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I disagree - another way you could phrase this is that Google is presbyopic. They're very capable of thinking long-term (eg. Google Deepmind and AI as a whole,

I disagree - another way you could phrase this is that Google is presbyopic. They're very capable of thinking long-term (eg. Google Deepmind and AI as a whole, cloud, video, Drive/GSuite, etc.), but as a result they struggle to respond to quick market changes. AdSense is the perfect example of Google "going long" on a product and reaping the rewards to monopolistic ends. They can corner a market when the set their sights on it. I don't think Google (or really any of FAANG) makes "good" products anymore. But I do think there are things to appreciate in each org, and compared to the way Apple and Microsoft are flailing helplessly I think Google has proven themselves in software here.

lxgr 2y ago
Google does software/features relatively well, but they are completely lost when it comes to marketing, shipping, and continuing to support products. Or how would you describe their handling of Stadia, or their weird obsession about shipping and cancelling about a dozen instant messengers?
- talldayo 2y ago
  Stadia was a failure from the start. Microsoft and Nvidia are also laser-focused on this game streaming business, but I seriously doubt it will pan out ever. At least not in a profitable sense. In that regard, I think Google planned to be first-to-market, failed early, and killed their darling before anyone got a chance to love it. The IMs post-Hangouts are less explainable, but I do empathize with Google for wanting to find some form of SMS replacement standard. The RCS we have today is flawed and was rushed out of the door just to have a serious option for the DOJ to endorse. This is an area where I believe the United States government has been negligent in allowing competing OEMs to refuse cooperation in creating an SMS successor. I agree it's silly, and it needs to stop eventually.
  - lxgr 2y ago
    > Stadia was a failure from the start. Microsoft and Nvidia are also laser-focused on this game streaming business Have you actually compared these services first hand? Stadia was miles ahead of the competition. The experience was unbelievably good and ubiquitous (Desktop, phone, TV, Chromecast...), and both mouse and gamepad felt like first class input methods. Microsoft's Xbox game streaming is a complete joke in comparison. Last time I tried, I had to use my mouse to operate a virtual gamepad to operate a virtual cursor to click instruments in MSFS. Four levels of nesting. Development progress is also extremely slow. Not sure where you're seeing laser focus there. > I do empathize with Google for wanting to find some form of SMS replacement standard Why did Google out of all companies have to come up with an SMS replacement? Absolutely nobody asked for this! They started out with XMPP, which was federated and had world-class open source implementations, and after what feels like a double-digit number of failed attempts they arrived at SMS over SIP from hell that nobody other than themselves actually knows how to implement and only telcos can federate with (theoretically; practically, they just outsource to Google). I find it really hard to believe that this is anything other than a thinly veiled marketing plot to be able to point at an "open standard" that Google is almost exclusively running via Jibe (not sure if they provide that for free or are charging carriers for it). The contortions they went through to decouple their "Allo" and "Duo" brands from Google accounts (something almost everybody has anyway to send email!) for absolutely no benefit and even more significant customer confusion... And now look at Gemini. It looks like the exact same story to me from the beginning: Amazing technology backed by a great team (they literally invented transformers), yet completely kneecapped by completely confused product development. It's unreal how much better it is queried through the API, but that's unfortunately not what people see when they go to gemini.google.com.

lxgr 2y ago

Google does software/features relatively well, but they are completely lost when it comes to marketing, shipping, and continuing to support products. Or how would you describe their handling of Stadia, or their weird obsession about shipping and cancelling about a dozen instant messengers?

talldayo 2y ago
Stadia was a failure from the start. Microsoft and Nvidia are also laser-focused on this game streaming business, but I seriously doubt it will pan out ever. At least not in a profitable sense. In that regard, I think Google planned to be first-to-market, failed early, and killed their darling before anyone got a chance to love it. The IMs post-Hangouts are less explainable, but I do empathize with Google for wanting to find some form of SMS replacement standard. The RCS we have today is flawed and was rushed out of the door just to have a serious option for the DOJ to endorse. This is an area where I believe the United States government has been negligent in allowing competing OEMs to refuse cooperation in creating an SMS successor. I agree it's silly, and it needs to stop eventually.
- lxgr 2y ago
  > Stadia was a failure from the start. Microsoft and Nvidia are also laser-focused on this game streaming business Have you actually compared these services first hand? Stadia was miles ahead of the competition. The experience was unbelievably good and ubiquitous (Desktop, phone, TV, Chromecast...), and both mouse and gamepad felt like first class input methods. Microsoft's Xbox game streaming is a complete joke in comparison. Last time I tried, I had to use my mouse to operate a virtual gamepad to operate a virtual cursor to click instruments in MSFS. Four levels of nesting. Development progress is also extremely slow. Not sure where you're seeing laser focus there. > I do empathize with Google for wanting to find some form of SMS replacement standard Why did Google out of all companies have to come up with an SMS replacement? Absolutely nobody asked for this! They started out with XMPP, which was federated and had world-class open source implementations, and after what feels like a double-digit number of failed attempts they arrived at SMS over SIP from hell that nobody other than themselves actually knows how to implement and only telcos can federate with (theoretically; practically, they just outsource to Google). I find it really hard to believe that this is anything other than a thinly veiled marketing plot to be able to point at an "open standard" that Google is almost exclusively running via Jibe (not sure if they provide that for free or are charging carriers for it). The contortions they went through to decouple their "Allo" and "Duo" brands from Google accounts (something almost everybody has anyway to send email!) for absolutely no benefit and even more significant customer confusion... And now look at Gemini. It looks like the exact same story to me from the beginning: Amazing technology backed by a great team (they literally invented transformers), yet completely kneecapped by completely confused product development. It's unreal how much better it is queried through the API, but that's unfortunately not what people see when they go to gemini.google.com.