> The paid astroturfing felt very weird coming from Google.

I don't doubt you at all, but how does one tell paid astroturfing from rabid fanboys?

It was a few years ago, but I remember it was distinctly obvious. Stadia was new. No one really knew much about it and it was not launched yet. Several users with same-ish usernames all starting giving long well written replies that kept repeating specific talking points that were not really part of the articles or marketing, things about the product strategy that sounded very much like a social media marketing brief. And they had a lot of very nice things to say about the boss. I used to work adjacent to social media marketing and it had the fingerprint. They were either several Stadia marketing employees on a coffee break or being specifically paid for the campaign.

> I was immediately roasted by a flock of obvious astroturfers

I was a true believer in Stadia for years and still am when it comes to cloud gaming. I was never paid a cent by Google to my knowledge (although they are refunding my purchases so I appreciate that).

That said, unfortunately you are correct that Google is a bloated rotting mess. The worst part is that Stadia was a legit good product.

> blatant double-dip business model of subscriptions + purchase stunk

FWIW, the subscription wasn't required. It just got you discounts on games, access to a rotating collection of "free" games, and 4k streaming (rather than 1080p you get without a subscription).

Their communication about all of this really sucked though, because most critics who didn't try Stadia (and even some who did) thought the subscription was required to use it at all.

I believe it was required for early adopters. Then they let you claim free games while a subscriber, but you lost access if you stopped. If you weren’t subscribing you could miss free claims. It was all very manipulative and low value.

> I believe it was required for early adopters.

It wasn't.

To get access on day 1, you had to buy "Founder's Edition" which was the controller and a CCU, though. You also got 3 months of Stadia Pro with that. I was never a subscriber, other than that free 3 months, but I did buy a few Stadia games over the last few years and it worked really well for me.

Like I said before though, the messaging/marketing about the Stadia Pro subscription was TERRIBLE. Your misconception about it is VERY common

> This company is a bloated rotting carcass. The regulators should chop it up and feed it to the seagulls.

Hey man, there's no need to be cruel toward animals here! ;-)

· didn’t “gain the traction with users that we expected.” · >> GCP : I'm scared out of my mind

Insert “I’m in Danger” meme here.

But seriously, GCP could absolutely be on the chopping block. It loses a stupefying amount of money, nearly a billion dollars last year. How mind boggling that Google can’t sell its own data center tech for a profit after 10 years in the market. Google no doubt thinks it is not gaining the expected traction. There’s going to be a lot of collateral damage when that ones goes to the G graveyard.

This [1] guy got it right to the year (3 years ago when Stadia started):

>It also doesn't help that it's from Google. They've lost a lot of good will in the last couple of years and honestly most people expect Stadia to be EOL'd in 24-36 months once Google gets bored with it.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Stadia/comments/e1l9j4/comment/f8ru...

It was many more people than that one guy. Myself and others were calling a shut down in 2-3 years literally the day Stadia was announced.

Those of us who were bucked off at the Google rodeo enough times eventually learned our lesson and realized it's never gonna change.