[amelius]

The right thing to do by Google would be to make the product available as a stand-alone application, so users can still use it even if it doesn't run on Google's infrastructure.

More work, yes. But certainly much better than what they are doing now.

[cj]

> make the product available as a stand-alone application [...] even if it doesn't run on Google's infrastructure

How would they do that? Who would pay the server costs?

Edit: Out of curiosity, is there anyone reading this comment that would be willing to pay for the infrastructure costs to keep Poly alive?

[bognition]

Not to mention that its been built on top of the Google internal development stack and getting it working outside of that environment would require a substantial re-write.

[olau]

So you're saying they're getting bitten by vendor lock-in?

[dewey]

How is it vendor lock-in if the internal code base that was never built in a way to work in the outside world can't just be taken and dropped on Github?

[rakoo]

We are being bitten by vendor lock-in, once again

[monsieurbanana]

No? We're getting bitten by vendor lock in.

[amelius]

> How would they do that? Who would pay the server costs?

The user would run the server, or another company, or a group of enthousiasts. It doesn't need to be expensive, especially if the user doesn't require many other users on the system.

[hn_throwaway_99]

That doesn't really make sense. poly.google.com looks to be essentially a repository/library of 3D renderings people want to share. There is no "standalone app" here, it's just a sharing site.

[izacus]

> The right thing to do by Google would be to make the product available as a stand-alone application, so users can still use it even if it doesn't run on Google's infrastructure.

Did any of your companies ever do that? How did it go?

[amelius]

Did any of my companies ever pull a product while it was still being used? No.

[niyikiza]

Companies discontinue products all the time due to acquisitions, bankruptcy, restructuring or simply re-orienting investment and I've never seen them held to this standard of having to host it somewhere external. I'm not even really sure how that would work.

A commenter here shared an example of a similar product shut down by Microsoft: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remix_3D

Disclaimer: Googler, but in no way connect to the Poly team.

Edit: Added Remix 3D example.

[gtirloni]

Good luck justifying that to whoever is paying that bill.