4 ms·

Maybe the team should push hard before releasing the product instead of after to make it work.

harles 1y ago
That’s a pretty uncharitable take. Given the scale of their recent launches and amount of compute to make them work, it seems incredibly smooth. Edge cases always arise, and all the company/teams can really do is be responsive - which is exactly why I see happening.
- recursive 1y ago
  Why should the scale of their recent launches be a given? Who is requiring this release schedule?
  - rishabhaiover 1y ago
    the market
    - recursive 1y ago
      If it's a strategic decision, then its impacts should be weighed in full. Not just the positives.
- windexh8er 1y ago
  We're talking about Google right? You think they need a level of charity for a launch? I've read it all at this point.
- tracker1 1y ago
  A company with a literal embedded payment processor, including subscription services for half of all mobile users can't manage to take payments for their own public facing services seems like a huge fucking failure to me. Especially for software developer and tech influencer focused markets.
  - lazide 1y ago
    It’s a sign that getting the product out took priority over getting paid for it. Take that how you will.
    - tracker1 1y ago
      Considering the product itself seems to be excessively limited without actually getting paid for it, and the paid tier itself having so many onboarding issues, as a critical usage path, it's pretty bad. This is in a $3.6 Trillion company, for a product they're spending billions a quarter to develop, with specialized employees making mid 6-figure to 7-figure salaries and bonuses... you'd think somebody has the right connections into the departments that typically handle the payment systems. My expectations shoot up dramatically for organizations that have all the funding they need to create something "insanely great" in terms of user experience the further they fall short... I don't know who the head of this group/project/department/product is... but someone failed at their job, and got payed excessively for this poor execution.
lxgr 1y ago
Imagining the counterfactual (“typical, the most polished part of this service is the payment screen!”), it seems hard to win here.
- onion2k 1y ago
  No one should even notice the payment flow. This isn't Stripe where the polish on the payment experience is a selling point for the service. At Google, paying for something should be a boring but quick process that works and then gets out of the way. It doesn't need to be good. It just need to be not broken.
asah 1y ago
But then we'd complain about Google being a slow moving dinosaur. "Move fast and break things" cuts both ways ! (ex-Google tech lead, who took down the Google.com homepage... twice!)
- bayarearefugee 1y ago
  Its not a new problem though, and its not just billing. The UI across Gemini just generally sucks (across AI Studio and the chat interfaces) and there's lots of annoying failure cases where Gemini will just timeout and stop working entirely midrequest. Been like this for quite a while, well before Gemini 3. So far I continue to put up with it because I find the model to be the best commercial option for my usage, but its amazing how bad modern Google is at just basic web app UX and infrastructure when they were the gold standard for such for like, arguably decades prior.
  - inquirerGeneral 1y ago
    [dead]
  - logankilpatrick 1y ago
    The Gemini app UI has gotten much better in the last few months and a huge amount of other work underway to make it even better!
- risyachka 1y ago
  We are talking here about the most basic things- nothing AI related. Basic billing. The fact that it is not working says a lot about the future of the product and company culture in general (obviously they are not product-oriented)
  - thehappypm 1y ago
    There’s nothing basic about billing.
    - 1y ago

That’s a pretty uncharitable take. Given the scale of their recent launches and amount of compute to make them work, it seems incredibly smooth. Edge cases always arise, and all the company/teams can really do is be responsive - which is exactly why I see happening.

recursive 1y ago
Why should the scale of their recent launches be a given? Who is requiring this release schedule?
- rishabhaiover 1y ago
  the market
  - recursive 1y ago
    If it's a strategic decision, then its impacts should be weighed in full. Not just the positives.
windexh8er 1y ago
We're talking about Google right? You think they need a level of charity for a launch? I've read it all at this point.
tracker1 1y ago
A company with a literal embedded payment processor, including subscription services for half of all mobile users can't manage to take payments for their own public facing services seems like a huge fucking failure to me. Especially for software developer and tech influencer focused markets.
- lazide 1y ago
  It’s a sign that getting the product out took priority over getting paid for it. Take that how you will.
  - tracker1 1y ago
    Considering the product itself seems to be excessively limited without actually getting paid for it, and the paid tier itself having so many onboarding issues, as a critical usage path, it's pretty bad. This is in a $3.6 Trillion company, for a product they're spending billions a quarter to develop, with specialized employees making mid 6-figure to 7-figure salaries and bonuses... you'd think somebody has the right connections into the departments that typically handle the payment systems. My expectations shoot up dramatically for organizations that have all the funding they need to create something "insanely great" in terms of user experience the further they fall short... I don't know who the head of this group/project/department/product is... but someone failed at their job, and got payed excessively for this poor execution.

lxgr 1y ago

Imagining the counterfactual (“typical, the most polished part of this service is the payment screen!”), it seems hard to win here.

onion2k 1y ago
No one should even notice the payment flow. This isn't Stripe where the polish on the payment experience is a selling point for the service. At Google, paying for something should be a boring but quick process that works and then gets out of the way. It doesn't need to be good. It just need to be not broken.

asah 1y ago

But then we'd complain about Google being a slow moving dinosaur. "Move fast and break things" cuts both ways ! (ex-Google tech lead, who took down the Google.com homepage... twice!)

bayarearefugee 1y ago
Its not a new problem though, and its not just billing. The UI across Gemini just generally sucks (across AI Studio and the chat interfaces) and there's lots of annoying failure cases where Gemini will just timeout and stop working entirely midrequest. Been like this for quite a while, well before Gemini 3. So far I continue to put up with it because I find the model to be the best commercial option for my usage, but its amazing how bad modern Google is at just basic web app UX and infrastructure when they were the gold standard for such for like, arguably decades prior.
- inquirerGeneral 1y ago
  [dead]
- logankilpatrick 1y ago
  The Gemini app UI has gotten much better in the last few months and a huge amount of other work underway to make it even better!
risyachka 1y ago
We are talking here about the most basic things- nothing AI related. Basic billing. The fact that it is not working says a lot about the future of the product and company culture in general (obviously they are not product-oriented)
- thehappypm 1y ago
  There’s nothing basic about billing.
  - 1y ago