From an end user perspective most google products are the same or worse than they were when this article was written (the big exception being YouTube), but their ads business has continued to explode, so whether Google itself has been a waste of time depends a lot on who you ask.
> most google products are the same or worse than they were when this article was written
Maps was an HTML based non-interactive tool that mostly gave printable driving directions.
Android was a laggy and hard to use mess.
Photos didn't even exist.
Most Google products had a tiny fraction of the feature set they do today, in a world when even one of these features is removed, people complain for years like how they did for Reader or Inbox. So to claim that these products "are the same or worse" is very deceptive. You wouldn't last a day if you were thrown back to using the 2010 version of these products.
[+] [-] stathibus|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ehsankia|4 years ago|reply
Maps was an HTML based non-interactive tool that mostly gave printable driving directions.
Android was a laggy and hard to use mess.
Photos didn't even exist.
Most Google products had a tiny fraction of the feature set they do today, in a world when even one of these features is removed, people complain for years like how they did for Reader or Inbox. So to claim that these products "are the same or worse" is very deceptive. You wouldn't last a day if you were thrown back to using the 2010 version of these products.
Anything else is just rose-tinted glasses.
[+] [-] a_bonobo|4 years ago|reply
I was wondering what Google Buzz was :)
[+] [-] cma|4 years ago|reply