Can no longer view websites on smart display | Hacker News Reader

Can no longer view websites on smart display

support.google.com

313 pointsStratoscope170 comments

Let's say you ask your Lenovo Smart Display, "What is a Rat Terrier?"

You get a nice summary screen with a photo of a Rat Terrier, and the assistant says, "According to Wikipedia, the Rat Terrier is an American dog breed [and goes on from there]"

There is also a handy Wikipedia link in the middle of the page if you want to read more.

Last week this link - and all other viewing of web pages - was disabled by a Google update. This is not a "bug" from Google's point of view, it was a deliberate and documented change.

> Important: Access to the web isn’t supported on Smart Displays made by manufacturers other than Google.

https://g.co/assistant/web-filter

Of course it was supported before this forced update!

I am thinking of filing against Google in small claims court to be refunded the price I paid for my three Lenovo Smart Displays.

Also discussed on the Lenovo forum:

https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Lenovo-Link-App-Smart-Home-Esse...

99% of people wouldn't dare taking Google to court, because they use Google services and if Google decides to close their accounts and stop doing business with them going forward, they stand to lose much more than the price of the device.

Then you take them court yet again this time for discrimination.

Also this is not a thing that can happen I think. Like for example epic vs Apple. Apple didn’t have the ability to close down all accounts of epic.

Apple tried though, and the only reason they didn't succeed is Epic has high priced lawyers like Apple does. These companies can just bankrupt you with legal fees.

For an individual, tech companies can absolutely beat you over the head illegally and count on their better lawyers to make it stick. Unless you're Tim Sweeney level loaded I would recommend against trying it.

I think you mean "retaliation"? Regardless, unclear if you'd win that, and during the many months while you're litigating this, you still have no access to your Google account, unless you can get the judge to order Google to at least temporarily give you access while the court case is being worked out.

All of this is far from certain, and I would certainly understand someone not wanting to assume the risk. I definitely wouldn't. And that's yet another thing that sucks about this: Google isn't accountable here because they hold so much power over our digital lives.

Oh, good point! I wasn't really serious; it just seemed like cheap entertainment. But now consider me terrified.

This is a very big risk here. Parent should definitely not still have everything pointed at Gmail before they file anything.

yes, obviously should move everything off services before proceeding, proceed, and be ready to write an article on Medium about Google disabling your services when you take them to small claims court after they ripped you off by turning your smart display into a dumb one.

Isn’t this reason enough to stop using Google?

But it's free*!

FYI this is open and shut antitrust.

If they tried to do this you'd have a wonderful legal case against them if you so choose.

I love the energy, but I'm not sure you're right. Do you have specific case law you'd cite?

Without limiting the answer to the United States:

Antitrust law is very complicated because there's multiple different legal concepts in play. The punitive action response above is probably much better informed than my off the cuff one, and probably applies to this case moreso.

However, one principal test example I had in mind is if they close someone's Google Ads account.

For most businesses, removing the ability to advertise on Google would seriously impact their viability to compete with their competitors.

That's a classic example of Google being in a "market dominant position" vis a vis antitrust law.

Now the likely hood of this happening is close to zero. Because Google does NOT want to establish ANY sort of legal precedent ANYWHERE related to Google being in a market dominant position.

That would impact its business hugely.

I just think you’re applying the word anti-trust incorrectly.

There are plenty of other non-Google ad networks, they just aren’t as good. Facebook obviously stands out as an example. Amazon another. Same for email clients.

A regulator may see Google’s share in any of those markets and use that as evidence of monopoly power, but google bans plenty of people from using their services every day. I don’t think that’s the mechanism through which anyone can regulate them on anti-trust grounds.

Don't their EULAs say something like "you lose the license to the product if you sue us"? I remember that such a clause used to exist in the React's licence, and I vaguely remember seeing it on some EULA I accepted recently. (I don't have the money to sue a megacorp anyway.)

That sounds like something unenforceable if there ever was an unenforceable clause.

Perhaps, but would you really like your Google account closed an inaccessible for a year or more while the courts work it out. Can you even afford lawyers over that time period? Not sure you'd be able to find one who would take this on contingency.

And that's the shitty bit about our legal system: it's slow enough that the entity you're suing can keep hurting you for a long time until things get resolved, and it's incredibly expensive to get them resolved, especially if you're going against a company with deep pockets.

I do wonder, though, if, when you go to small claims court (where the advantage is tilted a bit toward the plaintiff), and in addition to asking for the value of the devices, you could also get the judge to issue an injunction against Google, prohibiting them from taking any retaliatory action, like closing your accounts. That might be out of scope for small claims court, though.

I'm still not sure you'd win any of this, though.

Pretty sure that's why injunctions exist, if there is grievous harm while things are litigated. Keeping your account alive vs. not sounds totally one-sided in terms of harm to each party.

How would this lead to an antitrust claim?

99% of people depend on Google services? There is no Google service for which I can’t find a better alternative where they would cut me off.

Spam filtering?

I get very little spam in my Fastmail inbox.

I just moved my email from GMail to Fastmail a week ago, and I still get no spam. Spam folder is still full of it, though.

Google is baked into Android. All your saved passwords go if your account goes. Some of which may be unrecoverable if your email also goes.

Google assistant devices can't work with Alexa so that means buying a new device. All your "sign in with google" OAuth sites go.

It would be a major hassle to move away from Google, and I'm not even sure I'd even trust any other company to do all that anyway.

Google's business model is spying on you, so you can sortof trust they won't pull the major popular services as long as you play by the rules exactly. For an average person thay would seem to be the safest option. At least until recently, they've pulled more and more stuff lately.

If Google bans my personal account I lose access to Google Play, Translate, some useless files on Google Drive and abandoned projects on Google Cloud and maybe nothing else. I won't be able to backup WhatsApp and move it to another phone, this is annoying. No Google Play means no updates for the banking apps so I'll be unable to log into my banks soon (they do 2FA with their app.) This is huge.

Of course most Android users are more invested in the ecosystem than I am. I'm not sure I can create another account with the same phone number. I'm not going to buy an iPhone or an iPad so I'm not sure what I'll be going to do. Change number?

BTW not Linux phones, too many apps I need are not working there (especially banks.)

Don’t use Android? 60% of mobile users in the US in fact don’t.

The only other major smartphone is iOS,

Not all that interested in spending $400 minimum on a phone(Or take my chances with something used), for something I can't develop for without paying even more money, that only allows WebKit based browsers, and doesn't use USB-C.

$99 a year to release an app is going to break the bank?

For someone who is not a professional app developer it can.

That's insanely expensive for a FOSS side project, if you're in embedded and controls and don't do any pro apps.

But that “not a professional app developer” has to be able to afford a decent computer to run one of the god awful Java IDEs, the resource intensive Android emulators, a phone, internet access etc.

If it’s an open source project that’s not going to be on the App Store, you can get XCode for free to run an app on your own device and give others the source code.

You also have to buy a Mac. The Windows or Linux computer you already have won't run XCode. That's way more than 99 dollars.

Nobody except other maybe devs will even consider that much trouble. Especially when compiling something yourself is not really more secure than downloading a binary(Unless you literally read the entire source code first).

Almost any modern app will run fine on an i5, 16GB or so GB of RAM, and an SSD. Nowhere near macbook costs.

You need something of about that tier for any pro development with any kind of modern tools, and there are iPhones out there that cost more than a decent laptop.

Plus, software resource demands seem to have leveled off. A Linux laptop is quite possibly going to be perfectly good for like 12 years.

Yes and there are also iPhones that cost $399…

Again, if you can afford a developer setup, $99/year is not a showstopper.

$399 is still about 2x the cost of my phone, and a little under 1/2 the price of a laptop.

Not every developer works for FAANG . Some jobs rely heavily on in person work. And not everyone can drive. If you're making effectively minimum wage, $99 is a big deal.

Especially when Apple doesn't really seem to offer that much of anything aside from privacy(and mdns support) Android is great now, and iOS is way too locked down.

Yes because it takes a “FAANG developer” to afford an iPhone. Does 60% of the US population work for a FAANG?

How many developers are making “minimum wage”?

I'm not sure why that 60% uses Apple, but as far as I can tell it's mostly 5 overlapping types.

The rich, people in a Mac dominated career, those who want to look rich, those who care much more about privacy than an average person, and people who sometimes think the world would be better if computers didn't exist.

Could it possibly be that people see it as a better product?

60% of the US population isn’t “rich”. Even when I was selling cell phones back in 1996 at Radio Shack, the unsubsidized price of a cell phone was $300.

How much of a “status” is it to have something that 60% of the population has?

Only 40% of phone users in the US use Android.

Google Assistant is far behind Amazon for home devices.

There is another little company that you might have heard of that sells phones that doesn’t depend on collecting data.

I also avoid using sign in with Google and use a service where I can “Hide my Email”.

Everything that Google does is a sub par user experience festered with ads

That other company costs about 2x as much though, and they heavily limit what you can do with them. They also charge more money for accessories, they don't support SD cards, some say third party stuff like Tile is just a little bit crappier than it is on Android, etc.

If you're rich, and really care about your privacy, it makes sense, but most people I know use Android.

Not sure where all these iOS users are, it must be regional or class-based or something

I would rather have the simple transaction that I give the company money and they give me stuff than buy a phone where the company makes money based on collecting personal data on everything I do on the phone.

Google's data collection lets me afford better tech than I otherwise would, so I really don't mind that much.

It's not like these are random hackers that can steal credit cards, that's not what they do.

There should be a lot more private tech available for those that need it, but for everyone else Apple is just too expensive for a protest unless privacy is on your shortlist of causes you really care about and prioritize.

I believe if google takes anything that could be seen as punitive action against you because you filed a lawsuit they open themselves up to much larger damages.

When I was the class representative in a class action law suit, during the deposition the very first thing the lawyer defending the company we were suing opened with "I want to assure you that you will continue to receive the very best service, and we will take no actions against you for exercising your rights. If you feel this is not being honored reach out to me directly. We take this very seriously." and handed me their card. Then we got down to the deposition.

For me personally them taking that action against me would have been a win win as it would have majorly increased my payout. This was a car dealer so I would just go to another mechanic. Or buy out of state. For google? I'd need to move some files and update a few companies on my address, I have alternate factors on the things I care about anyway.

> I believe if google takes anything that could be seen as punitive action against you because you filed a lawsuit they open themselves up to much larger damages.

Does it, though? Their ToS almost certainly allows them to close your account for no reason.

I made a support request to my bank recently and they decided to use the ToS to simply close my account instead of deal with the request which would have required a change to their immutable support script.

Their purpose is almost entirely to scare legally uninformed end users.

Yeah but you can terminate an unpaid service for no reason, that’s well established. It’s not even governed by contract law because there’s no consideration.

The real reason small claims is a bad idea is that this should be handled through a class action.

What!

So you get 1 buck and teams of lawyers get 70 million?

Better to use small claims, at least you'll get thousands. And most small claims courts? No lawyers.

If everyone took google to small claims, it'd be the death of 1000 cuts for them.

> Does it, though? Their ToS almost certainly allows them to close your account for no reason

Whistleblowers can't be fired from at-will employment for the similar reasons, i.e. massive legal exposure. Sure, an employee can be fired for no reason, but companies choose to settle (i.e. pay out a lot of money) instead of firing people outright if the situation can give the barest whiff of retaliation.

I don't know what the law says about this, but "for no reason" is always different than "for any reason". Because you sued them is a specific reason, that they might be prohibited from retaliating based on (or might not, again I don't know).

The classic example of this is race. You can not hire someone, or deny someone service, for no reason. You can't however not hire them, or deny them service, for the reason that they are black.

That sounds nice, but can't possibly matter. "We're closing your account, for, uhm, no reason." How are you going to argue against that?

Exactly.

This is what I received:

"Additionally, we are electing to terminate your Cash App account (as allowed in our Terms of Service, section XIII.8). As a result of the termination of your Cash App account, you will no longer be able to use Cash App and its services going forward."

XIII.8. Termination of Account

We can terminate or deny you access to our services at any time, for any reason. You can also choose to deactivate your account at any time.

We may terminate these Cash App Terms or any Terms, or suspend or terminate your Account or your access to any Service, at any time for any reason, including a violation of the Terms. We may add or remove, suspend, stop, delete, discontinue or impose conditions on Services or any feature or aspect of a Service. We will take reasonable steps to notify you of termination or these other types of Service changes by email or at the next time you attempt to access your Account. You may also terminate the Cash App Terms applicable to your Account by deactivating your Account at any time.

"I <did x>, and then they took the rare action of closing my account (which they're not allowed to do in response to <x>) for no apparent reason" is more than enough to

1. Get discovery to gather further evidence

2. In the absence of a convincing rebuttal from Google ("he was sharing copyrighted movies via Google Drive, and per our policies we closed his account like we closed 1000 other peoples accounts. Our policy is exhibit A, the list of copyrighted movies he shared is exhibit B, the list of other similar accounts is exhibit C"), is probably enough to win a civil court case by itself.

The standard for civil cases is generally "on the balance of probabilities", not beyond a reasonable doubt like in criminal cases. Courts are allowed to rule on what seems like the likely reason that someone did something.

Disclaimer: Not a lawyer, bladdy blah blah, if you take this as legal advice your both a fool for not consulting a lawyer, and taking advice from someone on a topic where they themselves admitted that they don't know if Google is even prohibited from doing business with you in this hypothetical.

Race is a protected class, and hiring based on race is specifically protected.

No need to take Google to court. Just return the defunct product for a refund. Buy a product that you plug into a TV that lets you use the web.

If 90% of people get a refund, then Lenovo will sue Google.

I presume his devices are way outside refund period

Some credit cards have policies for consumer disputes and merchant misconduct which google’s action could fall under. I wasn’t able to find a good explanation on mobile as I’d imagine they are purposefully deep in a terms of agreement document, but this link has some info: https://www.fidelitypayment.com/resources/chargeback-prevent...

I really hope you do.

Look like their own support agents are unaware of the change.

> I am thinking of filing against Google in small claims court to be refunded the price I paid for my three Lenovo Smart Displays.

I hate to break it you you but those displays are not yours, unfortunately.

that's for the court to decide. Probably google won't show up so I would think it likely with a receipt for payment the court would decide the devices were indeed his/or hers.

I was just making a cheeky comment related to software freedom.

> I am thinking of filing against Google in small claims court to be refunded the price I paid for my three Lenovo Smart Displays.

IMNAL, but won't you have a better chance of success going against Lenovo than Google, since it's a Lenovo device.

Just for record, when Sony killed support for their smart clock, forgot what it's called, they gave everyone something - we got a Sony bluetooth speaker.

Edit: In Android generally you can uninstall updates for individual services - did you try that?

Interesting idea about suing Lenovo instead. But I like Lenovo! The Smart Display is a very sweet piece of machinery. It's Google who damaged this machine with their forced update.

Dunno about rolling back any Android services, this is basically a kitchen appliance that Google controls my interaction with. As much as I love to hack into systems, I don't see a way in there that would be worth my time.

Regardless of your preference and who manages the updates to your device, your contractual relationship was with the retailer and Lenovo (the manufacturer), not with Google.

If you're serious about pursuing Google then investigate the grounds for claiming "Tortious Interference".

Talk to a lawyer, but, strategically, this is usually when you sue both parties. That forces them to deal with each other, and eventually their blaming each other ends up being argued in front of a judge.

Why would you sue Google and not Lenovo? Google didn't promise you anything to begin with, the device manufacturer did.

when you sue for damages, you sue the party who damaged you. if I throw a rock through your lenovo, you don't sue lenovo.

Google didn't "damage" anyone by choosing to upgrade their OS. Lenovo was the one who made a promise at the time of the device sale, and now they are no longer abiding by it. Of course software features are taken away all the time, so that probably won't fly either.

Yep also you signed a hefty EULA with Lenovo allowing just this. Lenovo uses the google home software modified for its product. This is the same problem android phones have. Google moves on and OEMs don't bother to keep up. Or OEM's contract end and they don't want to pay to renew. These hit the market in 2018 so they were most likely licensed in 2017, so that 5 year just expired and now they can't use whatever google service anymore.

That doesn't make it morally right, but legally, this isn't a case that's going to work out. If cases like this did work, the tech industry would collapse because every ambulance chaser would sue over any tiny software change.

Wayback machine has the old version: https://web.archive.org/web/20211006161159/https://support.g...

They don't even have the courtesy to list the last update date\time for the support page.

Be sure to do Google Checkout before you file your claim, in case they decide to deactivate your account

I think you mean Google Takeout? But point well taken. In any case I wasn't serious about that.

Of course not. All hail our robot overlords!

If your personal vandetta is strong enough, you could represent yourself and only pay a few hundred in filing and court fees. It's fairly common to do that in small claims court so the judges are used to shmucks. And I would be shocked if Google/Lenovo spent money on lawyers for a case this cheap, they'd probably lead with a settlement offer for $2k or whatever.

Some states don't even allow lawyers in small claims court.

How does that work if the defendent is a corporation? Google could only hire a paralegal to represent them?

Typically product managers

For anything small claims Google would most likely settle as a matter of policy. The instant you file, you've already cost the company way more than the max judgement you can get in small claims.

Small claims court is very easy & straightforward in the UK. The low complexity of the cases and the relatively low stakes means representing yourself is a valid strategy.

Having spent years in court, I would guarantee once you serve Google they will just get a local-ish law firm to turn up and represent them at any cost. And the lawyer will probably know the judge. And judges universally HATE unrepresented (I hate the terms self-represented and pro se) schmucks.

yea, sure if your time is worth the price of 3 smart displays.

I was being facetious when I mentioned small claims court. Of course my time is worth more than that! It was just a way of expressing my annoyance about the update.

My guess is that this is due to that display running Android Things, which IIUC went out of support in January. There's something to be said for making sure users aren't running a browser that's not getting any security updates. (There's also something to be said for giving users a choice, but unfortunately very few people could actually make an informed choice when it comes to that).

> (There's also something to be said for giving users a choice, but unfortunately very few people could actually make an informed choice when it comes to that)

Irrelevant, ethically speaking they still deserve that choice.

Agreed, software-driven hardware devices should perform the same original functionality as when they were purchased forever, unless it's a hardware failure, or unless there is an explicit expiration on the purchase agreement.

Disclaimer: I own one of these Lenovo devices.

This makes perfect sense, thank you. The last thing Google wants is to be blamed for allowing some old device's camera to be compromised and be the source of a leaked video of somebody dancing naked in their kitchen.

Basically a case of a device company riding some trend 5 years ago installing an OS that has an end date for support and since the manufacturer already got it's money for the device there is no motivation to solve the problem.

At this point why does anyone expect any electronic to be relevant after 2 years of ownership anyway?

> At this point why does anyone expect any electronic to be relevant after 2 years of ownership anyway?

I pray it is a joke or sarcasm.

For those who don't feel like reading the whole thread, the relevant part is:

> "Important: Access to the web isn’t supported on Smart Displays made by manufacturers other than Google"

That seems...weird.

The thing is, the software platforms are completely different. The smart displays market right now is a hot mess. Only Google's or Amazon's should be purchased.

Or none of them. Buying anything marketed as “smart” seems like a bad idea these days.

Assuming that you want to rent content via a streaming service you basically have to buy into one of these devices just to have something that supports DRM. You can use a PC but just the processor that supports L1 DRM is more expensive than one of these dongles.

Streaming services work fine on my ancient windows laptop. What's the problem?

Have a closer look at what quality you are getting. It's most likely 480p max, depending on the streaming platform and the licensing deals at play for your region.

you mean L1 right? L3 forces you to watch in 480p resolution unless you have L1 hardware and Linux is forced to L3 and in some services you can't even stream at all :( its crazy oh well pirated content have the full quality and play perfectly fine on Linux.

Yes, sorry, I always get the levels backwards.

Does that also extend to your phone?

Yeah. I'd rather have something handheld with as much freedom as a standard computer than a smartphone. Unfortunately that doesn't exist in a fully usable form yet so I'm stuck with a smartphone for now. I plan on eventually ditching it though.

I guess I'm far outside the loop as I don't know what a smart display is or why I would even want one. I did a search and read a little bit, but it just seems like a bunch of vague references to some kind of assistant.

Same issue here.

From my googling it just seems like a display to show the weather, calendar, what music you’re playing, etc. [1]

[1]: https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/smart-display/

I guess that so many things wear the "smart" moniker it's just muddied the waters to the point that it could be anything.

I own one of these in my kitchen. The only thing I really find it useful for is as clock with the weather on it and as something to yell at to play music when I'm washing dishes. Both could be done with a simple smart speaker.

The thing I hate most about this device is that it displays beautiful landscape photos but I can't tap on an interesting photo if I want to know what the photo's subject is.

You might see this photo information in Google Home - of course if you have the app installed on your phone and you registered the device in it.

“Smart” is just a euphemism for surveillance.

If you buy a consumer anything from Google, you have only yourself to blame.

People buy it from Lenovo, Google is the gods they pray to so that their devices wouldn't be broken by the updates.

> Only Google's or Amazon's should be purchased.

Sounds like a monopolistic system reinforcing itself.

If google is trying to monopolize the hot mess by its power, then it's working, right?

I would strike Google off that list, given that they have a history of cutting support for hardware that's only a few years old.

I thought that was a joke at first but that's what's on the support link from Google. What. The. F.

This is very frustrating. But it does serve as yet another reminder of the dangers inherent to closed ecosystems. I think it is great that I can cast my Amazon Prime Video from the app to my Chromecast, but I have been around long enough to remember that was not always the case (and I also will not be surprised if (when) I wake up one day and that functionality is no longer available). And don't even get me started on the joys of trying to use a Chromecast from an Android device without the Google Play Servies rootkit....

More and more I find myself investing in open systems (playing my own movies off of my Plex server...).

I have some hopes with regards casting thanks to Matter (IoT protocol which has an extension for TV). I'm not saying a lot of hopes, but still a bit.

> More and more I find myself investing in open systems (playing my own movies off of my Plex server...).

Plex may have a free to use tier, but it is not an open system.

I like Jellyfin as a plex alternative. Many others exist.

Been using Plex but thanks for mentioning this. I think I'm going to try switching to Jellyfin

I setup Jellyfin recently, and it was pretty quick and easy and has been working well.

Indeed, and last I looked had at least Google analytics/tracking emedded.

> This is very frustrating. But it does serve as yet another reminder of the dangers inherent to closed ecosystems.

The bulk of the code in my day job is deeply proprietary and runs on deeply proprietary, closed systems: stuff like 40 year old COBOL running on CICS on zOS.

The problem is not that the system is closed. The problem is that some vendors have an institutional sense of responsibility to their customers. Others have nothing but contempt.

Yes, it is perverse how intolerant devs tend to be toward old systems that perform valuable service and make a lot of money. There are some interesting ideas in those older systems designed to run with incredibly small resource constraints. That said, I think it's also true that incentives aren't always aligned when it comes time to port away from the entrenched environment, as these projects, if successful, constitute a real loss of income for the older devs.

i'd wager it has something to do with this:

https://support.google.com/assistant/answer/11067831?hl=en#w...

my guess is that after the sonos debacle, they've got some kind of internal "lawyers gone wild" debacle unfolding where literally everything is being examined in a big giant legal audit.

i'd go on to wager that they identified some highly gymnastic exposure in some part of the world with respect to offering unfiltered public internet terminals to children, so they crammed a quickfix in under their digital wellbeing stuff and it's only supported on pixel/google devices.

just another reminder that anyone who can push updates has total control well beyond anything labeled "root" on the devices they push updates to.

I have zero "smart" device is my life exactly because the FURY that would be caused by being treated like this would far outweigh the drip-feeding of trivialities the devices would otherwise dish up each day.

I don't get into these sorts of argument with my pen or chair, for example. Why should I tolerate it from my TV?

This isn't a television, it's a product similar to Google's Nest Hub; i.e. your standard "smart speaker" plus a display.

Don't disagree with your outrage at all. I wouldn't buy a more critical appliance administered by Google. But I do have a Nest Hub in my kitchen, and I like it for what it is -- an entirely unnecessary, cheap gizmo that nevertheless has a couple useful functions.

Good thing I didn't get a bunch of these when they were super cheap on Black Friday.

This is just one notch for me not using any Google products. They at one point a few years ago just plain disabled Routines from Google Home with an arbitrary region lock.[0] So my Nest is now useless.

[0] https://support.google.com/assistant/thread/83770174/google-...

> Websites are turned off for this device. Learn more: g.co/assistant/web-filter

Websites are disabled. Learn more by visiting this website.

History repeats itself...

https://teddit.net/pics/w:null_YecnXFugkOVw2R4-BUYbjhHM4oF7_...

I thought these error were really funny until an older BIOS told me that "ERROR: No keyboard detected. Press F1 to continue"

I have one of these smart displays. I love the look of it, fits in with my decor in my kitchen. And this update pisses me the fuck off.

How does a company like Google end up doing this? I'm assuming a decision like this has multiple stakeholders? Is there nobody in the room who is the voice of the customer?

Remember, at Google, you the user of the service/product are not the customer. The companies buying access to the data harvested from you about you is the customer to Google's mind.

For most of their offerings, this is correct.

I would argue this product is different since you actually pay for the hardware and the software it runs on it. Different expectations than an ad supported service.

The price you paid is for the hardware you purchased to the manufacture. The ability to run Googly assistant is just software running on that device for free from Googs. It would only be natural for Googs to harvest in all of that usage data so they can sell access to that data to their customers.

Yes, but everyone else just throws popcorn at them.

Big companies can be very risk averse. E.g. legal raises some risk, then nobody is going to push back as then they could be blamed for legal fallout.

> Is there nobody in the room who is the voice of the customer?

No. Google have an institutional contempt for humanity.

Just look at the support:

david.king Gold Product Expert Volunteer since 2011 (not a Google employee)

They can't even be bothered hiring people to support their offerings.

> How does a company like Google end up doing this?

I haven't worked at Google, but I have worked on other hardware that you might own if you're in the Hacker News demographic.

Usually what happens is someone wants to make some breaking changes somewhere, or otherwise stop supporting some old feature/API/use case. Or maybe nobody wants to deal with some old system that isn't a hot ticket on their promotion path.

Everyone is incentivized to work on new features, new products, and other forward-looking things, so it's not hard to get approval to just abandon something for which the cash flow has already occurred in favor of some future initiative.

Customer outrage is temporary. Some may swear off your products, but a surprising number will just shrug and buy something new, so the company wins.

Frustrating, but it's how things work at big companies who control large portions of the market.

I don't work at Google, but do at a large tech firm. Backward compatibility is sacrosanct, breaking older clients, means getting approvals many levels up in the chain, writing decision docs and showing data about what % of customers will be affected. We don't even build consumer products.

"Customer outrage is temporary." -> Till it's not. If I could migrate my gmail (not even sure how many services I'd need to update) and use something else for Maps, I'd be off of all Google services.

> We don't even build consumer products.

Might that be the difference?

How do they continue to find engineers willing remove features from customer devices without even the courtesy of a) ensuring the link shown does not 404 and b) ensuring the link explains includes an honest and accurate explanation of the problem?

I don't purchase smart devices. They either lose functionality is any or suddenly gain malicious features I can't control. Smart seems to be another way to say "fuck you".

It's true my speakers won't switch rooms automatically like Sonos and I couldn't ask me alarm clock about dog breeds but both my speakers and alarm will outlive any smart device released today. All of this stuff has to be supported and it won't be - it's just landfill material that hasn't made it there yet.

Make mine stupid please.

That's a valid approach but I am not sure soon there will be much non-smart device offerings possible to choose and purchase.

Curious question to any googlers on here, do engineers ever refuse to push code change which disables a feature like this?, do you get to push back on changes and ask anybody asking for this to get approval from higher up or in-general create bureaucracy/resistance against user hostile changes?

> Curious question to any googlers on here, do engineers ever refuse to push code change which disables a feature like this?

I really doubt there was some decision to arbitrarily disable the feature.

What likely happened is that they decided some legacy system or framework wasn't going to be supported any more. They sent out e-mails and communications months or years ago, hoping partners would do something about it.

Often, engineers are the happiest to abandon the legacy systems. Nobody likes being stuck supporting legacy code on legacy devices, especially when all of your peers are getting promoted for doing cool, fun, new stuff.

Completely besides the point, and of course I don't agree with what google's doing.

However: I can't fathom browsing the web on any device without support for adblocking. Back when I first got my Xbox One I tried its web browser, thought it was neat for about 2 minutes, and noped out that ad infested experience. I think my TV also has a web browser, and again it's useless.

Use a PiHole. It blocks all adverts, malware, spyware, etc for any device on the network.

Google is so good at shutting things down they offer it as a service for other companies.

Why would anyone want to create a device that works with Google Assistant after this?

I wonder if this is related to the Sonos patent dispute they lost. Here's the headline from the New York Times, "Google Infringed on Sonos Speaker Technology, Trade Court Rules. The company will not be allowed to import products that infringe on Sonos patents, including smart speakers, video streaming devices, and some computers and phones."

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/06/technology/google-sonos-p...

That patent was about group volume control. Why should it prevent web browsing?

I would think not if the update only applies to devices not manufactured by Google.

What's "smart"? The company that puts its consumers on an upgrade treadmill and can force them to take unwanted changes at its whim. Not the poor souls who bought one and are now being herded and milked.

The less you let Big Tech insert itself into your life, the less control they will be able to exert, and the more freedom you will have.

As the saying goes: "smart devices[,] dumb users."

It's interesting that between the push to HTTPS all the time and deprecating old https protocols, eventually all unupdated web browsing devices are going to end up as bricks.

Well, accidentally I was watching this presentation yesterday - https://fosdem.org/2022/schedule/event/retro_frogfind/ - might actually try it out - e.g. https://frogfind.com/

I'm a sw dev, I don't have any smart tool at home, not a single one, news like this are a good reminder to not change my mind ever.

If you have a smart phone it’s too late.

I switched back to a flip phone, CDs, point and shoot digital camera, and I love it.

It's not always as convenient in the moment, but I find it has a positive effect on my relationships and mental health, and it saves me a bunch of money. And I have actual free time to spend on doing stuff like learning to play the piano.

Once you train yourself to recognize it, it's really scary - so many things in our modern lives are explicit traps - for a few moments of convenience (always made very easy), you burden your future self with a non-negligible amount of future work and entrust private details of your life to companies with a poor track record of keeping that data safe. So many things take only a few clicks to sign up, then you have to spend possibly hours on the phone later trying to cancel an account.

The turn-of-the-century digital lifestyle, just with some upgraded components. A worthy goal.

“Convenience” is the truly obscene “c-word”.

Is this update to prevent users from streaming video outside of Youtube on these devices or is there some more mundane reason?

Disabled by a wellbeing assistent? I had something similar on iOS with Carplay but with no explanation at all. At some point I was not able to use Carplay anymore. My car didn't give an error message, and in iOS I could not find a solution either.

Turns out when you have app time limits on, Carplay becomes broken and unusable.

Fascinating stuff. I briefly wondered if you can not update, but I honestly don't know it is an option. If it is, users were just taught not to update for fear of losing features. Not sure what the lesson was if it is not.

Haven't those Google-made devices received an OTA OS change from (Linux-based) “Cast OS” to Fuchsia? Maybe that's got something to do with it?

Whenever I hear "smart" I think "planned obsolescence" and "walled garden".

Smart display turned out to be Stupid. Isn't that ironic?

It's years since they removed "don't be evil", is it just me or have they been adopting "be evil" motto lately?!

Treating users like shit is common in big tech and seems to be very popular lately, but I don't see Google being a significant outlier - they're just following the industry trend.

No Google, you do not own the web and are not entitled to hold it for ransom to promote your stupid gadgets.

but you are entitled to post garbage comments ?

Apparently we both are

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