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Google's constant product shutdowns are damaging its brand
We are 91 days into the year, and so far, Google is racking up an unprecedented body count. If we just take the official shutdown dates that have already occurred in 2019, a Google-branded product, feature, or service has died, on average, about every nine days.
Some of these product shutdowns have transition plans, and some of them (like Google+) represent Google completely abandoning a user base. The specifics aren't crucial, though. What matters is that every single one of these actions has a negative consequence for Google's brand, and the near-constant stream of shutdown announcements makes Google seem more unstable and untrustworthy than it has ever been. Yes, there was the one time Google killed Google Wave nine years ago or when it took Google Reader away six years ago, but things were never this bad.
For a while there has been a subset of people concerned about Google's privacy and antitrust issues, but now Google is eroding trust that its existing customers have in the company. That's a huge problem. Google has significantly harmed its brand over the last few months, and I'm not even sure the company realizes it.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Thexalon on Wednesday April 03 2019, @10:25PM (3 children)
- Are you saying that it's women or non-white people who convinced Larry and Sergei (a couple of white guys) to kill off some of these services, and that men wouldn't make the same decision? But companies run by all-white-guy management make and historically made those kinds of decisions all the time, for similarly stupid reasons, so that doesn't make any sense.
- Are you saying that Google is cutting these services because they are somehow discriminating against somebody the social justice types tend to talk about? As far as I know, no SJW types have been complaining about anything like that.
- Are you suggesting that the Democrats somehow made them do it? That also doesn't make much sense.
So what exactly is the supposed link between "leaning further left" and "cancelling unprofitable or less-profitable services"?
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Sulla on Wednesday April 03 2019, @11:12PM (2 children)
Reading too much into it, I was not insinuating bias on the part of google. Google is good at cutting/changing things for no apparent reason other than change (see gmail tweaks over the years). Conservatives are more likely to stay with a product (even if it sucks) to keep stability than someone who is liberal who is more likely to take risks and change (even if no change is needed). People from either political persuasion is likely to cut something unused or unprofitable, but google appears to not just stop there but change stuff for the sake of change. All I am talking about (and the Peterson talk was talking about) was personal tendencies that happen to go along with political opinion. When dealing with people in the finance realm those I know who are conservative are much less likely to take risk than those who are liberal. Examine your personal beliefs and look at decisions you make financially, do you happen to adhere to this? Based on this I can predict 95% of what the people around me will do at work with business decisions just knowing their politics. The more intelligent someone is the less likely they are to adhere to the trend unless they happen to be in a situation where group-think is occurring.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday April 04 2019, @06:32AM (1 child)
So, Sulla, you are actually saying that conservative are scared of the future. Makes sense, since they are, um, conservative. But the description of liberals needs some revision. It is not just openness to risk-taking and change, so much as it is recognizing the total feckedness of the conservative positions. "We should keep being racist assholes, because that is what we have always done."? Explain this to me, Sulla. How would ceasing to be racist asshole not contribute to stability the continued use of Google products?
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Thursday April 04 2019, @04:35PM
How exactly were google finance and google+ racist?
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam