[JumpCrisscross]

> What OpenAI announced was nothing that Google could not do already

I don’t think I’ve seen serious criticism of Google’s abilities. Apple didn’t release anything that Xerox or IBM couldn’t do. The difference is they didn’t.

Google’s problem has always been in product follow through. In this case, I fault them for having the sole action item be a buried waitlist request and two new brands (Veo and VideoFX) for one unreleased product.

[sangnoir]

> I don’t think I’ve seen serious criticism of Google’s abilities

Serious or not, that criticism existed on HN - and still does. I've seen many comments claiming Google has "fallen behind" on AI, sometimes with the insinuation the Google won't ever catch up due to OpenAI's apparent insurmountable lead

[KorematsuFredt]

> Google’s problem has always been in product follow through.

Google is large enough to not care about small opportunities. It ends up focusing on bigger opportunities that only it can execute well. Google's ability to shut down products that dont work is an insult to user but a very good corporate strategy and they deserve kudos for that.

Now, coming back to the "follow through". Google Search, Gmail, Chrome, Android, Photos, Drive, Cloud etc. all are excellent examples of Google's long term commitment to the product and constantly making things better and keeping them relevant for the market. Many companies like Yahoo! had a head start but could not keep up with their mail service.

Sure it has shut down many small products but that is because they were unlikely to turn into bigger opportunities. They often integrated the best aspect of those products into their other well established products such as Google Trips became part of search and Google Shopping became part of search.

[falcor84]

> coming back to the "follow through". Google Search, Gmail, Chrome, Android, Photos, Drive, Cloud etc. all are excellent examples of Google's long term commitment

Do you have any examples of something they launched in the last decade?

[KorematsuFredt]

Pixel smartphones: Launched in 2016 Google Home smart speaker: Launched in 2016 Google Wifi mesh Wi-Fi system: Launched in 2016 Google Nest smart display: Launched in 2018 Google Nest Wifi mesh Wi-Fi system: Launched in 2019 Stadia Cloud gaming platform*: Launched in 2019 Google Pay (formerly known as Tez): 2028

[astrange]

Photos was launched in the last decade.

[falcor84]

Early 2015 - technically correct. But I hope you would agree that their ability to release successful products has significantly diminished between the decade 2005-2014 to 2015-2024, apparently in reverse proportion to their headcount.

[troupo]

> Google is large enough to not care about small opportunities. It ends up focusing on bigger opportunities

that result in shittier products overall. For example, just a few months ago they cut 17 features from Google Assistant because they couldn't monetize them, sorry, because these were "small opportunities": https://techcrunch.com/2024/01/11/google-is-removing-17-unde...

> all are excellent examples of Google's long term commitment to the product and constantly making things better and keeping them relevant for the market.

And here's a long list of excellent examples of Google killing products right and left because small opportunities or something: https://killedbygoogle.com/

And don't get me started on the whole Hangouts/Meet/Alo/Duo/whatever fiasco

> Sure it has shut down many small products but that is because they were unlikely to turn into bigger opportunities.

Translation: because they couldn't find ways to monetize the last cent out of them

---

Edit: don't forget: The absolute vast majority of Google's money comes from selling ads. There's nothing else it is capable of doing at any significant scale. The only reason it doesn't "chase small opportunities" is because Google doesn't know how. There are a few smaller cash cows that it can keep chugging along, but they are dwarfed by the single driving force that mars everything at Google: the need to sell more and more ads and monetize the shit out of everything.

[aprilthird2021]

I saw it here alone. A lot of people simply have no idea the level of research ability and skill Google, the inventor of the Transformer, has.