4 ms·

Google's been picked on a lot over Reader, but it's a microcosm of the entire web services industry. We've developed a culture over the last two decades of laun

Google's been picked on a lot over Reader, but it's a microcosm of the entire web services industry. We've developed a culture over the last two decades of launching compelling new services without a clear revenue model in a land-grab for users. Many software frameworks utilize lazy loading, whereby they defer the execution of expensive operations until the last possible minute. Our business culture lazy-loads revenue models. We set up a product, hope for enough users, then hope to monetize those users effectively. Without a compelling product or an audience to consume it, a business model is useless, so we've optimized that out to focus on the bare minimum. There's an implicit assumption in all of this that the perceived value of a free service outweighs the potential costs of the service eventually failing in the user's eyes, that they'll keep coming back for something free and cool every time we ship it. As an industry, we haven't addressed the risk of crying wolf. At what point do enough consumers say "I'm going to wait until this has traction" before they're willing to invest their time and their hearts into the services we build? If the wait-and-see crowd grows large enough, it could seriously impact our ability to launch minimum-viable-products on the hope they'll monetize later.

msabalau 14y ago
There's a lot of truth to what you're saying, yet plenty of platforms, products and services with perfectly viable business models go away. The Apple Newton (for which people paid good money) was launched and discontinued in less time Reader existed. Perhaps all the "highly influential taste-makers" who are asserting that they'll not trust Google products in the future chose not to buy iPods because of Apple's behavior. I doubt it. At the end of the day, the "tax" that early adopters pay often consists both of higher prices and the chance that the thing they are investing in will never take off. Indeed, I bought a Sony Smart Watch last year expecting that it'll fail, but I still saw value in getting personal experience with a type of technology that I expect will be influential. There are reasons why people are slow adopters and laggards, they aren't just Luddites, they want to receive proven value, and not waste their time on dead ends. We are lucky enough to live in a time where the rate of innovation is increasing. There are more options, more value created, and also more dead ends. Perhaps some people need to re-calibrate how they self identify as adopters.
- pifflesnort 14y ago
  > There's a lot of truth to what you're saying, yet plenty of platforms, products and services with perfectly viable business models go away. The Apple Newton (for which people paid good money) was launched and discontinued in less time Reader existed. ... and nobody's Newton disappeared. In fact, you can still find one: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-Newton-Original-MessagePad-OMP-Model-Number-H1000-Ready-To-Go-/140937551295?pt=PDA_s_Pocket_PC_s&hash=item20d0885dbf http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-Newton-Original-MessagePad-OMP... This is the major difference between cloud architectures and DRM-licensed media that you rent, versus actual products that you own.
  - msabalau 14y ago
    True, but regardless, a not inconsiderable part of the value of a Newton died when the platform came to the end of it's life. A betamax machine or an HD-DVD player may still exist, but that does not mean a lot for their owner.
    - CurtMonash 14y ago
      The people who bought VHS instead of Betamax aren't getting a lot of value from their systems at this point either. And I've bought, used, and thrown away multiple DVD players over the years.
      - hugofirth 14y ago
        Point of order: the hypothetical HD-DVD player to which @msabalau refers is not a standard DVD player, as you seem to have assumed. HD-DVD was a format iteration meant to compete with Blu-ray. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_DVD http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_DVD
        CurtMonash 14y ago
        Oh. I was carelessly assuming it was a competitor to standard DVDs. Thanks for the correction, and no worries. I'll probably throw out multiple Blu-Ray players before I'm done as well. :)

msabalau 14y ago

There's a lot of truth to what you're saying, yet plenty of platforms, products and services with perfectly viable business models go away. The Apple Newton (for which people paid good money) was launched and discontinued in less time Reader existed. Perhaps all the "highly influential taste-makers" who are asserting that they'll not trust Google products in the future chose not to buy iPods because of Apple's behavior. I doubt it. At the end of the day, the "tax" that early adopters pay often consists both of higher prices and the chance that the thing they are investing in will never take off. Indeed, I bought a Sony Smart Watch last year expecting that it'll fail, but I still saw value in getting personal experience with a type of technology that I expect will be influential. There are reasons why people are slow adopters and laggards, they aren't just Luddites, they want to receive proven value, and not waste their time on dead ends. We are lucky enough to live in a time where the rate of innovation is increasing. There are more options, more value created, and also more dead ends. Perhaps some people need to re-calibrate how they self identify as adopters.

pifflesnort 14y ago
> There's a lot of truth to what you're saying, yet plenty of platforms, products and services with perfectly viable business models go away. The Apple Newton (for which people paid good money) was launched and discontinued in less time Reader existed. ... and nobody's Newton disappeared. In fact, you can still find one: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-Newton-Original-MessagePad-OMP-Model-Number-H1000-Ready-To-Go-/140937551295?pt=PDA_s_Pocket_PC_s&hash=item20d0885dbf http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-Newton-Original-MessagePad-OMP... This is the major difference between cloud architectures and DRM-licensed media that you rent, versus actual products that you own.
- msabalau 14y ago
  True, but regardless, a not inconsiderable part of the value of a Newton died when the platform came to the end of it's life. A betamax machine or an HD-DVD player may still exist, but that does not mean a lot for their owner.
  - CurtMonash 14y ago
    The people who bought VHS instead of Betamax aren't getting a lot of value from their systems at this point either. And I've bought, used, and thrown away multiple DVD players over the years.
    - hugofirth 14y ago
      Point of order: the hypothetical HD-DVD player to which @msabalau refers is not a standard DVD player, as you seem to have assumed. HD-DVD was a format iteration meant to compete with Blu-ray. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_DVD http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_DVD
      - CurtMonash 14y ago
        Oh. I was carelessly assuming it was a competitor to standard DVDs. Thanks for the correction, and no worries. I'll probably throw out multiple Blu-Ray players before I'm done as well. :)