Killed by Google

[KronisLV]

For comparison's sake...

Killed by Mozilla: https://killedbymozilla.com/

Killed by Microsoft: https://killedbymicrosoft.info/ (curiously DuckDuckGo which apparently takes search results from Bing didn't show me this)

Killed by Apple: https://killedbyapple.nl/

There's also one for Facebook, but it doesn't seem to be filled out: https://killedbyfacebook.nl/

Actually, why don't we have something like https://awesomeopensource.com/ but for projects that have been retired, to remember them more easily or view which company has created what? Maybe even just a GitHub repo, like https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted ? Anyone know of other good links like that, perhaps?

[voisin]

The sheer size of Google’s list vs Apple’s is why I’ve decided to never again use a Google service. There is no reliability there, nor is there any consistency - they kill products for no apparent reason - popular beloved products. The latest decision to turf anyone on Legacy Google Appa for your Domain accounts was the final straw. They are a truly reprehensible company.

[rightbyte]

> Killed by Microsoft: ...

The big difference being many of those things are still usable for users. Just fire up the binary and be happy. Google on the other hand do SaaS to spy, at their core.

[pabs3]

There used to be unmaintained-free-software.org, but that is dead and gone now too.

[codyogden]

I thought about expanding the "Killed by" concept to other companies and doing precisely that "Awesome"-style project, but it takes a lot of time between researching and verifying old, mostly broken internet links to compile that data.

[cjdell]

So many Google products that I only discovered existed after they've been cancelled. I wonder if there's a marketing problem here.

As a side note I genuinely couldn't tell you what the name of the current chat app they're promoting (Hangouts, Meet, Duo, Allo), or what they're currently calling their smart speaker this week. Sorry but "Nest" is a thermostat and always will be to me.

[nirui]

I guess they are trying their chances with RCS (Rich Communication Services) which is a standard rather than a service.

And now let me just get this out of me: Google is really bad at naming things. "Hangouts" is too casual, "Meet" is too confusing (it's sounded more like an outdoor activity planer), and I don't even know what Duo or Allo means (I'm not even interested to look it up).

Just call it "Chat" or "Chat service", Google, and then sit on it really REALLY steady.

[iakov]

I remember that every time I bought a new Android phone, there was a new chat app that was - obviously - not backwards-compatible with the previous one. Some of the contacts were usually there, some random ones from my Gmail account appeared too. All chat history was gone.

Some of my friends used Hangouts a few times - it was working reasonably well, and Gmail integration didn't hurt either. Granted after a few "iterations" of Google messaging apps, no one I know uses them, ever.

[xaerise]

Mostly the products are nice and you can see how it will fit in, but they are making them complex and hard to use. And by that, people will not use it.

[pjmlp]

Apparently Stadia is shortly going to be the new member on the list, as most of us expected.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30211457

[sofixa]

Considering it's supposed to live on as a white label service, and partners such as Ubisoft were adding games as recently as a few months ago (Far Cry 6), it's highly unlikely the service will be completely shut down soon. Keeping it for now without much investment into improvements is more probable.

Disclaimer: I've been using Stadia for more than a year now, on the Stadia Pro tier, and have probably around a hundred games ( of which I've bought ~10). I'm quite happy with it, Red Dead Redemption 2 was marvelous to play on it.

[sidcool]

Although the death of Google Reader hurts me to this day, it's impressive how much experimentation Google is able to do. Also, some products were not killed but rebranded (E.g. Tez, which is now Google Pay in India)

[LightG]

Well, considering the number of employees they have ...

But yes, Google Reader was, for me, the start of the decline.

Sure, they're super successful to this day, but they switched off my 'fan-boy' button at that point.

I found that list utterly depressing, actually.

[voisin]

Has there ever been a good explanation for why they killed Reader? It seemed immensely popular at the time and easy to inject ads into.

[tacone]

Incredible how no competitor could ever totally fill the empty space left by Google Reader. Some of them play recommendations, others are perhaps too simple, or not as linear ux-wise.

Sometimes I feel somebody should just copy Google Reader as closely as possible.

[nchase]

It feels a bit dishonest to have AngularJS on there without mentioning that Angular superseded it.

[ldiracdelta]

Supplanted it without backwards compatibility. angular was a complete rework. That's when I switched to react. Also, now I won't touch flutter.

[rmbyrro]

I wouldn't say dishonest, but may lead to wrong conclusions. I think most professionals who know what AngularJS is will know about Angular.

[yobbo]

This doesn't indicate "bad practice". At their scale they can run these experiments for no other reason than to let people feel ownership of a project and gain experience. If even only succeeds, that's a bonus.

[ocdtrekkie]

You are failing to account for the cost on user trust. Each time a user buys into an app or device Google shuts down, that user trusts Google products a little less. Do it once or twice, no big deal. Do it dozens of times and they're never going to try your new products again.

[jamest]

This over-dramatizes a bit. For example some of the “deaths” were consolidations that’s were well implemented:

Eg. Fabric’s products were rolled into Firebase with continuity for developers. AngularJS was replaced by Angular.

[khazhoux]

This is a tired subject.

People bitch when Google doesn't innovate, and moan when the experiments fail.

[MaxBarraclough]

Cancellation isn't the same thing as the failure of a high-risk experimental undertaking.

Google Reader had a happy and loyal following. That didn't stop Google taking an axe to it.

[fazza99]

After the second time of having some Google product be cancelled, I vowed never to use any of their services ( apart from search ) in a commercial setup. My first question for any AWS/Azure service being considered in my organization is "When is it going to be EOL'ed?".

Going with Google is too risky these days.

[makach]

This is actually great.

Shows that Google is willing to innovate and invest. Lots of new adventures, if it doesn't work - fail fast. I know I grew attached to some of these services, but guess what! I survived and found alternatives. I am also pretty sure that some of these deaths has improved other services.

[verdagon]

Is Google really innovating anymore though? In my last year there I felt like all the small projects were getting shut down to fuel ads/search/cloud.

[NicoJuicy]

I do really miss Google cloud print

[testplzignore]

FeedBurner is one that I expected them to have killed years ago, but it's still alive. They even went to the effort of moving it to "more stable, modern infrastructure" last year rather than killing it. Someone at Google must care about it enough to fight for it.

[echelon]

When will Google itself be on this list?

With the decline of Google search quality, it feels like they might have made themselves incredibly vulnerable to an attack against their golden goose.

[rmbyrro]

I think it'll take a complete revolution to debunk Google. It's unlikely to be another keyword-based search tool. It'll be something entirely different. It might have already showed up, bought and killed by Google, though...

[is_true]

Google Search pre-AI should be on that list.

[missedthecue]

In my opinion the google search experience has improved over recent years, especially over say 10 years ago.

I'm having trouble figuring out why HN insists it's unusable these days.

[mrjin]

It's for sure super strong ATM, but already in the death spiral IMO, just a matter of time.

[trissylegs]

Fun that Google toolbar was only ended 2 months ago.

[yannoninator]

I think you should add flutter and dart to this list. I don't see anyone using it or any jobs in it at all, sooner or later it will die.

[PedroBatista]

Flutter got a lot of traction in the last couple years.

Although that’s not a requisite for Google not kill it, I don’t see it happening unless some VP wakes up on the wrong side of bed some day or the key people leave to start a woodworking YouTube channel.

[curtisblaine]

Like everything :) I think the list contains only projects that are dead or for which Google gave an official termination date.

[Fiahil]

Wait, Angular JS is on that list ?

[goodrubyist]

It’s AngularJS being killed, not Angular, which is the framework that’s current.

[0x073]

Angular and angular JS are different things

[rmbyrro]

See, they're really bad at naming...

[DiffProg]

I wonder when Jax joins this list. 2023?

[p1esk]

You mean Tensorflow? Jax is TF’s successor.