by titzer on 10/6/20, 4:23 AM
Ah heck, I forgot about iGoogle. It was pretty awesome being able to set up your own personal portal to the web, with neat little lightweight widgets. I used to have widgets for everything from the stock market to weather to newsgroups. It was like a dashboard on the (web) world. Now what is there for that? Anything? Only in hindsight do I see now how much of a hole that left in my experience of the web, and it's been replaced with nothing. Sad.
by all_blue_chucks on 10/6/20, 3:51 AM
That's an impressively long list but some of those entries are a bit of a stretch. Google Nexus, for example, was rebranded as Google Pixel. Most people wouldn't describe rebranding as "killing" a product.
by leoh on 10/6/20, 4:28 AM
"Death is very likely the single best invention of life." — SJ
This is a dishonest website. Many of the products or technologies that have been "killed" were replaced by other compelling products in the space — either by Google itself or by third parties — or could not be monetized. Google is not a public utility and there is little incentive — nay, it would be strictly harmful — for them to continue building products that are non-competitive in the marketplace.
Killing products is beneficial and non-monopolistic as it allows other developers to build products as opposed to Google offering them for free ad-infinitum. By contrast, this is in direct opposition to Amazon's strategy, which is to offer an incredible number of products and services at a loss, thereby depriving other players from competing. One day, people will realize that Amazon's actions unquestionably drove down the quality of products (they already have, one need not look far — just consider the quality of Whole Foods goods post-acquisition or the myriad scam products listed as real on Amazon's website).
Side-note: should Google have continued to maintain Angular when other solutions are clearly better? What would be the point? Google did the right thing, letting Angular die a dignified death and letting superior technologies like React take the reins.
EDIT: if you are down-voting me, would you care to explain why instead of merely doing that?
EDIT 2: this is a great comment which further clarifies the part of the point https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24694575
by jeffbee on 10/6/20, 3:56 AM
Some of these, like the Chromebook Pixel, seem like technicalities. They still sell the "Pixelbook". What's the difference?
The two things I really miss that are on this list are Inbox and Field Trip. I used to just browse Field Trip while I was riding the buses or trains. Was really enjoyable. I don't know why this page says 2015. Field Trip survived the spinoff of Niantic and was only recently shut down.
by laichzeit0 on 10/6/20, 3:51 AM
I’m in two minds about this. How many side projects have I abandoned? If it was my business, and a particular part of it wasn’t meeting a KPI and cost money, what would I do? Probably kill it off too.
by domador on 10/6/20, 4:33 AM
One victim I mourned for a long time was Google Cloud Connect. I loved it's syncing, versioning, and collaboration... and that this happen right inside Microsoft Office programs. Google Drive was an unworthy successor and an unsatisfactory replacement. I never used it as much or in a similar way to how I used Cloud Connect. I tried, but it was frustrating. I hate it when tech giants kill off great tools and try to get us to adopt mediocre replacements.
by avs733 on 10/6/20, 4:04 AM
cloud print was one of my favorite google products ever...it just worked, it was simple, it allowed me to print things I found to read and they were just on the printer at home when I got there. Still trying to find an effective non-home-serve based alternative.
by leke on 10/6/20, 4:52 AM
Isn't AngularJS opensource? So won't it just be in the hands of the community, after google has stopped officially supporting it?
by AnonC on 10/6/20, 3:57 AM
Google’s products and naming of products/services seemingly have had no discernible strategies at all. It’s as if people get bonuses for “new” introductions that replace the “old” and then they move on, leaving someone else to try the same trick again.
It would be fun if Google published this list officially using the domain killedby.google.
by dafoex on 10/6/20, 10:30 AM
RIP Google+, though. Yes, it was obviously spyware dressed as a social network (then again, aren't they all?) But allowing users to make custom "circles" of friends and share things with some circles and not others is something I don't think I've seen any other social network do.
by stanislavb on 10/6/20, 4:10 AM
by yks on 10/6/20, 4:15 AM
I wish it would be possible to get hired into Google straight onto the projects at risk, to have an opportunity to support them even in exchange for giving up the promotions.
by jaimex2 on 10/6/20, 4:45 AM
Fantastic reminder to never use non-core Google products, ever.
by kalyantm on 10/6/20, 6:19 AM
Who else is praying that AMP reaches that list ASAP?
by TMWNN on 10/6/20, 3:58 AM
I have used GeForce NOW and Xcloud. I've not used Stadia, but I hear that its streaming technology is excellent, including 4K graphics.
That said, /r/stadia seems to be panicking; a lot of people are convinced that the new Chromecast launched this week with no Stadia support (not until "mid 2021") is yet more proof that Google has given up on the service.
by santa_boy on 10/6/20, 4:25 AM
I always wonder why Google Desktop was killed. It used to work so well.
by gosukiwi on 10/6/20, 4:26 AM
Forgive my ignorance but, is Angular dead?
by dirtnugget on 10/6/20, 7:23 AM
Just waiting for Stadia to be added.