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I'd hardly trust Google again for a service I'd have to rely on in the future. Let alone for a service that doesn't force Google+ down your throat today or tomo

I'd hardly trust Google again for a service I'd have to rely on in the future. Let alone for a service that doesn't force Google+ down your throat today or tomorrow. Sorry, but Google Reader, Hangouts and Android have been too much already.

x5n1 11y ago
Their abuse compliance team has yet to get back to me despite the fact that I gave them my driver's license. It's been like 3 months.
moskie 11y ago
Just like with any product ever, if the product is popular and produces value, it will stick around. Products come and go all the time, the difference being with Google that since they are so big and have countless products, the company doesn't go away when a particular one fails. Many products fail in this world, but often the company that made the product also goes away, so you have no one to complain about going forward. Google is easy to pick on in this regard. If this same product was released by a company you had never heard of, would you use it? Would you honestly believe it to have a greater chance of survival? My suggestion is to simply judge this product on its merits, and accept that nothing is guaranteed, whether it's made by Google or not.
- XJOKOLAT 11y ago
  Potentially. Right now, I have more faith in a specialist small company (e.g. Smugmug [disclaimer, no affiliation]) which charges for their product than Google who offer it for free ... and then, not ... and then ... repackaged ... and then ... RIP. Sorry, you must understand that there are now enough people out there who have been on the receiving end of Google's careless approach to their end-users (note, I intentionally did not refer to us as customers). Announcements like this used to excite me. Not anymore. I hope one day things will be different. [Edit: downvoted as expected. Feel free. Just come back and upvote when it's your turn to get on the Google support rollercoaster].
- x5n1 11y ago
  Amazon's S3 has been around since March 2006, so almost 10 years. That's a much better place for anythinig you want to stick around than Google. Amazon has my loyalty for the very specific reason that they don't release half-assed products and then pull them even when they have millions of users.
  - rsync 11y ago
    Since you mentioned it ... rsync.net has been around since 2001 and, if you care about openness and interoperability[1], is an even better place for "anything you want to stick around". Yes, more expensive, but the "HN readers discount" for new customers is currently 8 cents (vs. S3 @ 3 cents). Email us. [1] http://www.rsync.net/resources/howto/remote_commands.html http://www.rsync.net/resources/howto/remote_commands.html
- anon1385 11y ago
  >If this same product was released by a company you had never heard of, would you use it? Would you honestly believe it to have a greater chance of survival? >My suggestion is to simply judge this product on its merits, and accept that nothing is guaranteed, whether it's made by Google or not. Maybe RMS was right and the answer is to stop using cloud services?
- beambot 11y ago
  > if the product is popular and produces value, it will stick around. I'm afraid there are more factors than this at play. Reader was both popular, and it produced value (to me and many others). I was never even given the option to pay for it. For whatever reason, Reader didn't fit Google's strategic vision... so it got axed.
  - veritas3241 11y ago
    I'm with you on Reader. Heartbreaking to lose that. Oh well, Feedly has been an acceptable replacement.
- discardorama 11y ago
  > Products come and go all the time, Yep, just what I want to hear when I'm uploading my 1000s of photos to that product...
  - moskie 11y ago
    But with Google, you can have the reasonable expectation that if this product does go away, you'll have the chance to export your data.
grkvlt 11y ago
What happened to Hangouts and Android? I know Reader was discontinued, but Google is hardly shutting down widely used services regularly. In fact, it's rare enough that, as with Reader, it is big news when it happens, and there's a huge backlash. This suggests, in fact, that there is actually an expectation that Google does and will keep products around for a long time, not the opposite. People have a common tendency to extrapolate from low-N or even single events to produce an inaccurate picture of future possibilities. I'm quite happy with GMail, Drive, Android and so on, and don't expect them to vanish any time soon.
- Arkanosis 11y ago
  Reader was discontinued, Hangouts has been sold as a replacement for GTalk with missing features (history, compatibility with xmpp…), Android is forcing you to use Google+ everyday more than before (and I really don't want to use it — I mean, really). I'm still using GMail and Android, but I'm not happy with how their UI change, and with how the latter puts Google everywhere (it's a bit better with Cyanogen, but still). Maybe I'm extrapolating, maybe not. The only thing I'm sure of, is that when trust has been lost, it's very hard to get it back.
mrb 11y ago
Can you elaborate why do you not "trust" Google? You don't trust them to keep the Photos service operational in the future? But if the worst comes to the worst, in this theoretical scenario, at least they would surely provide you a way to transfer your files first. So why does it bother you so much? Or you don't trust them to keep Photos independent of Google+? Surely they would never say "from now on you can't access your photos unless you sign up for Google+". Photos are very personal and important to people. This would cause an unprecedented outrage.
- Arkanosis 11y ago
  I don't trust them to keep the service operational in the future if it doesn't get momentum (see Google Buzz, Google Wave…), if it doesn't bring enough money in (see Google Reader…) or if they finally give up against some competitor (see Google Code…). I trust them even less to not put Google+ inside this, which for me is more or less the same thing as shutting the service down, since I really don't want to use Google+ (I mean, really), and I don't want people I share photos with to be forced to use it (I mean, really). You seem to be sure they wouldn't do this, I think the exact opposite. Well, future will tell us. Now, you're right in that they have a excellent history of allowing their users to get their files back. This is something I definitely trust them and thank them for a million times. Now, a photo service isn't relevant without a sharing feature, and if the service is shutting down, no backup that I can think of backs the sharing up.
  - VikingCoder 11y ago
    As if you can trust other companies to keep running unpopular, unprofitable, and/or noncompetitive products. Why do people harp on this for Google? /SMH And as for "really don't want to use Google+", that's very much like saying "I really don't want to log in to Hacker News." Yes. You have an account at Google that enables social interaction. That's all it is. Why people imbue it with some awful emotional connotations is really beyond me. It's a tool that has multiple uses, some of which you don't want to use... Got it. But some of which you might want to use.

x5n1 11y ago

Their abuse compliance team has yet to get back to me despite the fact that I gave them my driver's license. It's been like 3 months.

moskie 11y ago

Just like with any product ever, if the product is popular and produces value, it will stick around. Products come and go all the time, the difference being with Google that since they are so big and have countless products, the company doesn't go away when a particular one fails. Many products fail in this world, but often the company that made the product also goes away, so you have no one to complain about going forward. Google is easy to pick on in this regard. If this same product was released by a company you had never heard of, would you use it? Would you honestly believe it to have a greater chance of survival? My suggestion is to simply judge this product on its merits, and accept that nothing is guaranteed, whether it's made by Google or not.

XJOKOLAT 11y ago
Potentially. Right now, I have more faith in a specialist small company (e.g. Smugmug [disclaimer, no affiliation]) which charges for their product than Google who offer it for free ... and then, not ... and then ... repackaged ... and then ... RIP. Sorry, you must understand that there are now enough people out there who have been on the receiving end of Google's careless approach to their end-users (note, I intentionally did not refer to us as customers). Announcements like this used to excite me. Not anymore. I hope one day things will be different. [Edit: downvoted as expected. Feel free. Just come back and upvote when it's your turn to get on the Google support rollercoaster].
x5n1 11y ago
Amazon's S3 has been around since March 2006, so almost 10 years. That's a much better place for anythinig you want to stick around than Google. Amazon has my loyalty for the very specific reason that they don't release half-assed products and then pull them even when they have millions of users.
- rsync 11y ago
  Since you mentioned it ... rsync.net has been around since 2001 and, if you care about openness and interoperability[1], is an even better place for "anything you want to stick around". Yes, more expensive, but the "HN readers discount" for new customers is currently 8 cents (vs. S3 @ 3 cents). Email us. [1] http://www.rsync.net/resources/howto/remote_commands.html http://www.rsync.net/resources/howto/remote_commands.html
anon1385 11y ago
>If this same product was released by a company you had never heard of, would you use it? Would you honestly believe it to have a greater chance of survival? >My suggestion is to simply judge this product on its merits, and accept that nothing is guaranteed, whether it's made by Google or not. Maybe RMS was right and the answer is to stop using cloud services?
beambot 11y ago
> if the product is popular and produces value, it will stick around. I'm afraid there are more factors than this at play. Reader was both popular, and it produced value (to me and many others). I was never even given the option to pay for it. For whatever reason, Reader didn't fit Google's strategic vision... so it got axed.
- veritas3241 11y ago
  I'm with you on Reader. Heartbreaking to lose that. Oh well, Feedly has been an acceptable replacement.
discardorama 11y ago
> Products come and go all the time, Yep, just what I want to hear when I'm uploading my 1000s of photos to that product...
- moskie 11y ago
  But with Google, you can have the reasonable expectation that if this product does go away, you'll have the chance to export your data.

grkvlt 11y ago

What happened to Hangouts and Android? I know Reader was discontinued, but Google is hardly shutting down widely used services regularly. In fact, it's rare enough that, as with Reader, it is big news when it happens, and there's a huge backlash. This suggests, in fact, that there is actually an expectation that Google does and will keep products around for a long time, not the opposite. People have a common tendency to extrapolate from low-N or even single events to produce an inaccurate picture of future possibilities. I'm quite happy with GMail, Drive, Android and so on, and don't expect them to vanish any time soon.

Arkanosis 11y ago
Reader was discontinued, Hangouts has been sold as a replacement for GTalk with missing features (history, compatibility with xmpp…), Android is forcing you to use Google+ everyday more than before (and I really don't want to use it — I mean, really). I'm still using GMail and Android, but I'm not happy with how their UI change, and with how the latter puts Google everywhere (it's a bit better with Cyanogen, but still). Maybe I'm extrapolating, maybe not. The only thing I'm sure of, is that when trust has been lost, it's very hard to get it back.

mrb 11y ago

Can you elaborate why do you not "trust" Google? You don't trust them to keep the Photos service operational in the future? But if the worst comes to the worst, in this theoretical scenario, at least they would surely provide you a way to transfer your files first. So why does it bother you so much? Or you don't trust them to keep Photos independent of Google+? Surely they would never say "from now on you can't access your photos unless you sign up for Google+". Photos are very personal and important to people. This would cause an unprecedented outrage.

Arkanosis 11y ago
I don't trust them to keep the service operational in the future if it doesn't get momentum (see Google Buzz, Google Wave…), if it doesn't bring enough money in (see Google Reader…) or if they finally give up against some competitor (see Google Code…). I trust them even less to not put Google+ inside this, which for me is more or less the same thing as shutting the service down, since I really don't want to use Google+ (I mean, really), and I don't want people I share photos with to be forced to use it (I mean, really). You seem to be sure they wouldn't do this, I think the exact opposite. Well, future will tell us. Now, you're right in that they have a excellent history of allowing their users to get their files back. This is something I definitely trust them and thank them for a million times. Now, a photo service isn't relevant without a sharing feature, and if the service is shutting down, no backup that I can think of backs the sharing up.
- VikingCoder 11y ago
  As if you can trust other companies to keep running unpopular, unprofitable, and/or noncompetitive products. Why do people harp on this for Google? /SMH And as for "really don't want to use Google+", that's very much like saying "I really don't want to log in to Hacker News." Yes. You have an account at Google that enables social interaction. That's all it is. Why people imbue it with some awful emotional connotations is really beyond me. It's a tool that has multiple uses, some of which you don't want to use... Got it. But some of which you might want to use.