[kovac]

The problem with this reasoning is that the numbers will start to look a lot less practical if we consider the total number of projects Google has shut down. If we applied this reasoning each time, they'll be out of cash a lot sooner than your estimate.

I'm all for abandoning projects that makes no sense to maintain. But if this happens too often, then somewhere along the decision chain people are missing the mark on what's worth building and supporting. In Google's case, they should probably put a bit more thought into it before releasing something to the public. This situation, to me, is a sign of overconfidence among Google workers about their abilities. In humbler places, they do side projects too but before they start them there's a lot of discussion about the purpose of the project beyond the code and the value it brings. When I saw the list of projects Google had killed, most of those projects looked plain boring to work on and seemed like undergraduate projects. Then again, may be it's it's own strategy to build as many stuff as you can quickly hoping some of them might take off.

[1024core]

> But if this happens too often, then somewhere along the decision chain people are missing the mark on what's worth building and supporting. In Google's case, they should probably put a bit more thought into it before releasing something to the public. This situation, to me, is a sign of overconfidence among Google workers about their abilities.

From what I hear, it's the internal performance evaluation and promotion processes at work here. People are rewarded for "launching" products. Once a product launches, backs are slapped, promotions are had, and everyone moves on. There are no clawbacks if the project fails; the fact that it launched is all they care about. This is why there are so many little projects which launch, flounder and then are turned off.

[BoorishBears]

> The problem with this reasoning is that the numbers will start to look a lot less practical if we consider the total number of projects Google has shut down. If we applied this reasoning each time, they'll be out of cash a lot sooner than your estimate.

This should not be true and if it is, it’s just further indication of a problem.

I said 1 ten thousandth of cash on hand for 1.1 million years to drive home how much of a paradigm breaking amount of money they have.

They could make a blank rule that every app gets 20 years of maintenance and support and support 55,000 projects for 1/10000 of their budget.

Now realistically I feel your comment is still missing the point because it’s not even about saying they should maintain these apps anymore.

It’s about the fact that your hard earned dollar is a a drop in the bucket for them. Literally.

Imagine a bucket holding a bucket of water.

Imagine 1.5 million of these buckets back to back.

$1 of your money, is one drop in all 1.5 million of these jugs for Google.

Now pardon my visualizations here but I find it helps when you’re talking about such stupid amounts of money, to help put things into perspective.

They don’t care about services unless the returns are going to be astronomical in one dimension of another.

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Every service they make like a VC backed startup on their Series A... except they go and attach literally the biggest name in modern technology to it, which lulls people into a false sense of security and also expands the reach of these projects so that them shutting down affects many more people than an early stage product shutdown should.

This is what angers so many people