Google’s new trust issue mentioned in my last Google Reader post – mainly that Google might find it more difficult to convince people to invest time to try their new products if they keep retiring apps that aren’t popular with mainstream users – seems to be getting some prominent attention.
Slate’s new Google graveyard:
Here’s the problem: Google now has a clear enough track record of trying out, and then canceling, “interesting” new software that I have no idea how long Keep will be around. When Google launched its Google Health service five years ago, it had an allure like Keep’s: here was the one place you could store your prescription info, test results, immunization records, and so on and know that you could get at them as time went on. That’s how I used it — until Google cancelled this “experiment” last year. Same with Google Reader, and all the other products in the Google Graveyard that Slate produced last week.
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I don’t understand how Google can get anyone to rely on its experimental products unless it has a convincing answer for the “how do we know you won’t kill this?” question.
Ezra Klein worries about Gmail:
But I’m not sure I want to be a Google early adopter anymore. I love Google Reader. And I used to use Picnik all the time. I’m tired of losing my services.
In fact, I’m starting to worry a bit about Gmail, which is at the core of pretty much my entire life. I know, I know — Gmail is safe. The data it feeds into the Google mainframe is extremely valuable to the search giant. They won’t let anything happen to it.
But I’m a heavy user of Gmail. And so I’ve been buying more space on Google’s servers. Recently, I hit 30 gigs — and learned Google won’t let me purchase any more room. The service which once swore I’d never have to delete a message now tells me my only option is to delete gigabyte after gigabyte of past e-mails.
That’s their right, of course. But it was a reminder that Google’s core business isn’t running an e-mail system or selling data storage. The thing I wanted to pay them to do wasn’t something they make much money off. So now I’m a bit nervous: I freed up a good number of gigabytes, but now I’ve run through much of the low-hanging fruit, and the bar measuring how far I am from my storage unit is beginning to tick up again.
The problem, I’m beginning to think, is simply mismatch. The core services of Google’s business are often not the Google services I rely on most. And even when their core products and my needs do meet, the business connection is indirect.
Not Your Typical Tech Guy makes a broader point:
I was not a Google Reader user myself, but I am certainly dependent on many products from Google and other tech companies, most of which I don’t pay anything for (Gmail being the most notable). A product I use quite frequently is my my Motorola Motactv GPS running watch. Unlike my old Garmin, all of the software to view the data is on their website. The problem is that after I purchased the watch, Google bought Motorola and support for the product has stopped. It’s only a matter of time I’m sure before the website goes down and my physical (and paid for product) device suddenly stops working as intended.
A second product I’ve questions is a new version of the class Simcity, put out by Electronic Arts recently which amazingly sold $1 million copies almost immediately. Only problem is that the game requires one to be connected to their servers to play (and to make a huge mess, they didn’t have enough servers at the launch of the game). EA claims it is to enhance the game by allowing users to compete against others, critics claim it is to prevent copyright infringements. Either way, is it fair that a game like Simcity can’t be played “offline”? If I pay $60 to purchase the game, how long is EA responsible for keeping the servers up and running so that I can continue to play it? A year? 2 years? 10 years?
As more and more data and services become dependent on the cloud, it will be interesting to see how problems like this get resolved. I have no doubts that in the long run consumers will be better off, but I’m sure there will be lots of bumps on the way. In the Google Reader example, the great news is that just like I wrote in my post on Apple dropping Google Maps, I’m sure there are many startups that will jump in shortly and deliver a product far better than the rather stale Google Reader product was.
In response to my last post, a couple people also mentioned that this is more about the future of RSS than about Reader itself. Fair point, but I generally disagree. Reader provides a service, and RSS is the back end infrastructure that supports it. While RSS may not be the best way to support that service going forward, that doesn’t mean the service is obsolete. At the risk of being extreme, here’s an analogy: you don’t shut down the postal service because horses are no longer the most effective means of transportation.
If Google wanted to maintain the service, they would have, regardless of the fate of RSS. I still believe Google has no obligation to maintain Reader, and that a reasonable substitute will be available soon, but I find the decision to shut it down both questionable and informative.