[ghaff]

I get that Google essentially walked back from an at least implied role as an information archivist. But I still don't really get why they so completely abandoned things like Google Groups given the truly minuscule resources to maintain them at some low level.

[cultureleak_ta0]

Nobody can get promoted for improvements like that. It would only garner goodwill with a tiny customer base and it’s not clear how that would translate to revenue or user growth on other products

[petercooper]

Totally agree, but I kinda feel (and this is solely my opinion) that much as it's our collective responsibility to donate to worthwhile causes, gigantic tech companies should spend rounding-error money on good digital causes like this.

[wmf]

But there do seem to be quite a few people at Google already working on random stuff that won't get them promoted.

[digi_owl]

What seems to have happened was that Google shifted focus from sorting the web to delivering the "zeitgeist" of the present.

Perhaps because more people were likely to search for whatever was on the news cycle than some arbitrary piece of info.

Never mind that Google's earnings comes from ads, not search results.

[ghaff]

Google's original mission statement from 1998 was to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Things like Usenet archives are clearly part of that.

That is still apparently their mission statement but I agree the reality seems more along the lines of "deliver the best search results for users' immediate needs" [while making as much money from that as humanly possible]

[macspoofing]

It's sad. The original mission implied nothing was going to get lost and abandoned. So much for that.

[macspoofing]

Somebody (and most likely a team of somebodies) needs to own it. If nobody at the top is willing to champion the project and carve out a budget and people, then they need to fold it.