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Google have produced a product which offers a great experience on one browser. They are happy with the performance of the application on that browser. They have

by mintone 12y ago

Google have produced a product which offers a great experience on one browser. They are happy with the performance of the application on that browser. They have no doubt tested it on other browsers and found the performance to be sub par. That application is clearly still in 'beta' mode (The app is still invitation only). I am sure that they will 'un-block' the browsers that Inbox doesn't perform well on once they've resolved the performance issues - I'm sure it's also not a slight against Firefox or any other browser. The alternative of course is that instead of this discussion thread we'd have a thread about how poorly Inbox performs on firefox which would damage the products overall reputation.

couchand 12y ago
Or, you know, a third option. They could always do what every other web developer must and make their software progressively enhance so it works at the very least on a few major browsers.
- mintone 12y ago
  And I absolutely expect them to do that, but when you have a platform you know works well with your software then you'd rather get to market there and then once you have everything working across the board release for all. Again, as every web developer must, release a beta that works under x specific circumstances and then fix for all resulting in your v1.0 product. If you don't do that then time to market doubles or more.
dzhiurgis 12y ago
They also produced a product that leaks user data (mostly to them). In their book, 'How Google works' they claim to settle with more what's best the user than their customer. That's such a bold claim when you are a monopoly.
- mintone 12y ago
  I get really frustrated with the monopoly attack on Google, and really, with any attack on a company that is a monopoly through being great at what they do. Google is the best search engine; we use Google because it's really fucking good at what it does. Yes DDG exists but it doesn't compete, Bing is well, Bing, and others don't hold a flame. You may not like that they are a monopoly but for 99% of people, Google is the Internet.
  - freehunter 12y ago
    There's nothing wrong with being a monopoly. But when you are, the worry becomes how will you use that monopoly? Will you keep working to push the market forward? Will you keep doing what you do best? Or will you abuse your dominant position to keep competitors out, leverage that monopoly to further your market position in another area, and act in a way that is unfriendly to everyone but yourself? Microsoft has done it, and got busted. Apple has done it, and got busted (albeit in a fairly small way). People are I think rightfully worried that the same thing could happen with Google. Even more so because of how respected they are with the hacker community and the tech community at large. It's not about how they got their first monopoly, it's about how they got every one after that and what they do with them that matters.
akavel 12y ago
To me that too sounded like the "Occam's razor" explanation from the start. I totally admit Google shouldn't be looked at as saint, but in this particular case at least, I fully understand that performance is a feature (see also e.g. http://blog.codinghorror.com/performance-is-a-feature/ http://blog.codinghorror.com/performance-is-a-feature/).
dblohm7 12y ago
I think the most telling fact is that Google made zero effort to file bugs against Firefox to help make things work. A Mozilla JS dev fixed the sparse array bug the SAME DAY it was filed. Note that the bug wasn't filed until somebody saw a Google dev here on HN stating that the sparse array bug was the reason why Firefox couldn't work with Inbox.

by mintone 12y ago

couchand 12y ago

Or, you know, a third option. They could always do what every other web developer must and make their software progressively enhance so it works at the very least on a few major browsers.

mintone 12y ago
And I absolutely expect them to do that, but when you have a platform you know works well with your software then you'd rather get to market there and then once you have everything working across the board release for all. Again, as every web developer must, release a beta that works under x specific circumstances and then fix for all resulting in your v1.0 product. If you don't do that then time to market doubles or more.

dzhiurgis 12y ago

They also produced a product that leaks user data (mostly to them). In their book, 'How Google works' they claim to settle with more what's best the user than their customer. That's such a bold claim when you are a monopoly.

mintone 12y ago
I get really frustrated with the monopoly attack on Google, and really, with any attack on a company that is a monopoly through being great at what they do. Google is the best search engine; we use Google because it's really fucking good at what it does. Yes DDG exists but it doesn't compete, Bing is well, Bing, and others don't hold a flame. You may not like that they are a monopoly but for 99% of people, Google is the Internet.
- freehunter 12y ago
  There's nothing wrong with being a monopoly. But when you are, the worry becomes how will you use that monopoly? Will you keep working to push the market forward? Will you keep doing what you do best? Or will you abuse your dominant position to keep competitors out, leverage that monopoly to further your market position in another area, and act in a way that is unfriendly to everyone but yourself? Microsoft has done it, and got busted. Apple has done it, and got busted (albeit in a fairly small way). People are I think rightfully worried that the same thing could happen with Google. Even more so because of how respected they are with the hacker community and the tech community at large. It's not about how they got their first monopoly, it's about how they got every one after that and what they do with them that matters.

akavel 12y ago

To me that too sounded like the "Occam's razor" explanation from the start. I totally admit Google shouldn't be looked at as saint, but in this particular case at least, I fully understand that performance is a feature (see also e.g. http://blog.codinghorror.com/performance-is-a-feature/ http://blog.codinghorror.com/performance-is-a-feature/).

dblohm7 12y ago

I think the most telling fact is that Google made zero effort to file bugs against Firefox to help make things work. A Mozilla JS dev fixed the sparse array bug the SAME DAY it was filed. Note that the bug wasn't filed until somebody saw a Google dev here on HN stating that the sparse array bug was the reason why Firefox couldn't work with Inbox.