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Comment by wsgeorge | Hacker News Reader

How long until the "don't trust Google to not kill a product" feeling becomes so widespread it begins to hurt them? I don't know any historical precedents...

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After being an enthusastic early advocate for Google (Gmail since invite in 2004), I've been slowly migrating away from Google for years.

The turning point for me was when they killed Google Music, which I had been using for a decade, forcing me to move my large catalog of songs elsewhere. I self host via Plex now. Strike 1.

Then they killed the "free domain email", which became freeish (grandfathered) "google workgroups", which became pay up or we kill it. I spent many hours back and forthing with their email support trying to get admin access to my account to no avail. They claimed I needed to reach out to my domain admin. Uhhh sorry I own it and I'm the only guy thats on it or ever used it. There's no one else but me (I never had an admin, as I was just somehow transitioned during the grandfathering). No luck. I (nervously) let Google auto-kill the account, after quickly migrating everything to Fastmail via IMAP (and hand moving my calendar!). Strike 2.

Then (long story short) my Google Fi and Google Pixel experience was fine, until it suddenly wasn't. No human to complain to. Top of the line Pixel phone died like 14 months from purchase, no recourse. Buy a new phone or else. Strike 3.

The pattern is clear, Google services are fine up until the moment they aren't. At that point you're up a creek, as there are (by design) no humans to complain to.

All that is left now is my domain on Google Domains (well that and a free gmail account which I forward), which I figured was safe-ish (as they can't possibly pull the rug out from underneath domain owners can they?). But secretly been monitoring for signs I need to drop that as well. Looks like the time is now.

So.... any thoughts on whether Squarespace will be an improvement? Or should I start looking for another domain name registrar?

Maybe start looking. Squarespace charges more for domains (there's a comment thread in here about .com being more expensive).

Good thing I paid for a 10 year registration! Got some time to plan.

If you have the full 10 years remaining, you might not be able to transfer right now according to:

https://kb.porkbun.com/article/224-transfer-domain-from-goog...

    Since domains can only ever have a max of ten years registration at any given time, sometimes the registry won't allow domain transfers that already have nine years of registration.

Not to overshadow all your other excellent points, but re: Google Fi, the few times I've had an issue I was able to quickly contact a helpful (if seemingly disempowered - they had to escalate to their manager for any approvals) online agent.

Agree that their service was decent, never had any problems that their automated system couldn't troubleshoot and ultimately fix. Activation process was straightforward. Honestly I do like their services. As I said they're great, until they aren't.

Issue was that my phone was defective, likely a design problem. Battery life problems around 1 year, wouldn't charge. Google fixed first for free under warranty. Problem popped back up around 5 months later and they told me to pound dirt since it was out of warranty. I said it's the same problem, you didn't fix it the first time when it was in warranty. Apparently a lot of people had the problem, likely a design problem related to life of battery/power connector on PCB. End of the day Google refused to acknowledge their problem, and this is on their flagship phone. I had no choice but to buy a new phone... which is ridiculous considering what I paid and only got a year out of it.

I just got to the point where I got tired of being at Google's mercy when something went wrong. This is my digital life, my domain, my calendar, decades of emails. It's too stressful when a corner case occurs and there's no human being in the loop to make things right. I'm willing to pay for service, just not with Google any longer. I figure I'm paying to get a human on the phone, and some accountability.

Google keeps trying to ping my company and get us to switch to their cloud. I say no way in heck I'm going to put mission critical infrastructure and data in their hands.

Google Music libraries were automatically migrated to YT Music, which honestly is a better product now. They didn't "kill" the functionality and didn't force you to migrate anywhere...

the functionality to host your own music?? is that on YT Music?

It was there, just buried. Equivalent of uploading all your songs to YT and listening to them there. Screw that, I wouldn't call it "hosting".

Personal uploads work just as well as before, IMO

Yeah I refused to be "migrated" (forced) to join YT music, where it was clear that my personal library of songs would be treated as a second class citizen next to the paid promotional content (suggested artists, songs etc) and ads (unless I pay for premium of course).

Felt like bait and switch to me. They forced me to make a decision. I took my ball and went home.

It seems to me it already has. I spent ~ a decade being pretty immersed in the Google ecosystem, and after going through the ringer dozens of times and finally realizing being one of their users will never stop being an unpaid, unrespected beta tester, I gave up on them. Bought an iPhone and moved services from Google where possible.

I remember this[1] article from a few years ago on the subject of Google's shutdowns hurting its brand. It's even funnier to read now with it being written shortly after Stadia's launch. The author and everyone else were pointing out that they have little expectation for the service to be around in a few years. And it turned out we were right!

[1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/04/googles-constant-pro...

> finally realizing being one of their users will never stop being an unpaid, unrespected beta tester …

… and AI trainer

It's now a self fulfilling prophecy.

No one used Google Stadia because Google kills things with little warning, which subsequently caused Google to kill Stadia.

Google will never be able to launch another product.

I wouldn't really say that for any of the new products that people actually wanted to use. Including Google Domains (even if it might not be an effective use of workforce for Alphabet).

no one used Google Stadia because the business model and service architecture made no sense for a new service and for a company that has a habit of abandoning project that aren't an immediate runaway success stories.

Google legitimately thought they can enter a brand new market, and treat it like they are already the largest player in it. They duped themselves by honestly believing that "this is not the gaming market, this the the Cloud Gaming market". They did get most of the "cloud gaming" enthusiasts on board. All 200 of them.

They weren't like XBox or Nvidia who just had to go to gaming companies and strike a deal or ask for permission to stream their existing games. They were a new "console", you needed to develop for stadia. They needed to pay millions to incentivize companies to put the effort to port their existing games to stadia. Those companies had no customer for the "stadia console" version of their game other than Google sine no one has a "stadia console" or any way otherwise to play that game.

Those tactics may work for Sony or Nintendo or _maybe_ Microsoft. But not for a nobody in the business that literally has no user-base, no games, no history. They had nothing, and tried to pull a "we're the leaders in this market we can do anything we want and everyone will have no option but to take it"

already happened for me, I've transitioned away from Google almost entirely.

The only place I interact with google these days is my Google TV. Here's to hoping they don't drop support for that as well.

Probably not until they sunset free Gmail, at which point there will be millions of voices screaming out in terror.

I've been so nervous about this that I've been preemptively moving my emails over to domains I control (and using Fastmail).

+1 for Fastmail. Great service

protonmail is better, plus their plans have VPN and file storage.

Protonmail is very expensive for what it is. I don't care about their privacy (it's email) and I don't need anything but an email service that can support 3+ domains.

I have used Fastmail, and it is good. Currently I'm using my own domain on iCloud+, as I'm already paying Apple for the right to do so. But that's the good thing about owning my own domain...I can take it with me.

It has been like that for a long time, but it seemed like a lot of people thought they wouldn't kill GCP. But this makes sense, they might partition GCP instead of just killing it.

> it seemed like a lot of people thought they wouldn't kill GCP

I'm one of them. Cloud services is a large opportunity Google will be stupid to ignore/give up. I anticipate the service evolving, but I don't see an outright death of Google Cloud.

I'm not throwing Google a challenge ;)

I would have thought domains is part of cloud.

It's already happening for years now. Just look at Stadia.

Precisely as long as it takes YouTube to fail, which is their last remaining meaningful cash cow (besides advertising).

Is YouTube even “besides” advertising?

I'd say it's "besides ads" just like Search is. It's a destination site that also serves ads, instead of serving ads on other people's destination sites. One could imagine a world where Search and Youtube were separate entities, both using Ads for income. Ads itself is more of a marketplace of eyeballs.

To me, that explains why it's "besides AdSense".

Isn't it already? The list of products killed is so long that most people have probably got burnt at least once by Google.

https://killedbygoogle.com/

It already has. There is a reason that GCP has struggled to find their calling.

For what I know it already does. I know people considering migrating some infrastructure to the cloud and if they're not already aware of Google's reliability I'll tell them.

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