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> What happens to the people who bet on them? I think that's the whole point though. A lot of the products, if they can even be called that, listed in this article are not even possible to "bet on". I mean, Code Jam?? I think it sucks they shut it down, but annual events and conferences come and go, it's not like people had a right to expect it would go on indefinitely. I only think about half the items in this list are even possible to invest much time on as an outsider, either a customer or a partner: Stadia (obviously a ton has already been written about that), OnHub (classic "I bought an IoT device that isn't much better than a paperweight after they stopped support), and Google Currents (though that one is marginal - I don't know anyone who used it, also I don't know how seamless the transition to Spaces was). I think the biggest issue with Google products is that nobody trusts them because they won't stand by any roadmaps. If they had clear, discrete classes of products that they actually stood behind (e.g. "these we'll only guarantee to support for the next 18 months" vs. "these are mature products we stand by"), I think folks would be more OK going into things with eyes wide open. But Google has time and again bullshitted ("Of course we're investing in Stadia..."), or even had things been in beta for years and years when they were obviously mature products, like GMail. And since it's clear Google only really cares about ad revenue, when shit hits the fan and they need to "streamline", like now, anything that doesn't directly support ads like Search, Android, GMail, Chrome, etc. feels like an afterthought. |