[Just1689]

What a useful app. Reminds me of Airtable in some ways. I enjoy a good flexible table app any day.

We're all tired of the obligatory "I wonder how long before Google deprecates this...;)" but I wonder if Google would get better adoption if they explicitly published what would be needed for them not to drop the product... 1M monthly users? 3M? ...xM? or that when a project actually reaches that point.

[prlambert]

[Disclosure I work at Google Area 120 and would be partly responsible for this type of decision]

This is a really helpful comment and I like the nod to transparency. Thank you! Not sure we could get quite so concrete publicly (there are lots of unknowns and wouldn't want to make commitments we can't keep), but aligning goals between the business, team, and users/customers is a great idea and something we can improve on.

[alasdair_]

This is the primary reason I don’t use new Google labs tools any more. If there was an explicit “we guarantee this will be fully supported for X length of time and migration will be easy if we kill it” I would be far more likely to adopt new tools.

Also, is Area 120 the new Google Labs? I thought they killed off the whole Labs thing a couple of years ago? (The irony is not lost on me here.)

[someone7x]

Are all these comments about the near and inevitable death of your new product at all soul-crushing?

I'm a stranger on the internet and even I can feel the burn.

Good luck.

[shajznnckfke]

I’m sure the coming promotion/fat refresher for shipping a product helps ease the suffering.

[jjoonathan]

Have they fixed the incentives yet? Or is it still "ship = good, maintain = bad," guaranteeing that the pattern continues?

[shajznnckfke]

I’m not sure the incentive is really wrong, although it sucks for the users affected. It’s sort of like how VCs want startups to reach unicorn status or go bust trying. Google doesn’t want to waste engineers running a lifestyle business.

[prlambert]

No, you get a thick skin pretty quickly as a Google PM (and come to think of it as a Twitter PM too, my former job). Constructive comments are helpful and even the raw frustration I know is coming from a genuine place. Having your tools disappear sucks. I feel that too.

[cflewis]

As a Googler, I'd just say it's a boring meme that shows little thought and just wastes time actually getting to interesting discussion here. It's almost akin to "first" from the old days of Slashdot or the race to mention generics whenever anything related to Go comes up.

Products come and products go, this is not unique to Google. Killed By Google is cited as some sort of proof, but that goes back to _2003_, and does nothing to talk about whether the product was replaced with something new that users were transitioned to.

Then you have a company like Microsoft that keeps things around in perpetuity, but sometimes to the chagrin of users who want new features added or you get incongruent UX (you can still find plenty of very old apps in Windows 10). And this is fine too, but it's not a meme and so never comes up.

[TheRealSteel]

Your dismiss response has made me even more confident Google plans to immediately abandon this (as well as other services I might be interested in, including end-user ones like Stadia), not less.

It's not a meme. It's a very real problem that prevents people from wanting to invest in Google services. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy too when people don't use these services, then they get shuttered for low usage.

Google has a huge amount of work to do to earn the trust they've burned, and responses like this damage the cause further. You've cemented firmly in my mind that staying the hell away from this and anything Google has to offer is the right choice, as they clearly don't take this problem seriously and won't even acknowledge it.

I really think you should reconsider.

[ksk]

The point is, what differentiates products that come out of this project from another startup that is also struggling to stay afloat? If the answer is nothing, then why should anyone treat you any differently (because those other companies also get hit hard on that point)? Why shouldn't customers be weary about relying on your products if there isn't a commitment? You are free to call it a boring meme, but to me, these are very valid concerns. Sorry, you don't get a free pass because you're Google, and IMHO it should get scrutinized even more because its from Google for obvious reasons (poor privacy, track record of poor UI performance, s/w is often sluggish/resource hog, etc, etc)

>Then you have a company like Microsoft that keeps things around in perpetuity, but sometimes to the chagrin of users who want new features added or you get incongruent UX (you can still find plenty of very old apps in Windows 10). And this is fine too, but it's not a meme and so never comes up.

I'm not exactly the biggest fan of MS, but our company has saved tens of thousands of dollars in software costs because we could use old software designed for Win XP/7 on Win 10 w/o re-buying the software from the vendor. (Biotech s/w costs can get super crazy, esp with 21CFR validation)

[antonvs]

It's not a "meme". It's a real fact that anyone who's considering depending on a Google product has to consider.

It's also a consequence of the business models that Google has explicitly chosen, i.e. your employer has chosen to incur this reputation.

[cnlwsu]

Even if the complete public distrust of the companies ability to be reliable is "just a meme" it's brand damaging and creates a scenario that impacts adoption of new products.

While products come and go is true, it's more a matter of scale on why this reputation exists.

I know I personally have been burned by the platform I was using going out from beneath me. That memory comes up each time I am considering between an AWS (where its never happened to me), azure, and google cloud solution.

[lowiqengineer]

Really not helping the condescending Googler stereotype there bud. Or perhaps its OK for you to be this way as a tech "elite" that makes $450k a year.

[what_ever]

I don't see any condescending language in that comment. But with my disclosure, you will be quick to say, of course I can't.

Not sure where the "elite" or "450k/year" is coming from as well in the parent comment. Perhaps give that comment another chance to see what they are actually saying?

Disc: Googler.

[TheRealSteel]

Calling it a boring meme is condescending. It's dismissing people's concerns as a joke they made up for attention, rather than addressing and refuting their actual argument.

[lowiqengineer]

PHD graduate after a few years will easily make $450k. I’m sure OP does.

Unlike me, he has absurd wealth. I’m lucky if I hit $200k after 3 years tenure at Amazon.

[mdoms]

There's that trademark Google arrogance we all know and love.

[toomuchtodo]

Could Google not commit to open sourcing projects in a maintainable way (public repos, k8s support versus just Borg, which no one has access to) and guarantee data export functionality as part of Takeout? This would significantly derisk attempting to use a fledgling Google service for end users.

Definitely not a resourcing issue, entirely an organizational culture and philosophy decision to be made.

[pc86]

I don't work at Google but my understanding is there are a lot of proprietary, closed-source internal APIs that make this difficult-bordering-impossible.

[InitialLastName]

Yes, Google wouldn't want anyone seeing exactly how thoroughly everything hooks into their data collection and ad targeting systems.

[ashtonkem]

The only way to rebuild credibility is to do the right thing repeatedly for a long period of time.

Google saying “if we get X users we won’t cancel it” both sounds like a hostage note, and doesn’t matter because we fundamentally don’t trust Google. Without that trust, it doesn’t matter why they say, since it won’t be believed.

[hackmiester]

If they say they need X users to not cancel something, that does nothing for me, even if I trust them. I will not sign up until it already hits that point, because before then, it's practically guaranteed to be canceled. And I bet at least X users would share my opinion.

[andrewprock]

If they could just commit to maintaining Hangouts, they would go a long way to rebuilding trust. I know many school aged kids who joined Hangouts (though Google classroom IIRC) as a painless way to collaborate with classmates and friends. It's literally a gold mine for "next generation" social networking, but the fact that they are killing Hangouts means those kids are all finding their way to other feature rich platforms, like Discord.

[gerash]

This is an experimental project obviously and has that Area120 tag but I think there should be a uniform experimental logo/icon across all of Google products for any projects which is provided as is with no upfront commitment to long term support or sustainability.

Once the distinction between products with long-term commitment and experimental products is super clear with a uniform icon/logo then there'll be less disappointment and upset future customers

[prlambert]

Just to confirm, the Area 120 labelling is meant to do exactly that. Area 120 projects do not have long-term commitments, explicitly. But the goal is for the successful ones to graduate to be a fully supported Google product and gain those commitments at that time (we have a number of examples of that happening).

[gerash]

IMO it's still not clear from a single glance. Either no Google logo anywhere near experimental stuff or a super visible uniform "Beta/Experimental" logo as long as a product has no long term commitment.

I'd say they should use the same logo whether it's an area120 project, an experimental chrome extension from YT team, some research experiment, some VR experimental app, etc.

[mh-]

I think sharing some of those examples might be helpful.

[andromeduck]

Because Google labs was just too confusing right?

[clairity]

nothing will lead to better adoption, because, as others have pointed out, google has trashed its brand (at least among techies) because of structural issues like promotion-hopping and big game hunting (where, for example, a $50M business is just way beneath them).

further, we're never going to get sustainable businesses out of google because they don't have the patience relative to their search and advertising behemoths. these kinds of projects are designed to keep the more adventurous developers in the fold with golden handcuffs, to both reduce existential threats to google and as a held front in the developer wars against other tech companies. lastly, constraints spur ingenuity (business and technical), and google engineers are just too comfortable for that.

all that (and more) means that google is simply not in the business of creating new businesses, no matter the rhetoric. unless something drastic changes, there's no reason to invest in any new google development.

[onion2k]

I wonder if Google would get better adoption if they explicitly published what would be needed for them not to drop the product..

Feedly picked up 3 million new users in the two weeks following Google shutting down Reader. Based on that alone I would never trust Google not to shut down a product that seems popular and well-used.

Literally the only thing that would change my perception of Google's short-termism would be if they don't shut down any products in the next 10 years.