4 ms·
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 wit
by 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 agoPotentially. 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 agoAmazon'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 agoSince 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 agoI'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 agoBut with Google, you can have the reasonable expectation that if this product does go away, you'll have the chance to export your data.