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I happily pay for both Box AND Dropbox and this does not in the least entice me. Google made a social contract with the world. It was a bad marketing move to b

I happily pay for both Box AND Dropbox and this does not in the least entice me. Google made a social contract with the world. It was a bad marketing move to break the contract. Again and again. You'd have to be a fool to trust your data with them today. Because they sell your information let alone that they drop services like this when they get bored. Not sure if anyone thought of this, but some of their products could have turned into a spin off company rather than being shuttered. For example, offer people internally to take over Reader, spin it off and let it find a business model. At least it would have felt like they tried to honor their social contract. As for Dropbox or Box being around in 5 years, the biggest risk is a company like Google buying them and then shutting them down.

munificent 13y ago
> For example, offer people internally to take over Reader, spin it off and let it find a business model. Reader was implemented on top of Google's huge internal infrastructure. "Spinning it off" would be equivalent to re-writing it from scratch. > At least it would have felt like they tried to honor their social contract. I can't fathom the sense of entitlement in this sentence. Maybe I'm biased because I'm a Googler, but my understanding is that Google gave you a high quality news reader for free for many years. Google spent their own money to provide that to you. And when they eventually decide to stop burning their own money, somehow they've failed to live up to their end of some "contract"? What were the terms of this contract? What did the users offer in return?
- joedevon 13y ago
  Entitlement? Google sold geeks the world over on a different kind of company. A "Don't Be Evil" company. A company we could trust with our personal email. That supported the open source community. But it was a big bait and switch. I never got over the betrayal. That's what I mean by social contract. Google today is very different. Sure, we got gmail for "free". Google made a TON of money off that "free" offer BTW. And like many others, I built a dependency on this email system. Countless services and people know me on that email address. I'd LOVE to get rid of it because I no longer trust Google, but it's challenging as hell. That's why dependency on the wrong company is, dare I say it, evil. A quote from the "Don't be evil" entry on Wikipedia: "Buchheit, the creator of Gmail, said he "wanted something that, once you put it in there, would be hard to take out", adding that the slogan was "also a bit of a jab at a lot of the other companies, especially our competitors, who at the time, in our opinion, were kind of exploiting the users to some extent." While there are a lot of great things about Google, there are a lot of shitty things too. Back in the day it was important to make the ads unobtrusive. To separate out ads from organic results. Now on a commercial product SERP you have to page down to get to the first organic result! I mean, the list of issues goes on and on. You ask: "What were the terms of this contract? What did the users offer in return?" Ummm...Google has a gazillion dollars. I think the users offered plenty in return for believing in Google. -- I remember the excitement of RSS. And how wonderful Reader was. The "gift" of Google's "free" Reader has turned into a massive NEGATIVE for the open source community and those who loved RSS. With "friends" like these bearing "gifts", who needs enemies? This has been discussed ad infinitum, so I'll leave it at that. But it's in this context that I think you'd be nuts to trust Google with a Dropbox clone. RE: infrastructure, fair enough. Final note, knowing quite a few Googlers and Xooglers, the engineers are better individually than what the company has turned into. Since the IPO, things have never been the same.
mcintyre1994 13y ago
I'm not sure those you refer to as Google breaking a "social contract" with would be better off with a sorta-Google-sorta-startup-reader. It seems like Reader shutting down was great for the startup ecosystem, and they made it really easy for that to happen. I don't know of a compelling argument to choose Reader over that.
- joedevon 13y ago
  It was just a thought. I mean, just speaking in terms of a business move, Google's track record ain't great with these types of services. There must be a better way than dumping them like that. What I heard or read somewhere about Reader is that they couldn't find internal champions, and that's why it died. NOT because it was losing money. Then again, Google+ is a better business for them than RSS.
joedevon 13y ago
Wow. Not sure how voting works on HN, but looks like I got downvoted for this comment. LOL. It's just an opinion. Not trolling or anything.

munificent 13y ago

> For example, offer people internally to take over Reader, spin it off and let it find a business model. Reader was implemented on top of Google's huge internal infrastructure. "Spinning it off" would be equivalent to re-writing it from scratch. > At least it would have felt like they tried to honor their social contract. I can't fathom the sense of entitlement in this sentence. Maybe I'm biased because I'm a Googler, but my understanding is that Google gave you a high quality news reader for free for many years. Google spent their own money to provide that to you. And when they eventually decide to stop burning their own money, somehow they've failed to live up to their end of some "contract"? What were the terms of this contract? What did the users offer in return?

joedevon 13y ago
Entitlement? Google sold geeks the world over on a different kind of company. A "Don't Be Evil" company. A company we could trust with our personal email. That supported the open source community. But it was a big bait and switch. I never got over the betrayal. That's what I mean by social contract. Google today is very different. Sure, we got gmail for "free". Google made a TON of money off that "free" offer BTW. And like many others, I built a dependency on this email system. Countless services and people know me on that email address. I'd LOVE to get rid of it because I no longer trust Google, but it's challenging as hell. That's why dependency on the wrong company is, dare I say it, evil. A quote from the "Don't be evil" entry on Wikipedia: "Buchheit, the creator of Gmail, said he "wanted something that, once you put it in there, would be hard to take out", adding that the slogan was "also a bit of a jab at a lot of the other companies, especially our competitors, who at the time, in our opinion, were kind of exploiting the users to some extent." While there are a lot of great things about Google, there are a lot of shitty things too. Back in the day it was important to make the ads unobtrusive. To separate out ads from organic results. Now on a commercial product SERP you have to page down to get to the first organic result! I mean, the list of issues goes on and on. You ask: "What were the terms of this contract? What did the users offer in return?" Ummm...Google has a gazillion dollars. I think the users offered plenty in return for believing in Google. -- I remember the excitement of RSS. And how wonderful Reader was. The "gift" of Google's "free" Reader has turned into a massive NEGATIVE for the open source community and those who loved RSS. With "friends" like these bearing "gifts", who needs enemies? This has been discussed ad infinitum, so I'll leave it at that. But it's in this context that I think you'd be nuts to trust Google with a Dropbox clone. RE: infrastructure, fair enough. Final note, knowing quite a few Googlers and Xooglers, the engineers are better individually than what the company has turned into. Since the IPO, things have never been the same.

mcintyre1994 13y ago

I'm not sure those you refer to as Google breaking a "social contract" with would be better off with a sorta-Google-sorta-startup-reader. It seems like Reader shutting down was great for the startup ecosystem, and they made it really easy for that to happen. I don't know of a compelling argument to choose Reader over that.

joedevon 13y ago
It was just a thought. I mean, just speaking in terms of a business move, Google's track record ain't great with these types of services. There must be a better way than dumping them like that. What I heard or read somewhere about Reader is that they couldn't find internal champions, and that's why it died. NOT because it was losing money. Then again, Google+ is a better business for them than RSS.

joedevon 13y ago

Wow. Not sure how voting works on HN, but looks like I got downvoted for this comment. LOL. It's just an opinion. Not trolling or anything.