The Google Maps API is a good example. They increased prices by an order of magnitude while simultaneously decreasing the free tier with one month's notice. [0]

[0] http://geoawesomeness.com/developers-up-in-arms-over-google-...

Google Maps left probably thousands of small, barely viable projects with their shorts down and no belt.

Funny how everyone here complains about Google maps changing their licensing, but nobody brings up MS changing changing from per socket to per core licensing a few years ago. That burned several medium businesses I know.

Per socket vs per core happened with a version bump right? If Google maps pricing changes only happened when you used a new api, and you could keep using your existing code with your existing prices, that would be a lot less grudge worthy.

Are you talking about SQL Server? You can keep using old versions, and the performance improvements of modern hardware and new versions end up providing more value overall.

With Maps, there's suddenly a new price and you have no options.

Also Windows and System Center. It’s very painful for Microsoft shops as many applications really need standalone SQL.

With our scaled up SCCM environment, SQL alone increased licensing cost by a very significant factor, as you need to license SQL Enterprise when you exceed the core limits of the gratis SQL Standard license.

Probably not a lot of people used Microsoft services then.

Google maps is NOT a part of Google cloud!

https://cloud.google.com/products/

This is not correct: https://cloud.google.com/maps-platform/

Google Maps Platform is a part of Google Cloud, but not a part of Google Cloud Platform, despite now integrating with Google Cloud Platform's web console for purposes of managing billing and API keys. Yes, this is a branding and communication mess, but nevertheless true.

You seem to be correct.

> Google Maps Platform is a part of Google Cloud, but not a part of Google Cloud Platform

I have never felt that I have been confused by something so justifiably.

(googler working in gcp here)

The basic way to tell if something is part of GCP or another Google product that some marketing whiz managed to have "cloud" tacked onto the name is whether or not you need a GCP project to work with it.

(GCP employee)

Not true, as far as I know. Many (if not all) Google APIs require a GCP project for access via API key, service account credential, or mobile application.

Do you not for Maps? All my API keys are lumped under "test_prjoect_1" for me, which I don't even remember creating.

No argument here on that point!

I'll defend many things about the technical quality of GCP and its appropriateness as a viable choice in many cases, but not Google's branding, external PR, or external perception management.

They've always been bad in those areas and that pattern continues.

(Relevant disclosure I've said in other comments: I used to work for Google, including GCP, ending in 2015. I've never worked for Google PR/comms/marketing and I don't work or speak for Google now.)

Probably from the AppEngine change of almost a decade ago or the double Maps bumps (the big shrinking of the free tier years ago, then another one in 2018). Usually those are adjustments to make prices match reality.

Google also puts a lot of weight in certain nuances that get overlooked and then quickly forgotten in the Internet's memory.

Your first example: App Engine price hike happened when App Engine departed preview, not after the service had already been intended for mission-critical production use.

Your second example: what they're now calling Google Maps Platform has never been part of Google Cloud Platform, is only relatively recently in a nearby part of the org chart & branding structure (aka Google Cloud which also includes Chrome and Android and G Suite), and has never been subjected to the Google Cloud Platform Deprecation Policy.

Yes, this is a communication failure on Google's part and I'm not blaming the Internet for the common misimpression. But Google's substantive actions in these price changes can be distinguished from how they approach generally available and policy-covered services within GCP, and customers can plan on that basis. (Similarly with G Suite - one should plan differently for core G suite services covered by the G Suite terms and SLA, as compared to other additional Google services that one might use with G Suite.)

Yeah, that stuff isn't part of Google Cloud Platform.

But trust in the stability of products can't be siloed that easily.

With different communication that's harder to misunderstand, it would have been possible for Google to get a much better trust and expectations outcome from exactly the same substantive price changes (at least for GAE and GCP if not Maps).

I think we're mostly or entirely agreeing?

The cloud service price changes maybe. But I'm more focused on things like maps, and the services they shut down.

They can make statements about which things have promises and which don't, but it still causes worry until there's a really good track record.

Yeah. I'm saying that Google Cloud Platform (which does not include Maps) has a good track record with respect to their generally available services, as does G Suite with respect to their core G Suite services. Hell, even G+ isn't going anywhere for G Suite accounts (the turndown is only for consumers).

To be clear I'm not pretending that they've shut down as few things as Amazon (looking at you SimpleDB), but within the product area and lifecycle categories I indicated, they've stayed within what is perfectly viable for lots of companies.

Well, yes, I didn't mention that when GAE launched in preview mode, there was nothing exactly like it, so it had an initial pricing model that made intuitive sense (CPU-based), but was flawed: RAM was much more representative of the actual costs behind the service. I only hinted at that when I mentioned reality.