5 ms·

It's interesting that so many here are furious about Google pivoting or shutting down some parts of its business considering that this forum is about technology

It's interesting that so many here are furious about Google pivoting or shutting down some parts of its business considering that this forum is about technology and startups/business. When did it become wrong to test a product, and shut it down if it fails? Why is it evil when Google does that, but okay when a startup does the exact same thing?

galactus 13y ago
When a startup closes a service, I'm pretty sure most people in HN will be equally cautious about investing their time in any new product the same startup might launch.
- DominikR 13y ago
  Oh okay, I thought the general spirit here was that people share their experiences (and failures) and thereby provide information on how to improve at the next attempt. What you are basically saying is that if someone fails, we should avoid them in the future. That's not very encouraging for anyone trying to build a business (or anything else).
  - galactus 13y ago
    I'm not saying "we should" punish any company that kills a product, I'm saying that a track of killing products for strategic reasons is one of the factors any rational consumer usually considers before spending time in a new product.
- VikingCoder 13y ago
  "Investing their time." I'm sorry, but this is an awful excuse. We're the type of people who master new technologies quickly. There's essentially $0 cost, and a ton of benefit, to new products becoming available. That's why they're exciting. If the same startup starts another useful product, I'll check it out. I think people with your attitude are saying they'll cut off their nose to spite their face... but they actually won't. They'll use useful products, no matter the track record of the company, if the tradeoffs are close to right.
anon1385 13y ago
Well I'm certainly critical of startups that have no plan to create a viable business and are just hoping to get bought out, but startups are not all like that. Plenty are trying to create viable businesses. The difference between Google and the serious startups is that they have a record of launching products with no plan or intention to make money from them: they are loss leaders to bring more people into the Google walled garden. A lot of people didn't realise that in the past. People used these product knowing they weren't a money earner for Google, but people assumed Google was tying to be a good citizen and provide useful services for people. Using up the piles of money sloshing around at Google. People treat(ed) things like reader or gmail as basic infrastructure. Google enjoyed being treated like the benevolent dictator of the internet. We paid our 'taxes' in the form of ads and in return got lots of services and infrastructure for free. I heard countless people making the argument that Google's interests were intrinsically aligned with those of internet users: there was no way that giving more money and power to Google could ever go wrong. It was totally wrong for people to think that way: corporations do not operate in the public interest. I think it's easy to understand the emotional backlash: people don't like to be made fools of. What they thought was benevolence turned out to be a PR exercise, or worse, a landgrab.
- DominikR 13y ago
  That's an interesting point you are making. I can't rule that possibilty out, but I have also never seen evidence that suggested they created Reader with that intent. Can't it be that Google tried to push adoption of a technology, believing that it would benefit them in the future? Or that they believed that they would come up with a business model, given enough users. You are right to be critical about startups without viable business - so am I - but don't forget: Google was that kind of startup for a few years
- rryan 13y ago
  It's not a walled garden if you can leave and take your data with you.
msabalau 13y ago
It's a broader question than the pass given to any one particular start-up that pivots. If one actually was upset about the likeliness of something being killed off, one would never use anything from the start-up ecosystem, where almost everyone fails, most of those that don't pivot, and many winning scenarios aren't wins from the end user perspective. Start-ups should try different things and stop doing the stuff that doesn't work. So should Google. And Jobs saved Apple by killing off most of the products and projects when he returned from Next.
- DominikR 13y ago
  I agree with you, but I also think that we should consider more datapoints before evaluating how a company treated its product and customers. In the case of Google Reader, we saw a product lifespan from 2005 to 2013. That's eight years. What lifespan can a user reasonably expect from any software product, and at what point is a company killing products so fast, that it's unlikely most customer will extract any value out of it. (considering the time needed to learn using the product and so on)
nutate 13y ago
Like all of those Amazon products shut down when they still had a sizable userbase?

galactus 13y ago

When a startup closes a service, I'm pretty sure most people in HN will be equally cautious about investing their time in any new product the same startup might launch.

DominikR 13y ago
Oh okay, I thought the general spirit here was that people share their experiences (and failures) and thereby provide information on how to improve at the next attempt. What you are basically saying is that if someone fails, we should avoid them in the future. That's not very encouraging for anyone trying to build a business (or anything else).
- galactus 13y ago
  I'm not saying "we should" punish any company that kills a product, I'm saying that a track of killing products for strategic reasons is one of the factors any rational consumer usually considers before spending time in a new product.
VikingCoder 13y ago
"Investing their time." I'm sorry, but this is an awful excuse. We're the type of people who master new technologies quickly. There's essentially $0 cost, and a ton of benefit, to new products becoming available. That's why they're exciting. If the same startup starts another useful product, I'll check it out. I think people with your attitude are saying they'll cut off their nose to spite their face... but they actually won't. They'll use useful products, no matter the track record of the company, if the tradeoffs are close to right.

anon1385 13y ago

Well I'm certainly critical of startups that have no plan to create a viable business and are just hoping to get bought out, but startups are not all like that. Plenty are trying to create viable businesses. The difference between Google and the serious startups is that they have a record of launching products with no plan or intention to make money from them: they are loss leaders to bring more people into the Google walled garden. A lot of people didn't realise that in the past. People used these product knowing they weren't a money earner for Google, but people assumed Google was tying to be a good citizen and provide useful services for people. Using up the piles of money sloshing around at Google. People treat(ed) things like reader or gmail as basic infrastructure. Google enjoyed being treated like the benevolent dictator of the internet. We paid our 'taxes' in the form of ads and in return got lots of services and infrastructure for free. I heard countless people making the argument that Google's interests were intrinsically aligned with those of internet users: there was no way that giving more money and power to Google could ever go wrong. It was totally wrong for people to think that way: corporations do not operate in the public interest. I think it's easy to understand the emotional backlash: people don't like to be made fools of. What they thought was benevolence turned out to be a PR exercise, or worse, a landgrab.

DominikR 13y ago
That's an interesting point you are making. I can't rule that possibilty out, but I have also never seen evidence that suggested they created Reader with that intent. Can't it be that Google tried to push adoption of a technology, believing that it would benefit them in the future? Or that they believed that they would come up with a business model, given enough users. You are right to be critical about startups without viable business - so am I - but don't forget: Google was that kind of startup for a few years
rryan 13y ago
It's not a walled garden if you can leave and take your data with you.

msabalau 13y ago

It's a broader question than the pass given to any one particular start-up that pivots. If one actually was upset about the likeliness of something being killed off, one would never use anything from the start-up ecosystem, where almost everyone fails, most of those that don't pivot, and many winning scenarios aren't wins from the end user perspective. Start-ups should try different things and stop doing the stuff that doesn't work. So should Google. And Jobs saved Apple by killing off most of the products and projects when he returned from Next.

DominikR 13y ago
I agree with you, but I also think that we should consider more datapoints before evaluating how a company treated its product and customers. In the case of Google Reader, we saw a product lifespan from 2005 to 2013. That's eight years. What lifespan can a user reasonably expect from any software product, and at what point is a company killing products so fast, that it's unlikely most customer will extract any value out of it. (considering the time needed to learn using the product and so on)

nutate 13y ago

Like all of those Amazon products shut down when they still had a sizable userbase?