Established services... maybe? Although the list on Wikipedia[0] doesn't make it seem as dramatic.

I know of at least one website[1] dedicated to track whether or not Google had shut down products yet. I think the thing that started this meme was when Google shut down Reader[2].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Discontinued_Google_s...

[1] https://didgoogleshutdown.com/

[2] https://www.google.com/reader/about/

Yes. Google's model is "user has zero say." On the one side of it is forced auto-update, and on the other side is forced deprecation.

Seems so, especially that most of the time we're talking about companies for which a given service is their only product.

Personally, I've learned to treat SaaS products as throwaway by default. That is, if I can benefit from it short-term, like in 3 to 6 weeks, I may sign up. But I don't expect it to exist in 3 to 6 years, so I'm not going to invest much into using it.

I don't specifically blame Google when they acquire a startup and shut down the service. We don't know the financial condition of the company before the acquisition. Would you rather Google wait for the startup to officially fold and then scoop up the assets in bankruptcy?

Their numbers definitely are adversely affected by these "acquisitions"

Companies with only one product are very likely to shut that product down when they go out of business or are acquired.

Perhaps yes, because almost none are core businesses of Google.

This one looks like core business (analytics/data collection).

Any new product is either:

- A startup, which will likely fail

- Not the core business of the company which created it

But it's much easier to drop without endangering the company. And the question is specifically about Google.