That's an impressively long list but some of those entries are a bit of a stretch. Google Nexus, for example, was rebranded as Google Pixel. Most people wouldn't describe rebranding as "killing" a product.
Password Checkup: integrated into Chrome, Firefox has its own thing as well.
Google Photos Print: it's just no longer a subscription service that automatically selects photos (who would want something to pick a photo book's photos for you??). https://www.google.com/photos/printing/
Shoelace: Kind of disingenuous to include Area 120 projects, which are experiments by design.
Google Chrome Apps: Sunset in favor of PWAs which don't rely on Chrome Web Store? sign me up!
Dragonfly: Was never public so I don't see this as 'killed'.
I think these different announcement types should be noted or properly filtered, maybe by noting the app that replaces the app, eg "alternative: google meet".
Creator here. I was just trying to gather updated information on Hangouts a couple days ago. I try to keep the list as accurate as possible. I'm probably going to move it (or even remove it), but haven't had any solid info either way come my way. Thread from Twitter talking about Hangouts:
AngularJS is dead. Angular continues. As a non-user, the impression I got on the release of Angular 2 was roughly “we’re making a new product that shares some similarities with AngularJS, and we’ll continue to maintain both indefinitely, but all active development will be on this new product that we’ve decided to name ‘Angular’ just to confuse everyone”.
The point is they create a huge amount of hassle for users by constantly killing/replacing/renaming products, and it also shows that they aren't doing any effective long-term planning. That's what makes people mad.
Angular: I agree that angular is not dead, people can still use v1 if they want to. This does not count.
Hangouts: the new version has different pricing, different features, different name, different URL, different apps... this absolutely counts (and is one of the most egregious examples)
Password checkup: the extension worked fine, but they intentionally disabled it. Any references to it on the web now have to be updated to refer to password checkup in the browser. Anyone who knows how to use the extension has to relearn how to use it in the browser. This counts.
Google Photos Print: yes the original was stupid, but it was still a product and is now gone. This counts.
Shoelace: yeah this never really launched in the first place. This doesn't count.
Google Chrome Apps: I mean really? Anything that requires rewriting parts of an app to make it work counts!
Dragonfly: this was never released, it doesn't count. But it is important that people know about this, it is an example of Google quite blatantly being evil.
> they aren't doing any effective long-term planning
They do, you just don't grok it. These applications are just toys. They are the result of the plan but not the plan itself. The plan is to just bury a ton of fiber, build a ton of computers, hire a ton of developers, and see what the heck happens. The plan is so successful that they can build and deploy these apps for almost no marginal cost, which is why they also probably feel free to just throw them away.
No - Google does not have some brilliant master plan we are unable to understand. If you're really arguing that their "plan" is to just spend money and see what sticks, then I'd say they absolutely deserve criticism for being fucking clueless idiots.
We are discussing the issue here in the very cathedral of "spend money and see what sticks". That's the whole silicon valley venture strategy. If you think of Google as a large-scale startup incubator with a very efficient private cloud in house, then you will understand the long tail of their product lineup much better.
The only real issue I have with ditching chrome apps in favour of PWAs it all the lost work in making web apps look and feel native. Now we have to live with a half-browser wrapper that may or may not have the forward and back buttons as fallback in order to use PWAs that the developer never expected to be "installed" to a computer.
Same with Google Goggles, which was replaced by Google Lens. It wasn't just a simple rebranding as the two existed at the same time momentarily, but no functionality was really lost.
I’m in two minds about this. How many side projects have I abandoned? If it was my business, and a particular part of it wasn’t meeting a KPI and cost money, what would I do? Probably kill it off too.
Some of these, like the Chromebook Pixel, seem like technicalities. They still sell the "Pixelbook". What's the difference?
The two things I really miss that are on this list are Inbox and Field Trip. I used to just browse Field Trip while I was riding the buses or trains. Was really enjoyable. I don't know why this page says 2015. Field Trip survived the spinoff of Niantic and was only recently shut down.
Google’s products and naming of products/services seemingly have had no discernible strategies at all. It’s as if people get bonuses for “new” introductions that replace the “old” and then they move on, leaving someone else to try the same trick again.
It would be fun if Google published this list officially using the domain killedby.google.
I have used GeForce NOW and Xcloud. I've not used Stadia, but I hear that its streaming technology is excellent, including 4K graphics.
That said, /r/stadia seems to be panicking; a lot of people are convinced that the new Chromecast launched this week with no Stadia support (not until "mid 2021") is yet more proof that Google has given up on the service.
There are tons of updates on stadia. They put out at least a post a week with new features and games. The pro subscribers now have access to dozens of games free of charge. Just last weak they put out the first game with support to crowd choice where you can have viewers of your game stream make choices in real time for you to play.
I mean, Stadia folks at Google can say what they want from their little bubble, but the choice to launch a new Chromecast without them does speak much louder about how the company as a whole positions it.
cloud print was one of my favorite google products ever...it just worked, it was simple, it allowed me to print things I found to read and they were just on the printer at home when I got there. Still trying to find an effective non-home-serve based alternative.
In the light of this post, I've built an extended version of this one that includes some of the top alternatives of each "killed" product - https://www.saashub.com/google-graveyard
I wish it would be possible to get hired into Google straight onto the projects at risk, to have an opportunity to support them even in exchange for giving up the promotions.
Ah heck, I forgot about iGoogle. It was pretty awesome being able to set up your own personal portal to the web, with neat little lightweight widgets. I used to have widgets for everything from the stock market to weather to newsgroups. It was like a dashboard on the (web) world. Now what is there for that? Anything? Only in hindsight do I see now how much of a hole that left in my experience of the web, and it's been replaced with nothing. Sad.
Interesting. Just curious ... How does it work Google? I always felt that they always had the money to build anything they want. How do they decide what to shutdown?
"Death is very likely the single best invention of life." — SJ
This is a dishonest website. Many of the products or technologies that have been "killed" were replaced by other compelling products in the space — either by Google itself or by third parties — or could not be monetized. Google is not a public utility and there is little incentive — nay, it would be strictly harmful — for them to continue building products that are non-competitive in the marketplace.
Killing products is beneficial and non-monopolistic as it allows other developers to build products as opposed to Google offering them for free ad-infinitum. By contrast, this is in direct opposition to Amazon's strategy, which is to offer an incredible number of products and services at a loss, thereby depriving other players from competing. One day, people will realize that Amazon's actions unquestionably drove down the quality of products (they already have, one need not look far — just consider the quality of Whole Foods goods post-acquisition or the myriad scam products listed as real on Amazon's website).
Side-note: should Google have continued to maintain Angular when other solutions are clearly better? What would be the point? Google did the right thing, letting Angular die a dignified death and letting superior technologies like React take the reins.
EDIT: if you are down-voting me, would you care to explain why instead of merely doing that?
What's dishonest about it? I think "killed" is often a fair description, especially when the "replacement" is an altogether different program (such as in the case of Google Cloud Connect, which Google Drive didn't suitably replace.)
Yes, Google is not a public utility... but users' willingness to adopt new services is not a free, renewable resource, either. Some of us get tired of embracing new tools only for them to be ripped out of our hands by their maker, after we've made them an integral part of our workflow. I've become more of a laggard due to Google's and other companies' actions in this area.
It's dishonest because it doesn't offer a balanced view, merely articulating all the products Google has killed without offering any kind of insight as to _why_ they killed so many products or the fact that they didn't really "kill" some products at all. Sure, it's not "inaccurate." But framing is everything, and we're increasingly living in an intensely context-free, implicitly dishonest world. I could build a website where all I talk about all day is all the cool things Trump does (he undoubtedly does at least some cool shit) without a single mention of his inadequacies. Would you disagree with the dishonest characterization there?
The best lies are often told through plausibly deniable context, subtext, and implication - where the blame can be shifted to the listener instead of the speaker - while speaking not a single word that wasn't "the truth". Tell the truth such that it sounds like a lie. Tell the truth so it sounds as if it were the full truth instead of merely half the story. I'd consider doing these things intentionally to be dishonest.
I don't think I'd go so far as to call the website dishonest - I don't think it's necessairly trying to present itself as telling a full, balanced, unbiased story - but it's absolutely possible to be dishonest by telling the truth.
As a user, it absolutely does not matter “why” to me.
I see a new google product. Should I spend time getting used to it?
A service is provided by Google or a third-party app. Should I choose Google “by default”?
I recently spent a few days trying to get google cloud print to work. It will be killed in a few months. Do I care why - was it replaced by competitor’s product, was it non-monetizeable, was it for the good of other developers? Nope, I don’t care.
The main point of this website is to illustrate that Google products, even if nice and polished, sometimes live much shorter than desired. And website does this splendidly.
On AngularJS- Google could have provided a managed transition to a foundation or non-profit responsible for the continuance of the existing code base. Instead they are explicitly not providing a path forward for the community to take ownership.
There are better frameworks out there now for new projects, but there is a massive install base, particularly in the enterprise, that has no need or desire to shift to a new framework. There is no path forward for those applications in Googles model- it is pretty much a rewrite or nothing.
Now, I’m sure there will be some fork of angularJS that goes on to provide even longer term support and/or paid patching, but this still wasn’t managed as well as it could be in my opinion.
Like the rest of the OP site, it’s another indicator that Google doesn’t care to support long lived systems, and you should be cautious of taking dependencies on them if you do.
Creator here. My intent to keep things minimal is often criticized, but when you visit a graveyard you don't often go looking for the names of successors, the reason they died, or if someone 'Frankensteined' them into an alternate existence. Graveyards are for everyone, and the story they tell is very subjective to the visitor.
CEOs may find a sense of caution about adopting a new, non-core Google product, or they may feel emboldened to make a decision to cut a large product in order to focus on something else. Entrepreneurs may find inspiration for a brand new product, or inspiration to build a similar-but-better product. Academics and journalists may use it to track the history of products. Users? Users will go, scroll down the list, find a product they haven't thought about in years, and have fond memories of all the cool stuff they did with it.
As far as rebrands and cherry-picked feature migrations? An organ donor whose heart is harvested and placed in another person's body doesn't keep living. From a user's perspective, the difference in emotional connection to Nexus vs Pixel can be HUGE. Why shouldn't they have a place to mourn that?
Finally, you link to a comment that attempts to provide reason for why things are killed, but that information is really proprietary. Google's usual move is a vague excuse like "focusing our resources" which is PR speak for not enough users...or maybe it means we couldn't monetize it...or maybe it means that the market didn't respond as we expected...or maybe it means...there was some internal politics afloat. --- I feel that speculating--even incorrectly--would be more dishonest than not speculating on the reasoning at all.
So, I don't feel the site is dishonest. Providing enough context in that "these things before you are dead products" is its entire point, and the user's perspective and takeaway is left up to them to discover.
One victim I mourned for a long time was Google Cloud Connect. I loved it's syncing, versioning, and collaboration... and that this happen right inside Microsoft Office programs. Google Drive was an unworthy successor and an unsatisfactory replacement. I never used it as much or in a similar way to how I used Cloud Connect. I tried, but it was frustrating. I hate it when tech giants kill off great tools and try to get us to adopt mediocre replacements.
It’s not clear from the official docs AFAIK. While the code is MIT licensed, there might be trademark issues with the name AngularJS and continuing the existing repo.
That being said, I’m sure creating a fork of AngularJS and providing paid support and consultancy will be a minor gold mine for some organization shortly.
Yeah, my current customer is still relying on an Angular 1.5 module which is being used by their Angular 10 frontend. I don’t see it going anywhere in the near time.
RIP Google+, though. Yes, it was obviously spyware dressed as a social network (then again, aren't they all?) But allowing users to make custom "circles" of friends and share things with some circles and not others is something I don't think I've seen any other social network do.
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[ 2.3 ms ] story [ 125 ms ] threadAngular: v1 is "dead", but is still receiving major version updates https://angular.io/guide/updating-to-version-10
Hangouts: meet.google.com
Password Checkup: integrated into Chrome, Firefox has its own thing as well.
Google Photos Print: it's just no longer a subscription service that automatically selects photos (who would want something to pick a photo book's photos for you??). https://www.google.com/photos/printing/
Shoelace: Kind of disingenuous to include Area 120 projects, which are experiments by design.
Google Chrome Apps: Sunset in favor of PWAs which don't rely on Chrome Web Store? sign me up!
Dragonfly: Was never public so I don't see this as 'killed'.
I think these different announcement types should be noted or properly filtered, maybe by noting the app that replaces the app, eg "alternative: google meet".
https://twitter.com/killedbygoogle/status/131259662718668800...
Angular: I agree that angular is not dead, people can still use v1 if they want to. This does not count.
Hangouts: the new version has different pricing, different features, different name, different URL, different apps... this absolutely counts (and is one of the most egregious examples)
Password checkup: the extension worked fine, but they intentionally disabled it. Any references to it on the web now have to be updated to refer to password checkup in the browser. Anyone who knows how to use the extension has to relearn how to use it in the browser. This counts.
Google Photos Print: yes the original was stupid, but it was still a product and is now gone. This counts.
Shoelace: yeah this never really launched in the first place. This doesn't count.
Google Chrome Apps: I mean really? Anything that requires rewriting parts of an app to make it work counts!
Dragonfly: this was never released, it doesn't count. But it is important that people know about this, it is an example of Google quite blatantly being evil.
They do, you just don't grok it. These applications are just toys. They are the result of the plan but not the plan itself. The plan is to just bury a ton of fiber, build a ton of computers, hire a ton of developers, and see what the heck happens. The plan is so successful that they can build and deploy these apps for almost no marginal cost, which is why they also probably feel free to just throw them away.
The two things I really miss that are on this list are Inbox and Field Trip. I used to just browse Field Trip while I was riding the buses or trains. Was really enjoyable. I don't know why this page says 2015. Field Trip survived the spinoff of Niantic and was only recently shut down.
It would be fun if Google published this list officially using the domain killedby.google.
Google, if you're listening, please acquire me. hah.
That said, /r/stadia seems to be panicking; a lot of people are convinced that the new Chromecast launched this week with no Stadia support (not until "mid 2021") is yet more proof that Google has given up on the service.
https://my.yahoo.com
(24 years old, according to Wikipedia!)
It is open source and they are actively developing new versions, we will have it for at least a few more years.
This is a dishonest website. Many of the products or technologies that have been "killed" were replaced by other compelling products in the space — either by Google itself or by third parties — or could not be monetized. Google is not a public utility and there is little incentive — nay, it would be strictly harmful — for them to continue building products that are non-competitive in the marketplace.
Killing products is beneficial and non-monopolistic as it allows other developers to build products as opposed to Google offering them for free ad-infinitum. By contrast, this is in direct opposition to Amazon's strategy, which is to offer an incredible number of products and services at a loss, thereby depriving other players from competing. One day, people will realize that Amazon's actions unquestionably drove down the quality of products (they already have, one need not look far — just consider the quality of Whole Foods goods post-acquisition or the myriad scam products listed as real on Amazon's website).
Side-note: should Google have continued to maintain Angular when other solutions are clearly better? What would be the point? Google did the right thing, letting Angular die a dignified death and letting superior technologies like React take the reins.
EDIT: if you are down-voting me, would you care to explain why instead of merely doing that?
EDIT 2: this is a great comment which further clarifies the part of the point https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24694575
Yes, Google is not a public utility... but users' willingness to adopt new services is not a free, renewable resource, either. Some of us get tired of embracing new tools only for them to be ripped out of our hands by their maker, after we've made them an integral part of our workflow. I've become more of a laggard due to Google's and other companies' actions in this area.
I don't think I'd go so far as to call the website dishonest - I don't think it's necessairly trying to present itself as telling a full, balanced, unbiased story - but it's absolutely possible to be dishonest by telling the truth.
I see a new google product. Should I spend time getting used to it? A service is provided by Google or a third-party app. Should I choose Google “by default”?
I recently spent a few days trying to get google cloud print to work. It will be killed in a few months. Do I care why - was it replaced by competitor’s product, was it non-monetizeable, was it for the good of other developers? Nope, I don’t care.
The main point of this website is to illustrate that Google products, even if nice and polished, sometimes live much shorter than desired. And website does this splendidly.
There are better frameworks out there now for new projects, but there is a massive install base, particularly in the enterprise, that has no need or desire to shift to a new framework. There is no path forward for those applications in Googles model- it is pretty much a rewrite or nothing.
Now, I’m sure there will be some fork of angularJS that goes on to provide even longer term support and/or paid patching, but this still wasn’t managed as well as it could be in my opinion.
Like the rest of the OP site, it’s another indicator that Google doesn’t care to support long lived systems, and you should be cautious of taking dependencies on them if you do.
CEOs may find a sense of caution about adopting a new, non-core Google product, or they may feel emboldened to make a decision to cut a large product in order to focus on something else. Entrepreneurs may find inspiration for a brand new product, or inspiration to build a similar-but-better product. Academics and journalists may use it to track the history of products. Users? Users will go, scroll down the list, find a product they haven't thought about in years, and have fond memories of all the cool stuff they did with it.
As far as rebrands and cherry-picked feature migrations? An organ donor whose heart is harvested and placed in another person's body doesn't keep living. From a user's perspective, the difference in emotional connection to Nexus vs Pixel can be HUGE. Why shouldn't they have a place to mourn that?
Finally, you link to a comment that attempts to provide reason for why things are killed, but that information is really proprietary. Google's usual move is a vague excuse like "focusing our resources" which is PR speak for not enough users...or maybe it means we couldn't monetize it...or maybe it means that the market didn't respond as we expected...or maybe it means...there was some internal politics afloat. --- I feel that speculating--even incorrectly--would be more dishonest than not speculating on the reasoning at all.
So, I don't feel the site is dishonest. Providing enough context in that "these things before you are dead products" is its entire point, and the user's perspective and takeaway is left up to them to discover.
That being said, I’m sure creating a fork of AngularJS and providing paid support and consultancy will be a minor gold mine for some organization shortly.