[stomato]

I was a big supporter, however now I wonder whether the cities that they've started rolling out to will get half-assed because their budgets are cut or morale has dropped. It's freaking Google- I don't understand how they didn't do the due diligence ahead of time to prepare budget for costs adequately.

But, if they ever come, I'll probably buy in, because I can't believe that AT&T is saying things like this- do they actually understand that PR 101 is you don't gloat?: http://www.attpublicpolicy.com/fcc/broadband-investmentnot-f...

[jpalomaki]

I believe the intention of Google Fiber project was not to make money directly, but to put pressure on other ISPs by showing that Google can actually enter the market and act as viable competitor if they don't behave.

For me this sounds like somebody just made a high-level decision that this thing is no longer important for Google's mission. As we have seen, they have been trying quite hard to focus on fewer things. It's not necessarily even about money. Each individual business requires some attention from the (top) management and they are competing on talented people inside the company.

[stomato]

Understand that they would have assumed some loss in the front of nationwide rollout, but they seem to have overestimated adoption and underestimated the costs required to rollout.

The one thing they did right, imo, were t-shirts. Compared to billboards, TV commercials, etc. a well-designed t-shirt lasts a really long time and gets more attention.