“Why is such a basic spreadsheet function still not available?” | Hacker News Reader

“Why is such a basic spreadsheet function still not available?”

productforums.google.com

17 pointsalexholehouse13 comments

At this point it seems fairly obvious that Google isn't planning for Google Docs to compete with Excel on features. Rather, they've figured out some ratio of power users to non-power-users (like the oft-repeated claim that 80% of the users only use 20% of the features but in Excel's case I suspect the ratio is even higher) and they've decided to implement only the basic features used by non-power-users.

I'm not sure why Google bothers to have a 'share an idea' forum when they have no intention of implementing the 80% features. It's bound to be a magnet for complaints when feature requests get ignored.

It's bound to be a magnet for complaints when feature requests get ignored

Maybe that's the idea, like the Close Door button on an elevator that really does nothing.

The feelings of entitlement harbored by some of those posters is astonishing.

I think "entitlement" is a bit much when they sell it as a replacement to business customers.

Thats the great thing about making your money from advertising...you can always take away products at the drop of a hat or if anyone complains you have the "you get what you paid for" defense... eventually humans will begin to realize that their focus, attention, and metadata is of value and you rarely get something for free.

I suppose the real answer is to just use Excel. The last time I used Google's spreadsheet was probably about 2 to 3 years ago and there were major deficiencies then. I used the spreadsheet in Open Office/Libre Office for awhile. And then I went back to Excel. It has been refreshing.

Google Sheets has changed quite a bit over those "2 to 3 years", being a web app and all, Excel hasn't. I suggest taking second glance.

> Google Sheets has changed quite a bit over those "2 to 3 years", being a web app and all, Excel hasn't.

Excel 2013 actually has changed from Excel 2010.

Perhaps, I doubt the change was as dramatic though, considering it's not just the app itself that underwent transformation but also browsers and the web platform as a whole. But then again we're talking about spreadsheet software.

As the original article shows, it has a long way to go. I mean, Google Sheets is nice for many things, but to even try to replace Excel it needs to increase functionality tenfold - even LibreOffice isn't really there yet after all these years. And packing it with everything would likely make it a worse product for the actually intended Google Sheets audience due to more complexity.

Of all the 100 excel features everybody needs 3-4 - but each needs a different one, so you have to cover all of it to be an acceptable replacement. The original post is one example of such feature that apparently is 'must have' for someone. Database/sql integration for someone else. Solver functionality for yet other people. And so on.

> I mean, Google Sheets is nice for many things, but to even try to replace Excel it needs to increase functionality tenfold - even LibreOffice isn't really there yet after all these years.

Excel is a moving target. Nothing is ever going to "replace" Excel by simply chasing after it and trying to do everything Excel does in the way most comfortable to existing Excel users. Anything that's going to succeed as an Excel replacement will do enough of what Excel does in a way convenient to existing users and offer some compelling features that Excel doesn't have.

And there are always going to be people complaining about any replacement not mimicking some feature in the way they'd most prefer; even after a replacement succeeds -- it happened with WordPerfect users complaining about Word long after Word displaced WordPerfect and acheived dominance.

Although I appreciate what Ted J is trying to do, I think he's missing the point. When 50 users say "we really need this feature", the answer rarely is "you don't need it, you only think you do because you've always been wrong about it".

Ted J never says that they don't need it; he does try to provide workarounds given that they don't have it yet and don't have a timeline.

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