I understand the point that you’re trying to make, but you are inflating this tremendously to exaggerate the evolution of these products.
First of all, you’re talking about the progression of products over the course of nearly 20 years. For some perspective, that was the era of Windows XP. You can take a similar exercise to explore the discontinuation of software on other platforms, including those that don’t exist at all any more.
Secondly, you’ve combined app categories that don’t fit. Google+ was a social network, Hangouts was a chat app and Duo was a video calling app. Simply saying that Hangouts and Allo combined to become Chat and Hangouts Meet and Do combined to become Meet wouldn’t quite have the same ring to it, I guess.
Finally, you’ve conflated technologies. Android Automotive OS is an entire OS running in a car that is maintained by the OEM in much the same way as Android is on phones. The availability of Google services is mandated by OEMs, so I’m not exactly sure how this even ties into the argument you’re trying to make. Incidentally, this has nothing to do with Android Auto, which is an extended display for your phone.
Google has been around for 25 years and always has chased innovation. They create a ton of things, see what sticks, then iterate or pivot. While I too have been frustrated by the discontinuation of service I liked, I can appreciate that much of what we have today is thanks to this very culture.
Whenever I hear this kind of complaint, it sounds to me that people just want Google to be more like Apple or Microsoft and churn out minor improvements to their existing money makers with minimal innovation.
In regards to your last paragraph, yeah that is what we want. Stable products that we can actually rely on. You sound like an engineer who has no clue what people actually want in a product. No one gives a shit about “innovation” that doesn’t bring people real, consistent value.
And that’s why Google is dying a slow death. It’s a company basically run by arrogant engineers trying to jerk each other off for promotions.
Certainly we have different needs and consequently a different perception of what a stable product entails.
Nevertheless, from a product perspective, the variety of what Google offers is simply so broad that of course it will always mean that things are discontinued. Google builds and maintains a wide variety of products, from word processing, file storage, communication and creativity apps and services, to fully fledged operating systems and browsers, hardware including phones, tablets, watches and laptops, and of course web mastering tools for discovery and monetization.
Inevitably there will be gaps in individual needs when a product portfolio is so broad. (As an aide, I’d even argue it does so unrivaled since other tech giants don’t dabble in nearly as many areas.) My take on this is that the frustration scales with that breadth.
Equally so, there are ample examples of stable products at Google. There’s a strange sentiment on the web to make a tally of those that were discontinued, no matter how unused or irrelevant they had become. (I would challenge you to review that list and identify a handful that you would genuinely use today.)
None of this is to say that I mindlessly support this tech giant. I just find it so odd how this community continues to be an echo chamber where everybody just repeats something to the effect that everything used to be better. The mantra of this community appears to be the prophecy that every single household name in technology is currently in the process of certain death. In the case of Google, I personally find today’s Gmail, Calendar, Drive, YouTube Music, Pixel, Android, Android Auto and effectively every other Google service that I use to be the best version of that service and sufficiently safe, stable and reliable for my needs. In any case, I don’t aspire to go back to whichever early-2000s variant existed before.
Finally, you’ve conflated technologies. Android Automotive OS is an entire OS running in a car that is maintained by the OEM in much the same way as Android is on phones.
…Incidentally, this has nothing to do with Android Auto, which is an extended display for your phone.
I mention both as they are intended to provide the same functionality, regardless of the underlying technology – integration of a vehicle’s Infotainment with a Google provided ecosystem. In-fact, Android Auto apps are compatible with Android Automotive, because, technical ‘why’ aside, the function to the end-user is the same.
Google has been around for 25 years and always has chased innovation. They create a ton of things, see what sticks, then iterate or pivot.
According to many Googlers over the years, the reason many of these projects eventually discontinue and fail isn’t because things ‘aren’t sticking’ but rather due to the internal culture, in that to set yourself apart and get good performance ratings, you must always strive to be on teams that are doing something new. This leaves little to no resources for maintaining the ‘old’ regardless of how much people like them (or not).
While I too have been frustrated by the discontinuation of service I liked
I don’t know about everyone else, but I wrote what I wrote, not because I’m frustrated about a discontinuation of any service I liked from Google. That happens. It is because the branding and evolution of products are confusing and sometimes, they even coexist. From my perspective, it often seems as if there is no actual long-term plan or guidance for many services that have come and gone with no signs of that changing.
The perception of the chaotic mess that Google brings with many of its services past, present and probably the future is at least something that I felt I wanted to criticize. They deserve it regardless of the supposed intentions behind the curtain.
Whenever I hear this kind of complaint, it sounds to me that people just want Google to be more like Apple or Microsoft and churn out minor improvements to their existing money makers with minimal innovation.
That’s your opinion I suppose but it is not mine. My opinion is that Google should at least change the perception of their products to have clear and clean plans as they evolve. This would give me a reason to trust their branding more.
You mentioned Duo and Allo, which co-existed along with Hangouts for a time. The utter confusion and lack of interoperability created a confusing schism within the same userbase that used them at the time. You could argue that somehow they ‘innovated’ chat and video conferencing but they didn’t even call one something like Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Video when they segregated the functions with a clear passover from Hangouts itself.
I think people would just prefer Google appears to be less arbitrary and in disarray about their products. If we are to believe some of the people that actually worked on these products, then that is going to require a culture change within.
Thanks for your thoughtful and detailed response. I genuinely agree with effectively everything you’re saying.
As an aside, there is another way of looking at your same examples: effectively all of the services you listed continue to exist, sometimes even after 20 years, albeit repackaged or renamed with only in the worst case a hiccup for users to migrate. In the case of the chat functionality from G+, it simply evolved to what it is today. Perhaps I was too harsh and strung up on the remark about discontinued services.
I understand the point that you’re trying to make, but you are inflating this tremendously to exaggerate the evolution of these products.
First of all, you’re talking about the progression of products over the course of nearly 20 years. For some perspective, that was the era of Windows XP. You can take a similar exercise to explore the discontinuation of software on other platforms, including those that don’t exist at all any more.
Secondly, you’ve combined app categories that don’t fit. Google+ was a social network, Hangouts was a chat app and Duo was a video calling app. Simply saying that Hangouts and Allo combined to become Chat and Hangouts Meet and Do combined to become Meet wouldn’t quite have the same ring to it, I guess.
Finally, you’ve conflated technologies. Android Automotive OS is an entire OS running in a car that is maintained by the OEM in much the same way as Android is on phones. The availability of Google services is mandated by OEMs, so I’m not exactly sure how this even ties into the argument you’re trying to make. Incidentally, this has nothing to do with Android Auto, which is an extended display for your phone.
Google has been around for 25 years and always has chased innovation. They create a ton of things, see what sticks, then iterate or pivot. While I too have been frustrated by the discontinuation of service I liked, I can appreciate that much of what we have today is thanks to this very culture.
Whenever I hear this kind of complaint, it sounds to me that people just want Google to be more like Apple or Microsoft and churn out minor improvements to their existing money makers with minimal innovation.
In regards to your last paragraph, yeah that is what we want. Stable products that we can actually rely on. You sound like an engineer who has no clue what people actually want in a product. No one gives a shit about “innovation” that doesn’t bring people real, consistent value.
And that’s why Google is dying a slow death. It’s a company basically run by arrogant engineers trying to jerk each other off for promotions.
Certainly we have different needs and consequently a different perception of what a stable product entails.
Nevertheless, from a product perspective, the variety of what Google offers is simply so broad that of course it will always mean that things are discontinued. Google builds and maintains a wide variety of products, from word processing, file storage, communication and creativity apps and services, to fully fledged operating systems and browsers, hardware including phones, tablets, watches and laptops, and of course web mastering tools for discovery and monetization.
Inevitably there will be gaps in individual needs when a product portfolio is so broad. (As an aide, I’d even argue it does so unrivaled since other tech giants don’t dabble in nearly as many areas.) My take on this is that the frustration scales with that breadth.
Equally so, there are ample examples of stable products at Google. There’s a strange sentiment on the web to make a tally of those that were discontinued, no matter how unused or irrelevant they had become. (I would challenge you to review that list and identify a handful that you would genuinely use today.)
None of this is to say that I mindlessly support this tech giant. I just find it so odd how this community continues to be an echo chamber where everybody just repeats something to the effect that everything used to be better. The mantra of this community appears to be the prophecy that every single household name in technology is currently in the process of certain death. In the case of Google, I personally find today’s Gmail, Calendar, Drive, YouTube Music, Pixel, Android, Android Auto and effectively every other Google service that I use to be the best version of that service and sufficiently safe, stable and reliable for my needs. In any case, I don’t aspire to go back to whichever early-2000s variant existed before.
Hangouts was originally part of Google+, hence “Google Hangouts (2013), which was part of Google+ (2011)”
If you don’t recall it as a feature within G+, then at least trust an article talking about it.
The Verge (2013) EXCLUSIVE: INSIDE HANGOUTS, GOOGLE’S BIG FIX FOR ITS MESSAGING MESS
I mention both as they are intended to provide the same functionality, regardless of the underlying technology – integration of a vehicle’s Infotainment with a Google provided ecosystem. In-fact, Android Auto apps are compatible with Android Automotive, because, technical ‘why’ aside, the function to the end-user is the same.
According to many Googlers over the years, the reason many of these projects eventually discontinue and fail isn’t because things ‘aren’t sticking’ but rather due to the internal culture, in that to set yourself apart and get good performance ratings, you must always strive to be on teams that are doing something new. This leaves little to no resources for maintaining the ‘old’ regardless of how much people like them (or not).
I don’t know about everyone else, but I wrote what I wrote, not because I’m frustrated about a discontinuation of any service I liked from Google. That happens. It is because the branding and evolution of products are confusing and sometimes, they even coexist. From my perspective, it often seems as if there is no actual long-term plan or guidance for many services that have come and gone with no signs of that changing.
The perception of the chaotic mess that Google brings with many of its services past, present and probably the future is at least something that I felt I wanted to criticize. They deserve it regardless of the supposed intentions behind the curtain.
That’s your opinion I suppose but it is not mine. My opinion is that Google should at least change the perception of their products to have clear and clean plans as they evolve. This would give me a reason to trust their branding more.
You mentioned Duo and Allo, which co-existed along with Hangouts for a time. The utter confusion and lack of interoperability created a confusing schism within the same userbase that used them at the time. You could argue that somehow they ‘innovated’ chat and video conferencing but they didn’t even call one something like Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Video when they segregated the functions with a clear passover from Hangouts itself.
I think people would just prefer Google appears to be less arbitrary and in disarray about their products. If we are to believe some of the people that actually worked on these products, then that is going to require a culture change within.
Thanks for your thoughtful and detailed response. I genuinely agree with effectively everything you’re saying.
As an aside, there is another way of looking at your same examples: effectively all of the services you listed continue to exist, sometimes even after 20 years, albeit repackaged or renamed with only in the worst case a hiccup for users to migrate. In the case of the chat functionality from G+, it simply evolved to what it is today. Perhaps I was too harsh and strung up on the remark about discontinued services.