4 ms·

Serious question: has Google done anything truly right since gmail?

by smegel 13y ago

pessimizer 13y ago
Not in my opinion. I was excited about Android before it was released, but once I saw the APIs and found out it was going to be an all java userland, I was bummed. Then I found out that it was difficult to get direct access to the file system on it. I was sad because I wanted to use it for a tiddlywiki:) After a while, I got excited that Motorola was going to make a particularly attractive one (the Droid), so I was going to try it out anyway - but suddenly the N900 was a thing and it was barely a choice. Before Android, I really thought that Google's shit didn't stink. I would have voted for Google for president. Afterwards it wasn't the same, and just went downhill from there. In retrospect, the only reason I thought gmail was so awesome was because they gave you POP3 access. I mean, the UI was clean and simple, but it wasn't much easier to use than any of the other webmail clients. I'm not saying that in order to criticize gmail: that's the best they could have done, because none of the other clients were that difficult to use. What I liked was the simple generosity that they showed by allowing me to download and send my mail without using their UI. I was entirely willing to let them read it all and target ads towards me during my searches in exchange. [Edit: to be truly honest, I was excited that their math might really offer me the products that I'd be interested in:) Seems so quaint now.] Then, Android. The choice of laying a Java VM over the underlying filesystem and kernel, and the choice to lock parts of the filesystem down and to fill the OS with opaque binaries and phones with closed drivers represented the opposite of the image of trust that had attracted me to them in the first place.[Edit: Ugh! I forgot about the proprietary headphone jacks.] I felt that before Android, Google trusted me to use their products, and I trusted them not to be evil. After Android, it occurred to me that Google did not trust me to use the phone I bought from them. Google Docs is pretty successful. Not super successful, but successful enough to put pressure on Microsoft, which is always good. Google revolutionized search in the style of Altavista, and beat them on the math. Then they went into email in the style of Yahoo and Microsoft, and offered a cleaner UI and a softer sell than either. Then they went after Doubleclick and kicked its ass with text ads then bought it as the coup de grace, went after Office, bought YouTube after they failed to beat it, and went after Facebook (who had gone after myspace and friendster), and went after Amazon in B2B, while repeatedly failing to beat it or Ebay in retail or payments. What I'm trying to say here is that Google hasn't given me anything that I couldn't have gotten elsewhere ever. The distinction that Google had was 1) being focused on the math (and therefore quality), 2) offering clean user interfaces and APIs, and 3) having a conscience. Two and three have gone to shit, and everybody has caught up on 1) - there's good math everywhere these days.

Serious question: has Google done anything truly right since gmail?

by smegel 13y ago

Serious question: has Google done anything truly right since gmail?

Not in my opinion. I was excited about Android before it was released, but once I saw the APIs and found out it was going to be an all java userland, I was bummed. Then I found out that it was difficult to get direct access to the file system on it. I was sad because I wanted to use it for a tiddlywiki:) After a while, I got excited that Motorola was going to make a particularly attractive one (the Droid), so I was going to try it out anyway - but suddenly the N900 was a thing and it was barely a choice. Before Android, I really thought that Google's shit didn't stink. I would have voted for Google for president. Afterwards it wasn't the same, and just went downhill from there. In retrospect, the only reason I thought gmail was so awesome was because they gave you POP3 access. I mean, the UI was clean and simple, but it wasn't much easier to use than any of the other webmail clients. I'm not saying that in order to criticize gmail: that's the best they could have done, because none of the other clients were that difficult to use. What I liked was the simple generosity that they showed by allowing me to download and send my mail without using their UI. I was entirely willing to let them read it all and target ads towards me during my searches in exchange. [Edit: to be truly honest, I was excited that their math might really offer me the products that I'd be interested in:) Seems so quaint now.] Then, Android. The choice of laying a Java VM over the underlying filesystem and kernel, and the choice to lock parts of the filesystem down and to fill the OS with opaque binaries and phones with closed drivers represented the opposite of the image of trust that had attracted me to them in the first place.[Edit: Ugh! I forgot about the proprietary headphone jacks.] I felt that before Android, Google trusted me to use their products, and I trusted them not to be evil. After Android, it occurred to me that Google did not trust me to use the phone I bought from them. Google Docs is pretty successful. Not super successful, but successful enough to put pressure on Microsoft, which is always good. Google revolutionized search in the style of Altavista, and beat them on the math. Then they went into email in the style of Yahoo and Microsoft, and offered a cleaner UI and a softer sell than either. Then they went after Doubleclick and kicked its ass with text ads then bought it as the coup de grace, went after Office, bought YouTube after they failed to beat it, and went after Facebook (who had gone after myspace and friendster), and went after Amazon in B2B, while repeatedly failing to beat it or Ebay in retail or payments. What I'm trying to say here is that Google hasn't given me anything that I couldn't have gotten elsewhere ever. The distinction that Google had was 1) being focused on the math (and therefore quality), 2) offering clean user interfaces and APIs, and 3) having a conscience. Two and three have gone to shit, and everybody has caught up on 1) - there's good math everywhere these days.