[blakesterz]

hmm, not even sure what that was. I know this sounds like sour grapes complaining so feel free to read it in Verruca Salt's voice if you want... This is why I am scared to try anything new from Google. I know why they do it, I know how they do things, I totally get it, but it does not make it better. I know they like trying new things. I know they're not afraid to get rid of things that aren't performing like they want. But as a little guy, just part of the big group of users they monetize every day, I can't ever use anything new from them because I'm just afraid it will be gone in a year or two. I don't expect them to keep every damn thing running forever, I really get that they can't, but they seem over eager to shut things down, even if they seem to be used by no small number of people. e.g. Google Keep. Tried, loved it, never used it again. I'm still afraid it'll die any day now. /Verucca

[kyrra]

Google keep just got its iOS client this past fall. As far as I can tell, they keep adding small improvements to it.

The nice thing with most Google apps is that you can get your data out easily with Takeout: http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2015/08/export-all-your-goo...

[duaneb]

Unrelated to article, but keep really is awesome. I use the iOS app every day.

[tdeck]

Interesting to see Google Keep brought up as an example, since Google summarily killed Notebook [1], which I used, and which seemed similar in many ways.

[1] Google Notebook: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Notebook

[Reedx]

Do Google products have a higher closure rate than products in general? (I'm genuinely curious)

If not, then do you have the same fear of any new product from any company? That risk is there too...

[blakesterz]

That's a couple of really good questions. Another reason I feel bad complaining at all.

[gkoberger]

'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

[hobs]

Completely wrong when it comes to adopting new technologies unless you are a real youngster.

My debit/credit card pairing hasn't been cancelled or changed in the 10 years I have had it unless I have specifically engineered that change.

The reality is that you just shouldn't trust google for anything that appears long term, and consider them as a casual partner, not a long term relationship.

[lern_too_spel]

Relative to all the startups that compete with them, Google and Microsoft products are much safer to rely on. They will at least give you a migration path and a generous time allowance for that migration. Most of the startups who shut down their services do so with with no notice.

[hobs]

And relative to a bank, which is what I was comparing them to, they are canceling things at a very very rapid pace.

I am perfectly fine with people saying that Google, a multi-billion dollar corporation, cancels things less often than a company with a completely uncertain future and no profit.

I am also fine with saying that comparison is not fair to the startups or to business that try to deliver a faithful product to their customers.

[Animats]

Then there are the "lingering death" products, such as Google Voice. Google bought that from Grand Central in 2009, and it's still basically Grand Central. There's a running joke about Google Voice acquiring an API that's been in a bug report for five years now.

I think there's a phone interface feature associated with Google Hangouts. ("Google Hangups?") But it probably requires that everyone you talk to have a Google account. All these little closed-world communications systems are a pain.

[yohui]

I think the Hangouts Dialer does use my Google Voice number. Google Voice voicemails also show up in Hangouts now, instead of the Google Voice app. Also, doesn't Project Fi use Google Voice numbers? And the recent Google Fiber home phone service?

The dedicated Google Voice app has withered, but Google seems to be integrating the service into their other projects.

[magicalist]

> I think there's a phone interface feature associated with Google Hangouts. But it probably requires that everyone you talk to have a Google account.

Er, it's a phone interface. It makes phone calls. Everyone you talk to is only required to have a phone number.

[kilroy123]

God I really hope they don't kill off Google Voice, I use it daily!

[bduerst]

Hangouts absorbed Google Voice:

"Hangouts remains the future of Google Voice, so we’re going to keep bringing the most-loved Google Voice features into the core Hangouts experience,"

[wyldfire]

My wife doesn't know about Google's reputation for shutting down services like this. But when I tried to convince her to use "Project Fi" she refused. She thinks "Project" sounds as if it's an experiment. Tsk, she's probably more right than she knows.

But I really wanted to try it out anyways -- with number portability there's just not that much risk.

[hinkley]

You know, back in the old Embrace Extend Extinguish days, I used to think Microsoft should just cancel old products they obviously don't give a shit about. I hated that they sucked the oxygen out of the room by continuing to half-ass it for years and years.

Now we have Google, that's almost as big but not as contentious, and they're canceling things left and right, and that's causing problems too. So now I'm not sure what my position is on the topic.

[jonesb6]

I wonder how the engineers on these projects feel. To work really hard on something just to have it thrown out due to "business reasons". Must suck.

[grahamburger]

Seems like most of the projects that get the axe have been neglected for a while first. Probably no one is really pouring their heart in to these things enough to be too upset.

[knicholes]

Every project I've touched has withered and has been cancelled (except for one, but it has only been out for a year). I'm convinced that it's my super power.

[nommm-nommm]

I've been on a couple projects that got the axe. Doesn't bother me, I still got paid.

[superkamiguru]

it was a round about way to resolve the issue that google wallet/android pay wasn't accepted at many places. The solution is about as dumb as it sounds. I liked it because it was a really quick and easy debit card essentially. So I would use it at places I didn't trust since I could limit the amount on the card.

[onetimePete]

It would be great if they at least open sourced failed experiments.

[eknkc]

Might be really hard due to closed source / licensed components and google infrastructure dependant architecture.

[ocdtrekkie]

That just seems like bad design on their part. In the past, Google leaned towards open source by default, and then kept just some of the secret sauce to their services proprietary, now it seems that their proprietary services is the bulk of what they produce.

Perhaps they need to unbundle.

Google Wave works great today on self-hosted platforms.

[yohui]

Google Wave was still useful after it was open sourced because people could set up their own servers.

But what would you take from Google Wallet? The physical debit card? The payment service? Unless you're opening a bank, I'm not sure how useful any of that would be.

[JBReefer]

I've heard from people inside that the quality of their codebase has gone down, and thus they can no longer just upload stuff without a refactoring.

[onetimePete]

All codebases are horrible after some years- that is the result of "please invest not time into this done project"- hotbugfixes piling to spots where they don't belong. The existence of this architecture corrosion is not something to be ashamed off. And everyone who reads in, can do so while refactoring those "if (input(isExoticEdgeCase)){...}" into some Filterclass of there own. My assumption is, that often management is in fear of being proven wrong, by some project coming alive. "This Project is not profitable, lets open source it." is a statement that can haunt you, if that very project comes alive and walks the earth for years to come. Coders and management united in fear of public embarrassment.