data centre hosted core services stuff doing ads, search, etc. Behind all that stuff is an incredibly competent smart SRE team keeping the lights on and keeping things very efficient and reliable. And some boring but diligent SWEs writing the rather boring code to do all that boring stuff. That's what the real Google is, but it's invisible to the public. But all that ads money needs to be spent somewhere. And you can't grow your staff forever doing "boring" stuff. And if there's an exciting interesting project inside Google it's flies to shit, people stepping over each other for promotion.

BlueTemplar 3y ago
It's indirectly noticeable by YouTube not having gone out of business despite a free model with high costs. Note also how its biggest competitor, Twitch, is owned by another data center giant : Amazon (AWS).
- mschuster91 3y ago
  The only way YouTube and Twitch can stay in business is because their respective owners have the scale to demand massive, massive peering discounts from "last-mile" ISPs and, at least in the case of Google, can avoid middle men on the intercontinental fiber links as they simply have their own cables where they don't need to pay rents to anyone.
- pas 3y ago
  YouTube has a lot of ads nowadays. Of course it can do that because it's in a quasi-monopolistic position, which is a direct result of Google cross-financing it from search ads revenue. (Similarly how Chrome got into its own position.)

lynx23 3y ago

Since I read about Amanda Rosenberg, I am not surprised anymore. Actually, I am glad YouTube is the only Google product that I am using.

marcosdumay 3y ago

> but at least it was between massive orgs AFAIK they fixed the infighting more than a decade ago. That's why you don't see it causing problems. But also AFAIK (because I was never there), forced competition got all the way into single developers.