GSS isn't under Cloud and doesn't have the same deprecation policy. Cloud explicitly states that it has a minimum 1-year turndown on any feature they disable.
> Cloud is still competing with on premises solutions, right? One year is nothing, try ten or twenty.
Not an expert by any means but I would put more weight to Google's ONE year promise over (to give an example) HPE's twenty years promise. I know it is a cheap shot because I am pretty sure HPE will be bought and sold at least once in the next twenty years.
FWIW I am now dealing with a system that is supported by HPE for over 10 years now. Even if they get bought out, someone will inherit those support obligations. I am also in the camp of not trusting Google with anything.
GSS shutdown gives us a year also. I just migrated to GSS a year ago. And they decommissioned they big appliance Google Enterprise Serarch I think it was called.
We were users of the Google Mini Search appliance, went to a 3rd party in-house installed search solution that we did not like and then a year ago went to GSS. We are looking again for something suitable. The best part of the Google Site Search was search fidelity.
Site Search seems like an infra offering to me.