"Internal folks" who gives a rats ass about what they think? A company's reputation has little to do with how people on the inside perceive it, its actions and track record do the talking.

Stadia was a classic reason I couldn't trust GCP or any Google product aside from Gmail cause I've been using it so long, because unlike you I'm NOT in the know, I just see a bunch of stuff spun out, hyped (calling it 'little stuff' is a highly subjective assertion) and axed without warning. And I won't mention what an absolute mess the android development journey has been, a related symptom of a haphazard, disorganized product strategy. These things are uniquely Google, and it's a terrible look.

Nobody cares. But it isn't revisionist to say it was an experiment. It was correct, albeit not understood by people who believe at face value what companies say.

So we as customers need to read tea leaves in order to figure out which services Google considers "real" and which are "experiments"?

No thanks.

No, just read the financials. It takes 20 seconds.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204423...

Look at page 12.

So why are we to believe statements that GCP is here to stay? They are, after all, statements to customers who need to hear it to make the purchase. But who knows how they actually think?

The whole reason why Google cannot be trusted here is precisely because of their tendency to be inauthentic in their public statements.

You don't believe anything they say. Just look at the numbers. They aren't going to walk away from a business doing about $35 billion per year run rate, growing at 20%+. It isn't in their interest to do so.

Unless competition picks up and they have to cut prices and stop being profitable.

And then they'll turn it off as casually as you or I might turn off a garden tap.