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If you read this topic, there is a good chance that you are one of the most enthusiastic users of Google. You know, the type of person who is perfectly aware of the latest launches of the company and who is always looking forward to trying the exciting new app. or service of the moment.
And if you are As an individual, there is also a chance that you feel a little discouraged and disappointed. The truth is that I can not blame you. I feel like that myself.
I'm not talking about the usual "Holy Moly, Google monitors every one of my movements!" kind of concern. No. If you are a superuser of Google, you are perfectly familiar with the business model of the business and the options that are available to you in this regard. What I'm talking about is the model that Google has put in place to attract its most dedicated users to new services with noble visions and great promise – and then, once, users have fully invested in adopting these services and integrate them into their lives grant and give up efforts entirely.
It's a well-known story for those of us who follow Google closely – and while the idea is not new in itself, the trend has reached particularly troubling highs lately.
Consider: in the space of a month this fall, Google has accidentally murdered Inbox, the next generation messaging app, which she unveiled with fanfare four years ago – and has then killed Google+, the social layer of "Google's future" spending endless energy. convince people to kiss.
Google's services were also not widely adopted by Google's standards. But that's not the question. Both were popular with Google's most loyal and enthusiastic users – users who advertise new products and act as ambassadors (often inadvertently) of the brand. Google urged these human beings to insert these products into their lives, and then society moved on when strategies changed and more and more opportunities arose.
With Inbox, the sale of Google was still as noble. When launched in 2014, the application was described as "something late" – a "completely different type of inbox, designed to focus on the essentials". The engineers behind that said that it was "designed for the problems that we will encounter in the next 10 years" and have explicitly described the application as the future not only of Gmail, but also of electronic messaging.
The sale around Google+ may have been even bigger – and the goals even more ambitious. And then there was the cloud "can not fail" of the projected trust surrounding the whole thing. As Wired said in 2011, when the first elements of G + started to focus:
Nobody expects instant success. But even if the launch of this week evokes the snark or the yawn, Google will continue. Google+ is not a product like Buzz or Wave, where company leaders can escape a laudable ambition and move on. "We are in the long term," says [then-Google+-product manager Shimrit] Ben-Yair. "It's not like an experiment, we bet on that, so if there are obstacles, we'll adapt."
Do you know what else this article has noted? The fact that the "crucial test" for Google+ is "to convince loyal users of Google" to get into the service – and that one of the company's major assets in getting G + off the ground is the same basis. "Users," who has the company. "
And that, dear friends, touches more than anything else that Google has ended this fall. This did not just kill Google+ or the inbox; it has killed the trust of its users – especially the most enthusiastic and loyal of them.
And let's not forget that despite all the fanfare with which these services were introduced and promoted, Inbox ended with a simple tweet sent in the middle of an exciting Apple event, while the disappearance of Google + came in the form of a larger blog post published both during a US vacation. and a day ahead of a Google hardware event that makes headlines. This is bad news masking at its best (or worse, depending on your point of view).
The underlying message of the company is clear: Decisions are about hard numbers, not people's interests. And nothing is sacred; everything we say today could be from the old story of tomorrow. Use our services at your own risk and knowing that they may not be there in six months.
Things are not entirely Dark, of course: for pillars such as Gmail, Calendar, Photos and Docs, the services that anchor Google's G Suite program for business or are essential parts of the company's mobile package you can rest relatively easily by assuming that services are not going anywhere.
But even here, nothing is really certain. Remember when Hangouts was Google's future – the only, universal, multiplatform messaging platform to govern them all? I know I was not the only one who put a lot of energy into putting friends, family, and colleagues in Hangouts on the promise that it would make their life easier and meet all their messaging needs. . And we all know how it worked.
When your inconstancy becomes a punch, it is a sign that you have failed to follow all too often
We could find countless other examples, the most comical being the removal of Google Reader. to drive users to Google Now and Google+ for content discovery, the only goal being that Google be unceremoniously dropped now and that Google+ also follows, but the double punch of the inbox and Google+ of This fall truly illustrates this model, applies to the advanced Google user community and the amount of investment needed to adopt these services.
And of course, you can still download all your data from one or the other, but what will you do with mountains of G + text-based messages or stacks of random reminders in the inbox? The problem you face so often when you close services is to continually restructure your workflow (and those you advise) rather than "keep your data" in an abstract, meaningless way. And yes, Google is a business and sometimes it is inevitable to abandon inefficient efforts. When your inconstancy towards your own products becomes a hitting line that causes groans, it is a good sign that you have failed to follow too often.
I would like to be the source of the eternal sun here and say, "Hey, everything is fine, it probably will not happen anymore" – but you can only be burned so many times before you start treating the source of the flame with caution. I will not go too far and say no one should use any Google services; Google makes really useful products, many of which make prosper in a long-term sense. To adopt such an extreme attitude would be both ridiculous and ridiculous.
But suggest tackling any new service with caution and take advantage of society's ephemeral enthusiasm for the latest new thing with a healthy grain of salt? It seems both justified and judicious. Google has taught us time and time again that we could not trust our commitment and last month was the hardest reminder of all.
Unfortunately, this lesson is hard to unlearn.
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[Android Intelligence videos at Computerworld]
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