5 ms·

> public api's and/or user interfaces sigh. Google used to release _some_ models. Guess the fun early days are coming to an end.

Legend2440 3y ago
Google is a business and this is clearly a valuable product.
- ShamelessC 3y ago
  Sure, but there was a time not too long ago when companies were still in the "good will" phase of handing out even highly valuable models like CLIP, guided-diffusion, etc. Come to think, it was mostly OpenAI doing this. And they kinda still do? But far more selectively. I'm just preemptively romanticizing that.
- rasz 3y ago
  Product is something you sell to make money. The only real Google product is users sold to advertisers.
  - vore 3y ago
    Uh, what about all of their paid cloud offerings?
    - rasz 3y ago
      Distraction. Generated whole 1% of overall profit last quarter, and that was the first time it didnt lose money. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/25/googles-cloud-business-turns-profitable-for-the-first-time-on-record.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/25/googles-cloud-business-turns...
  - jsnell 3y ago
    Google's non-advertising revenue in the latest quarter was about $15 billion. Is that significant amount of non-ads product revenue? At least that is higher than the revenue of any of IBM, HP, Oracle, Intel, Cisco, Netflix, Broadcom, Qualcomm, or Salesforce in that same quarter. I think their non-ads businesses alone would be the 6th largest US tech company by revenue. (Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, the ads business of Alphabet, Meta. Am I forgetting something?)
    - rasz 3y ago
      Revenue is easy when you lose money on every dollar. Last quarter Ads printed $21B of income, rest was a loss except cloud not losing hundreds of $millions for the very first time. https://abc.xyz/assets/investor/static/pdf/2023Q1_alphabet_earnings_release.pdf https://abc.xyz/assets/investor/static/pdf/2023Q1_alphabet_e...
- joezydeco 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - vore 3y ago
    I don’t want to defend Google’s business practices, but this is such a trite comment someone always feels compelled to post on anything about Google, including even a research paper, apparently.
    - georgemcbay 3y ago
      I don't bother to post the comment, but the high likelihood of any Google project/product being killed within a year or two is absolutely the first thought I have whenever a new Google project/product is announced (not because of HN posts, but because of their history), so good job on that Google.
    - joezydeco 3y ago
      I'll argue it's not trite. It's a concise compilation of the thousands of teeth-gnashing comments here on HN and all over the internet whenever Google randomly drowns another one of its children. Just fucking stay away from Google products. Period.
      - relativ575 3y ago
        First of all it isn't a product. It's a f*king research paper. Like dozens other showing up on HN every day. Most of them never becomes a product. Second of all, by whining nauseously you drown out discussions on the merits of the technology, and chase people away. I hardly read Google news on HN now precisely because of that reason. Imagine if "Attention is all your need" came out now? [0] Save your complaint for when Google makes it a product. [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15938082 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15938082
        serf 3y ago
        >Save your complaint for when Google makes it a product. or save yourself the trouble and find alternatives to big-G. It's entirely their own fault that people now view all Google news as temporary and fleeting. People don't want to put time into things that'll get thrown away in a year. Reading G research papers seems like a shortcut to me, know what will be thrown away in 2 years before it's a valid product in 1 year and someone gets huckleberry'd into devoting time and effort into implementing the dead-product-walking API.
famouswaffles 3y ago
Ha i'm not even asking for code/model releases. It's just a bit funny that what you can *pay* google to use is so far behind what they have up and running collecting dust.
- ShamelessC 3y ago
  Also true.
- Raed667 3y ago
  I'm speculating here, but for me it looks like the product (R&D) teams are not working closely with the research teams. Even the demo website is on Github Pages instead of a Google domain/blog.
ShamelessC 3y ago
How in gods name is this a controversial take? Good lord.

Legend2440 3y ago

Google is a business and this is clearly a valuable product.

ShamelessC 3y ago
Sure, but there was a time not too long ago when companies were still in the "good will" phase of handing out even highly valuable models like CLIP, guided-diffusion, etc. Come to think, it was mostly OpenAI doing this. And they kinda still do? But far more selectively. I'm just preemptively romanticizing that.
rasz 3y ago
Product is something you sell to make money. The only real Google product is users sold to advertisers.
- vore 3y ago
  Uh, what about all of their paid cloud offerings?
  - rasz 3y ago
    Distraction. Generated whole 1% of overall profit last quarter, and that was the first time it didnt lose money. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/25/googles-cloud-business-turns-profitable-for-the-first-time-on-record.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/25/googles-cloud-business-turns...
- jsnell 3y ago
  Google's non-advertising revenue in the latest quarter was about $15 billion. Is that significant amount of non-ads product revenue? At least that is higher than the revenue of any of IBM, HP, Oracle, Intel, Cisco, Netflix, Broadcom, Qualcomm, or Salesforce in that same quarter. I think their non-ads businesses alone would be the 6th largest US tech company by revenue. (Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, the ads business of Alphabet, Meta. Am I forgetting something?)
  - rasz 3y ago
    Revenue is easy when you lose money on every dollar. Last quarter Ads printed $21B of income, rest was a loss except cloud not losing hundreds of $millions for the very first time. https://abc.xyz/assets/investor/static/pdf/2023Q1_alphabet_earnings_release.pdf https://abc.xyz/assets/investor/static/pdf/2023Q1_alphabet_e...
joezydeco 3y ago
[flagged]
- vore 3y ago
  I don’t want to defend Google’s business practices, but this is such a trite comment someone always feels compelled to post on anything about Google, including even a research paper, apparently.
  - georgemcbay 3y ago
    I don't bother to post the comment, but the high likelihood of any Google project/product being killed within a year or two is absolutely the first thought I have whenever a new Google project/product is announced (not because of HN posts, but because of their history), so good job on that Google.
  - joezydeco 3y ago
    I'll argue it's not trite. It's a concise compilation of the thousands of teeth-gnashing comments here on HN and all over the internet whenever Google randomly drowns another one of its children. Just fucking stay away from Google products. Period.
    - relativ575 3y ago
      First of all it isn't a product. It's a f*king research paper. Like dozens other showing up on HN every day. Most of them never becomes a product. Second of all, by whining nauseously you drown out discussions on the merits of the technology, and chase people away. I hardly read Google news on HN now precisely because of that reason. Imagine if "Attention is all your need" came out now? [0] Save your complaint for when Google makes it a product. [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15938082 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15938082
      - serf 3y ago
        >Save your complaint for when Google makes it a product. or save yourself the trouble and find alternatives to big-G. It's entirely their own fault that people now view all Google news as temporary and fleeting. People don't want to put time into things that'll get thrown away in a year. Reading G research papers seems like a shortcut to me, know what will be thrown away in 2 years before it's a valid product in 1 year and someone gets huckleberry'd into devoting time and effort into implementing the dead-product-walking API.

famouswaffles 3y ago

Ha i'm not even asking for code/model releases. It's just a bit funny that what you can *pay* google to use is so far behind what they have up and running collecting dust.

ShamelessC 3y ago
Also true.
Raed667 3y ago
I'm speculating here, but for me it looks like the product (R&D) teams are not working closely with the research teams. Even the demo website is on Github Pages instead of a Google domain/blog.

ShamelessC 3y ago

How in gods name is this a controversial take? Good lord.