Interacting with Googler's in the past I noticed the same thing but took it a different way.
Clearly there was no pressure to use the Google product so they used a wide diversity of devices and services, and I saw this as a healthy thing.
Clearly there was no pressure to use the Google product so they used a wide diversity of devices and services, and I saw this as a healthy thing.
I think it's unhealthy for those in charge not to use the products they sell, especially when talking about consumer goods.
Then it stopped. And if I’m going to spend my own money, Google has to compete on features just like anyone else.
If you aren't willing to dogfood the the product line you have ownership of and prefer to use other products, you shouldn't have ownership in it as you have no vested interest in really making it better.
I think if you work on a team for some product, it would be good to be a user of that product. Especially if you are at a high level driving product decisions.
I think if you don't work on a specific product it is good to have diversity. For example GMail developers should probably use a mix of OSes and web browsers. But most Android GMail app developers should probably be using Android GMail.
But of course you don't want to be blind to other players, copying good ideas is good. So you do want to regularly interact with the other options as well. But I don't think only using the third-party option is a good idea either. If you only use an Apple Watch you don't know how the Pixel Watch works and how it has different interaction patterns (which on its own is probably a good thing). Maybe the product leads of the Pixel watch should regularly alternate between their own product and other competitors.