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Comment by Kylekramer | Hacker News Reader

Sure, it isn't helpful for those without a data plan, but decisions doesn't exist in a present day vacuum. People with phones without data plans are a dying breed, and I think any reasonable person would focus their efforts on the premise that the world is moving toward smartphones.

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Android works perfectly well without a data plan. I have none because I'm usually on WiFi and when I'm not, any McDonalds or Starbucks will work. I've occasionally thought of getting one, but last time I shopped for it, I couldn't find one at a reasonable price given low usage.

But then, I've never used search by SMS. Finding WiFi makes more sense.

I'd like to know what you're basing this on. In the U.S. this may very well be true, though the fact still remains that lower-income people are less likely to have smartphones. But what about in developing nations?

Plenty of stats around. The trend is fairly clear. Mobile data is the future and almost the present, even in developing countries: http://mobithinking.com/mobile-marketing-tools/latest-mobile...

On the google products forum, someone mentioned that in India, everyone was using this service because it's fairly uncommon to have a data plan. The study you just linked seems to show monthly 3G access at about 8% for urban India. Which seems like a pretty clearcut minority to me.

It isn't about the present numbers, it is about where the numbers are going. Google may have a mission statement of "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful", but clearly that require a company to make decisions. A lot of people would find it useful to have Google physically mail them info, but that isn't efficient or the way of the future.

I suspect a lot of people who are lamenting the "loss" of this service haven't used it. I have. It is better than nothing, but it is a hack designed for a world that isn't going to be around for long. If I was a Google shareholder, I'd be questioning them wasting any resources on it.

Whether or not that is the trend, it still sucks for the people who used it daily, such as myself. Your reasoning is sound, but that doesn't mean those of us who used it shouldn't be upset, or that those who no have need for it and possibly didn't even know about it until now shouldn't agree that it sounded useful.

I'm not trying to say google owes it to us to keep the service running or anything like that. They're a business and it's their prerogative to make decisions like this. I'm reminded of a Wayne Gretsky quote though, roughly "I don't skate to where the puck is, but where it's going to be." And that's solid reasoning. But from my perspective, with a team as strong as Google's, it wouldn't hurt them to leave a player where the puck is either.

In developing countries where smartphones are less common, Google offers Free Zone:

http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/mobile/landing/freezone/stp...

I wouldn't exactly refer to them as a "dying breed" quite yet. I recall seeing a statistic somewhere that in many developing countries, SMS adoption rates are still going up. There's still a prominent market for SMS search, just not necessarily the one that Google wants to serve.

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