If they'd even make some sub-brand explicitly for "shit we're serious about and promise we'll continue to invest in for a really long time"—and then actually stick by that—it'd go a long way. I think it's having no reliable indicator of their level of seriousness or commitment to a given product or service that's the main source of irritation for people. It's all just "Google" and who knows what the hell that means, this time.

In theory, they use the "beta" label for this. In practice, they've been sloppy in both directions, with Gmail being in beta way too long.

At this point my imagination says it would take 5-10 years of vocalized committment to any one thing for them to make a dent in their reputation.

I think it's one of those "the best time to start was 10 years ago; the second best time to start is today" sorts of things.

Google could fix this credibility problem in a single step by simply saying "We won't materially change documented functionality of services A, B, or C in the next 5 years. Upon breach of this promise, we will pay any affected user $10M".

If they did that, I'd trust them. If they breached my trust, I'd get a cool $10M. They wouldn't shutdown the service because of the extreme financial disincentive to do so.

That opens them up to a ton of liability (what if something unforeseen happens), for very little gain. I can't imagine any company doing something like that.

Then maybe don't be in the infrastructure business?

Really. Google seems like a corporate incarnation of Engineer's Disease.

There are lawyers for covering the obvious foreseeables. For the rest, there are more lawyers.

Providing credible hostages is a good way to build trust. Such a promise would be fairly credible if drafted properly.

The gain is hundreds of millions of dollars of new business that they are currently losing to competitors who don't have a reputation for dropping services.

You just gave the potential upside without highlighting the very real downsides.

I semi-seriously wonder if they just brought back Google Reader and seriously supported it how much goodwill they'd regain. Not that they haven't killed hundreds of other products, but that one just sticks out so much.