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Interesting Google week so far. 1) Discontinuing Google reader 2) Retiring CalDAV support 3) Removing ad blocking apps from the Play Store 4) Replacing And

Interesting Google week so far. 1) Discontinuing Google reader 2) Retiring CalDAV support 3) Removing ad blocking apps from the Play Store 4) Replacing Android chief Andy Rubin with Sundar Pichai. 5) Dropping support for sending chat invites to Google chat users from other domains. Wonder what else is up for the next couple of days.

InclinedPlane 14y ago
It's not surprising, google has been on the road to becoming the next Microsoft for a while. Though it is depressing. It's interesting though, so much of google's core business relies on trust, and they've been making a lot of moves lately to just throw away as much trust as possible. Maybe it's sustainable, but I'm skeptical.
- mehrzad 14y ago
  Well, it seems to be creating growing support for Mozilla and the FSF, which I think/hope we can get behind. A bunch of people disagree with the FSF though.
  - mh- 14y ago
    Google is far and away the largest source of funding-revenue for the Mozilla Foundation.
    - mehrzad 14y ago
      Well, I don't think it'll stay this way, though I'm grateful for it. If everyone who used Firefox donated a dollar...
    - eloisant 14y ago
      Google is not subsidizing Mozilla, they have a search contract that is as much in the interest of Google as Mozilla. * Mozilla can switch to a different default search engine (like Bing) and still get as much revenue without depending on Google. * Google can't act like it controls Mozilla, because they don't want to lose the partnership either
      - takluyver 14y ago
        Is there any evidence that what Google pays is the market rate? I.e. if they cut ties, would Mozilla be able to get about the same amount for default search engine position from Microsoft? Now that Yahoo is powered by Bing, there are only really two big multinational commercial search engines. Both of them are owned by companies that also offer browsers to compete with Firefox. If neither of them paid, Firefox would still have to include a default search engine. I hope Mozilla can keep going, but honestly it does seem rather dependent on Google's good will.
- mkr-hn 14y ago
  Google becoming a slightly more open form of the current Microsoft wouldn't be bad.
  - mh- 14y ago
    It'll certainly make embrace & extend all that much more viable.
- smokinjoe 14y ago
  > It's not surprising, google has been on the road to becoming the next Microsoft for a while. I've heard this a lot. Are there any specific anecdotes that really show a strong analogy between the two? Do I have to assume that today's "Cloud" is yesteryear's PC-Compatible?
  - InclinedPlane 14y ago
    It's a general feeling, mostly. Google seems to be growing more and more out of touch with its users in general. Some major warning signs for a company going down this road are: pet projects being given importance well beyond any hard-headed rational assessment; "strategy tax" behavior, making decisions which only make sense in the broader sense of serving the "greater good" of advancing a platform or what-have-you; making big decisions that are out of touch with what the market/public wants; using sheer size and resources as a market weapon instead of letting competition do its work. Google's social endeavors have always shown them to be out of touch and incapable of engaging the market with a product that people care about (orkut, knol, buzz, wave, and now plus). Their approach to "customer service" for many of their products is to actively disconnect from their users and let the natural release cycle take care of things. They have a long history of ugly interfaces with poor usability. Youtube is a good example, discoverability of new content has only gotten worse over the years and many fundamental features are really very broken or at best poorly implemented (such as playlists), despite being an otherwise mature product. They've killed off lots of small products and projects for the sin of not fitting in to the grand strategy. And they've tried as much as they dare to force people into using google+ whether they want to or not. Google still has a huge number of world-class engineers, and that will enable them to continue making some truly great things over the next years and perhaps decades. But fundamentally google is on a track toward becoming just another run-of-the-mill mega-corp, and if they continue along that route eventually a lot of the talent is going to evaporate away (as has happened and is continuing to happen at MS) and there won't be anything to save them from mediocrity.
tzs 14y ago
> Wonder what else is up for the next couple of days. I think the answer to that can be found by watching Futurama episode 64, "The Why of Fry".
zmmmmm 14y ago
Also kind of interesting in the context that Google IO is just around the corner. Wonder if they will be announcing something that will somehow make more sense of all this change than is apparent at this stage.
stock_toaster 14y ago
Maybe they will kill off xmpp support for gchat entirely next. I doubt it makes them much money.
martinced 14y ago
6) This week is also the week when the "no more free Google Apps for domains" came into action. Now it's $50 per new account / year. Old accounts are fine though. Looks like anything "free" is quickly disappearing : )
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  I wonder why. Is ad revenue shrinking? Or it just seemed like a good idea at that time?

InclinedPlane 14y ago

It's not surprising, google has been on the road to becoming the next Microsoft for a while. Though it is depressing. It's interesting though, so much of google's core business relies on trust, and they've been making a lot of moves lately to just throw away as much trust as possible. Maybe it's sustainable, but I'm skeptical.

mehrzad 14y ago
Well, it seems to be creating growing support for Mozilla and the FSF, which I think/hope we can get behind. A bunch of people disagree with the FSF though.
- mh- 14y ago
  Google is far and away the largest source of funding-revenue for the Mozilla Foundation.
  - mehrzad 14y ago
    Well, I don't think it'll stay this way, though I'm grateful for it. If everyone who used Firefox donated a dollar...
  - eloisant 14y ago
    Google is not subsidizing Mozilla, they have a search contract that is as much in the interest of Google as Mozilla. * Mozilla can switch to a different default search engine (like Bing) and still get as much revenue without depending on Google. * Google can't act like it controls Mozilla, because they don't want to lose the partnership either
    - takluyver 14y ago
      Is there any evidence that what Google pays is the market rate? I.e. if they cut ties, would Mozilla be able to get about the same amount for default search engine position from Microsoft? Now that Yahoo is powered by Bing, there are only really two big multinational commercial search engines. Both of them are owned by companies that also offer browsers to compete with Firefox. If neither of them paid, Firefox would still have to include a default search engine. I hope Mozilla can keep going, but honestly it does seem rather dependent on Google's good will.
mkr-hn 14y ago
Google becoming a slightly more open form of the current Microsoft wouldn't be bad.
- mh- 14y ago
  It'll certainly make embrace & extend all that much more viable.
smokinjoe 14y ago
> It's not surprising, google has been on the road to becoming the next Microsoft for a while. I've heard this a lot. Are there any specific anecdotes that really show a strong analogy between the two? Do I have to assume that today's "Cloud" is yesteryear's PC-Compatible?
- InclinedPlane 14y ago
  It's a general feeling, mostly. Google seems to be growing more and more out of touch with its users in general. Some major warning signs for a company going down this road are: pet projects being given importance well beyond any hard-headed rational assessment; "strategy tax" behavior, making decisions which only make sense in the broader sense of serving the "greater good" of advancing a platform or what-have-you; making big decisions that are out of touch with what the market/public wants; using sheer size and resources as a market weapon instead of letting competition do its work. Google's social endeavors have always shown them to be out of touch and incapable of engaging the market with a product that people care about (orkut, knol, buzz, wave, and now plus). Their approach to "customer service" for many of their products is to actively disconnect from their users and let the natural release cycle take care of things. They have a long history of ugly interfaces with poor usability. Youtube is a good example, discoverability of new content has only gotten worse over the years and many fundamental features are really very broken or at best poorly implemented (such as playlists), despite being an otherwise mature product. They've killed off lots of small products and projects for the sin of not fitting in to the grand strategy. And they've tried as much as they dare to force people into using google+ whether they want to or not. Google still has a huge number of world-class engineers, and that will enable them to continue making some truly great things over the next years and perhaps decades. But fundamentally google is on a track toward becoming just another run-of-the-mill mega-corp, and if they continue along that route eventually a lot of the talent is going to evaporate away (as has happened and is continuing to happen at MS) and there won't be anything to save them from mediocrity.

tzs 14y ago

> Wonder what else is up for the next couple of days. I think the answer to that can be found by watching Futurama episode 64, "The Why of Fry".

zmmmmm 14y ago

Also kind of interesting in the context that Google IO is just around the corner. Wonder if they will be announcing something that will somehow make more sense of all this change than is apparent at this stage.

stock_toaster 14y ago

Maybe they will kill off xmpp support for gchat entirely next. I doubt it makes them much money.

martinced 14y ago

6) This week is also the week when the "no more free Google Apps for domains" came into action. Now it's $50 per new account / year. Old accounts are fine though. Looks like anything "free" is quickly disappearing : )

waterlesscloud 14y ago
I wonder why. Is ad revenue shrinking? Or it just seemed like a good idea at that time?