Google has done this again and again with their APIs and services other than their main search and advertising business. For me as a developer Google has a bad name now and I'd never invest my time developing something in their ecosystem or worse have my business depend on it. They do not care about their user base as is shown even when they shut down paid services. Which is why even with all their promises about Google Cloud I still don't trust it. When one says that about Google Cloud you get this immune response that it is different, but it is prefixed with Google which is a bad name when it comes to keeping third party services or APIs up paid or unpaid.

I've been a Google apologist for most of my HN career, but shutting down Inbox really changed my view. Regular old GMail sucks compared to Inbox, especially the mobile app. I miss the Inbox app and its layout and recognition of important emails so much that I don't feel like I can get attached to anything else they make.

I’d long been thinking about it, but this shutdown is what triggered me completely moving away from Google.

Google was over for me when they shutdown Reader. I was using that service everyday. Lots of people did too. They just don't care.

I find it funny that pointing to this state of affairs in the comments of HN posts about new Google products attracts downvotes like nobody's business.

I think it's because that AdSense revenue is so sweet and so easy that nothing else is as interesting to the organization. Pretty difficult benchmark for competing products to show their value. It's like an oil rich nation investing in unrelated industries for which they have no history or pedigree in order to build a sustainable future.

There's also a well-documented culture within Google that it's an attractive resume-builder to launch new products, but nobody wants to maintain a product.

They didn't create the ecosystem, they bought it. They didn't want it, they wanted everyone to be in their ecosystem instead.

They care for their user base.

Their user base just isn't us people using their services.

At some point there has to be a value in marketing for keeping people happy, right? At least mothball upgrades and leave this running "slowly" or _anything_ other than just shut everything down for reasons...

My daughter wrote a letter to a clothing manufacturer about how the embroidered lettering was falling apart on a brand name shirt. They sent her a new one, for free.

That is good marketing. What Google is doing? Slowly turning their brand into the "don't trust us with anything long term" brand.

> What Google is doing?

Google Doodles.

edit: by that I mean using many tools to project an image of clean smart friendliness.

That clothing manufacturer doesn't have a billion daily users who will use them regardless of how evil they are.

No but Microsoft used to be untouchable too. They've come back a bit under Nadella who seems to understand why people use his product. I never thought I'd see the day where I trusted MS more than Google but wow has Google just become a scummy, unreliable company since Alphabet.

I've gone from considering MS outright evil to being unconcerned about being their customer.

While with Google I now find myself actively worrying about how to avoid their services before they break things I depend on. I certainly will not use any new services from Google... It feels like the world has turned upside down.

Agreed. Microsoft had the whole “embrace, extend, extinguish phase” but Google really took it to the next level.

Now it’s just “acquire, extinguish”

> It feels like complete disregard of the user base.

Probably because it IS complete regard for the user base :/

They don't care about their user base, they care about branding and profits. If this sells more units then they will go with that.

What is their branding if not the opinion of their user base?

Just an aside I was never able to successfully register my gmail account to work with Inbox. Even with the invite there was something wrong I could never get past. Google does big things, but "making stuff work" just isn't one of them afaict.