This is confusingly written. It makes it sounds like you'd get a free phone after 24 months, but it's just really a 2-year subscription plan that bundles the hardware and a selection of Google services in a single monthly fee.
What you get after 2 years is the chance to sign up for another 2-year subscription, which includes a new phone, paid monthly over another 2 years.
Google has not just deprived a bunch of people of free phones, they are just eliminating this subscription bundle plan.
Hard disagree (edit for clarity - on it being "just" ending a subscription service).
Presumably, the benefit of such a bundling service is that the cost of the subscription + upgrade path is more beneficial than the separate cost of the services + a carrier subsidized phone / other separate phone payment plan. Ending this so close to the 2 year mark means that you lose out on being able to do a similar phone trade-in plan. You also get stuck with a phone that potentially has a shorter EOL span (security updates) than another phone that you could have purchased. This is also not considering users who made a service choice (or switch), for example, using Google Music over Spotify. You are now 2 years into being embedded into the Google ecosystem and the switching costs are much higher (effectively a form of vendor lock-in). To me, this is a massive rug pull and actually worse than the article paints.
The original wording seems more accurate to me. You get your phone upgraded every two years (plus all the other crap), just like with iPhone Upgrade Programme.
Let's just look at the phone that the 5a adopters (me) would be getting from their store.
You start off with the Pixel 7a at $499. There's an immediate $250 credit that is applied over the next 2 years. This drops that price to $249. Pixel Pass users get a $100 bonus credit. Now it's at $149. Then there's an immediate $85 trade-in bonus. So now we're at $64.
Gosh, Google sure is doing me dirty by charging me $2.67 instead of $12 a month.
> What you get after 2 years is the chance to sign up for another 2-year subscription, which includes a new phone, paid monthly over another 2 years.
Does it really matter? Most TOSes that i've read clearly include the possibility of the service provider to interrupt the contract at any time without any consequences.
Which really means that the "what you get" above is really just an agreement on how much to pay and how often.
When I got Stadia, I set my dad up with it to play Red Dead 2, because he knows nothing of games, and I wasn't buying him a PS4 just to play 1 game. It was great. When he got stuck, I logged in across the country and advanced the story for him, and he took back over. Spectacular product.
I told my dad, day 1, "You'd better enjoy this now, because in 2 years, Google will kill this and you'll never be able to play again." I was off by about a year, but I was 100% right. At least they gave me back 100% of my money and game purchase $. Still, standard Google.
Additionally, anyone notice that nothing works worse together than Google and Google. I had Google Wifi, Google phones, Chromebooks, EVERYTHING. And nothing ever worked reliably. Ever.
>Additionally, anyone notice that nothing works worse together than Google and Google. I had Google Wifi, Google phones, Chromebooks, EVERYTHING. And nothing ever worked reliably. Ever.
Apple is the only one even in that market, really. Everybody else is so focused on getting each "segment" of the market they miss the whole picture. Apple wants to slather you in Apple devices so thoroughly you don't need anyone else's electronics, and if you do it all works really well together. Which is why it's so annoying that I still need a Windows box for PC gaming.
If Google changes leadership to a sensible business person, I'll put serious money into the stock.
Google is a megacorporation with powerful IP and virtually unlimited resources. It's time to stop the small start-up mentality of chucking things at the wall to see what sticks.
Unify your products/services, assign staff to manage it, commit to your decisions. Offer paid services with support and no user hostile privacy bs.
I'm at the point where I just feel this latent contempt when using google products now. I went from a fanboy darling to someone who actively dissuades people from using anything from the company.
I just tried out Nivida's alternative - Geforce Now - this weekend and I am quite impressed. There is a free version where you que up, otherwise its $10/mo or $20/mo if you want 4k and a dedicated 4080. The main selling point to me is that you can sync Steam, Gog, Epic, Ubisoft, or EA accounts and play any of your purchased games that are compatible. You can play in the browser, via a dedicated program, or with one of their Shield TV boxes. The latter would run ~$150 + controllers or mouse/keyboard, so that is part of the way to a PS4.
You should get your dad a steam deck! It sounds like he would love it. you could (with some setup) even use Steam Link to log in remotely. latency/throughput would obvoiusly be much worse, enough so that you might not be able to do any fast-moving reflex-required scenarios, but it's playable.
I was a Stadia fan until I tried GeForce NOW and some of the "cloud gaming hardware services" (hardware, not platform). They were superior products, and did mostly the same thing. GeForce NOW is particularly slick, but their catalog is limited at the publisher level. I've found Boosteroid to be a great value while not being as limited.
I play on an Nvidia Shield most of the time with a Pro Controller for Switch.
> Additionally, anyone notice that nothing works worse together than Google and Google. I had Google Wifi, Google phones, Chromebooks, EVERYTHING. And nothing ever worked reliably. Ever.
I get frustrated as much as anyone about Google's product shit show, but I don't agree with this. I own a Pixel, a Pixelbook that I loved and was a great dev machine when running the Linux container (of course, "In September 2022, Google canceled future generations of the product and dissolved the team working on it."), and Nest Home that I got as a sort of door prize at some event. They all worked together really well, e.g. unlocking/syncing the Pixelbook with my phone, or when I say "Hey Google" both the phone and Nest Home initially acknowledge but only one (in most cases the Nest Home) responds, which is what I want.
I was really hopeful for Stadia, too, and enjoyed playing on it for a while. But in the end, remoting from my own computer was better and faster.
Having you considered something like Parsec to do the same thing with your dad? I think it should do what you need. Steam's own Remote Play Together might do it, too.
> Additionally, anyone notice that nothing works worse together than Google and Google. I had Google Wifi, Google phones, Chromebooks, EVERYTHING. And nothing ever worked reliably. Ever.
Getting worse too. The Pixel Watch was atrocious on launch, required 6 hours of updates, battery life on my first walk on cell coverage dropped me 80% in an hour. Google does not know how to make a good product.
Strongly concur on Stadia—a product way ahead of its time. As for the Google ecosystem, I don’t have everything Google—I more often go for best-of-breed—but, for the Google things I do have, I love how well they work together. A bit of happiness is taking a photo on my Pixel phone—and then instantly inserting it into a Google Doc right after logging into my ChromeOS device.
The sad part is that Google and Google usually works great via 1st or 3rd party at first but then Google does something to get in its own way. I think the Moto Droid was peak Google in terms of ability to do whatever the hell you wanted.
The issue was whoever created this didn't design a widely compelling proposition..
You had to value the bundled Google Game Pass and YouTube Music Premium to make it a good deal. Anyone who doesn't play games and uses Spotify would be under water vs just paying monthly for the phone (if payments is what makes the new phone accessible).
Also the open secret in Google Pixel lifecycle is that Google heavily subsidizes the trade in value of the prior gen phone at launch, which has meant each consecutive Pixel phone has cost me $100 or less to trade up into on an annual basis. Holding onto a Pixel phone for 2 years actually leads to a significant depreciation curve vs annual trade up.
I avoid using google wherever possible. Forget all the hate they get. Their customer service sucks making it harder to recommend any of their product. Then there is the fact that they will just kill the product any time.
If you are going to use google products, stick to dinosaur products like android, gmail etc. DO NOT EVER INVEST IN A NEW GOOGLE PRODUCT. It is just a matter of time before it disappears.
This has become a joke. The last project I had hold my breath for was Project Ara. And I don't plan to do that again.
The customer service is a potential killer for me. For a while, I was relying on Gmail. Then started seeing the horror stories of people losing their accounts with almost no recourse of getting them back.
I realize the false-positive bans are probably just 1 in a million but that's still too big of a risk for something crucial like my main email. Moved everything to a personal domain.
I have no faith in any of Google’s endeavours lasting. When you sign up for any Google service, you’re essentially a human lab rat with the odds being the service will be unceremoniously cancelled. I’ve developed the “anything but Google” mentality with this in mind.
It is silly how blindly they handle these cancellations. Not necessarily in a "wow I can't believe they cancelled so many things" sense but a "they don't really try to clearly distinguish services they are more serious about vs ones they are less serious about". Out of all the products I'd guess Google is serious about keeping long term none of them really have any messaging that's the case so when things like Pixel Pass get cancelled it hurts trust in everything.
If you're really lucky, they'll sell the product to someone else and then you get to have a relationship with a new company (like google domains). That seems to be the very rare exception though and you should expect to have to find your own replacement for any Google service you use because it's unlikely to last very long.
Only because there was no difference between cancelling it 1 month after or 22 months after its inception. People signed up for a 2-year subscription service.
It wasn't really a service, just a bundle deal from the store.
And yet another Google service goes to the Google Graveyard.
The only practical advice you can follow now is "if it's a Google product and it's not Search, YouTube, Maps, Gmail or Docs, don't bet on it being around in the long term"
I find this pretty wild because I am paying more than this for my iPhone Upgrade Program (which I get yearly upgrades) and Apple One (Premier). Was this just not successful or is this just another case of Google being Google and if it isn't an instant success it doesn't survive?
To me this seems like one of those things you subsidize for a few years to get people using your services and then people are "locked" in. Or just recognize that someone doing this is one of our best customers since they are clearly in your ecosystem and just more beneficial in that regard alone.
Yeah this is a bizarre one. It should be a successful type of program; Apple has been doing it since 2015, and bundling services together with the device makes total sense. Surprising to cancel it instead of just adjusting the price.
I think the frustration we all have was that Google was the Willy Wonka factory of cool tech and services. Eagrly waiting to see what cool candy they can invent.
Now that has disappeared, many people are dissolutioned by the lack of focus and stagnation.
...but why? It seems like a great, simple concept, and not one that seems very expensive to maintain. What's the reasoning here? Like, what sort of returns did they expect here, and why weren't they met?
I mean, it's Google. At this point it's pretty much mandatory that anything they launch must be killed within 2 years after someone inside realised what a terrible idea it was.
The deal was a 2-year contract for a phone. They aren't going to renew any contracts when they run the full-term. Nobody was going to get the new upgraded phone without renewing for another 2 years. It's their right to not want to renew on a deal that wasn't working out for them.
You might be able to claim they made promises about the longevity of the program in order to get you to sign up but Google will say the terms were pretty clear and they delivered on the contract. It'd be an uphill battle, but maybe there'll be a class-action
> The terms of the Pixel Pass were for two years, and paying the subscription for that time would pay off your Pixel phone. Early cancellation meant a big final bill for the remainder of the phone cost. That won't happen here, though—while new signups are no longer allowed, existing users will be able to finish out their two-year term. The end of the term was supposed to mean re-upping with a shiny new device, but Google now says, "By the end of the 2 year term, you can’t upgrade to a new phone with Pixel Pass."
But you do get a 100$ off coupon for your next pixel.
The jokes literally write themselves at this point.
[+] [-] pimlottc|2 years ago|reply
What you get after 2 years is the chance to sign up for another 2-year subscription, which includes a new phone, paid monthly over another 2 years.
Google has not just deprived a bunch of people of free phones, they are just eliminating this subscription bundle plan.
More info:
- https://blog.google/products/pixel/introducing-pixel-pass/
- https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/pixel-6-with-pixel-pass-how...
[+] [-] hysan|2 years ago|reply
Presumably, the benefit of such a bundling service is that the cost of the subscription + upgrade path is more beneficial than the separate cost of the services + a carrier subsidized phone / other separate phone payment plan. Ending this so close to the 2 year mark means that you lose out on being able to do a similar phone trade-in plan. You also get stuck with a phone that potentially has a shorter EOL span (security updates) than another phone that you could have purchased. This is also not considering users who made a service choice (or switch), for example, using Google Music over Spotify. You are now 2 years into being embedded into the Google ecosystem and the switching costs are much higher (effectively a form of vendor lock-in). To me, this is a massive rug pull and actually worse than the article paints.
[+] [-] ghusto|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MisterBastahrd|2 years ago|reply
You start off with the Pixel 7a at $499. There's an immediate $250 credit that is applied over the next 2 years. This drops that price to $249. Pixel Pass users get a $100 bonus credit. Now it's at $149. Then there's an immediate $85 trade-in bonus. So now we're at $64.
Gosh, Google sure is doing me dirty by charging me $2.67 instead of $12 a month.
[+] [-] znpy|2 years ago|reply
Does it really matter? Most TOSes that i've read clearly include the possibility of the service provider to interrupt the contract at any time without any consequences.
Which really means that the "what you get" above is really just an agreement on how much to pay and how often.
[+] [-] VonGuard|2 years ago|reply
I told my dad, day 1, "You'd better enjoy this now, because in 2 years, Google will kill this and you'll never be able to play again." I was off by about a year, but I was 100% right. At least they gave me back 100% of my money and game purchase $. Still, standard Google.
Additionally, anyone notice that nothing works worse together than Google and Google. I had Google Wifi, Google phones, Chromebooks, EVERYTHING. And nothing ever worked reliably. Ever.
[+] [-] Vicinity9635|2 years ago|reply
Apple is the only one even in that market, really. Everybody else is so focused on getting each "segment" of the market they miss the whole picture. Apple wants to slather you in Apple devices so thoroughly you don't need anyone else's electronics, and if you do it all works really well together. Which is why it's so annoying that I still need a Windows box for PC gaming.
[+] [-] Workaccount2|2 years ago|reply
Google is a megacorporation with powerful IP and virtually unlimited resources. It's time to stop the small start-up mentality of chucking things at the wall to see what sticks.
Unify your products/services, assign staff to manage it, commit to your decisions. Offer paid services with support and no user hostile privacy bs.
I'm at the point where I just feel this latent contempt when using google products now. I went from a fanboy darling to someone who actively dissuades people from using anything from the company.
[+] [-] ortusdux|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] freedomben|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joshmn|2 years ago|reply
I was a Stadia fan until I tried GeForce NOW and some of the "cloud gaming hardware services" (hardware, not platform). They were superior products, and did mostly the same thing. GeForce NOW is particularly slick, but their catalog is limited at the publisher level. I've found Boosteroid to be a great value while not being as limited.
I play on an Nvidia Shield most of the time with a Pro Controller for Switch.
[+] [-] hn_throwaway_99|2 years ago|reply
I get frustrated as much as anyone about Google's product shit show, but I don't agree with this. I own a Pixel, a Pixelbook that I loved and was a great dev machine when running the Linux container (of course, "In September 2022, Google canceled future generations of the product and dissolved the team working on it."), and Nest Home that I got as a sort of door prize at some event. They all worked together really well, e.g. unlocking/syncing the Pixelbook with my phone, or when I say "Hey Google" both the phone and Nest Home initially acknowledge but only one (in most cases the Nest Home) responds, which is what I want.
[+] [-] wccrawford|2 years ago|reply
Having you considered something like Parsec to do the same thing with your dad? I think it should do what you need. Steam's own Remote Play Together might do it, too.
[+] [-] mmanfrin|2 years ago|reply
Getting worse too. The Pixel Watch was atrocious on launch, required 6 hours of updates, battery life on my first walk on cell coverage dropped me 80% in an hour. Google does not know how to make a good product.
[+] [-] binkHN|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bluSCALE4|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dotBen|2 years ago|reply
You had to value the bundled Google Game Pass and YouTube Music Premium to make it a good deal. Anyone who doesn't play games and uses Spotify would be under water vs just paying monthly for the phone (if payments is what makes the new phone accessible).
Also the open secret in Google Pixel lifecycle is that Google heavily subsidizes the trade in value of the prior gen phone at launch, which has meant each consecutive Pixel phone has cost me $100 or less to trade up into on an annual basis. Holding onto a Pixel phone for 2 years actually leads to a significant depreciation curve vs annual trade up.
[+] [-] jerlam|2 years ago|reply
For a few release cycles, new Pixels were released in October and half off in December. Getting a "Pixel Pass" didn't make any sense financially.
[+] [-] uxp8u61q|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Gentil|2 years ago|reply
If you are going to use google products, stick to dinosaur products like android, gmail etc. DO NOT EVER INVEST IN A NEW GOOGLE PRODUCT. It is just a matter of time before it disappears.
This has become a joke. The last project I had hold my breath for was Project Ara. And I don't plan to do that again.
[+] [-] wishfish|2 years ago|reply
I realize the false-positive bans are probably just 1 in a million but that's still too big of a risk for something crucial like my main email. Moved everything to a personal domain.
[+] [-] spencercwood|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MisterBastahrd|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] davidg109|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] supportengineer|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zamadatix|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] viscanti|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] solardev|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 0x457|2 years ago|reply
It wasn't really a service, just a bundle deal from the store.
[+] [-] CM30|2 years ago|reply
The only practical advice you can follow now is "if it's a Google product and it's not Search, YouTube, Maps, Gmail or Docs, don't bet on it being around in the long term"
[+] [-] notatoad|2 years ago|reply
if you add an entry to the graveyard every time a company changes their pricing structure, you're going to have a very big graveyard.
[+] [-] tlogan|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kiririn|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nerdjon|2 years ago|reply
To me this seems like one of those things you subsidize for a few years to get people using your services and then people are "locked" in. Or just recognize that someone doing this is one of our best customers since they are clearly in your ecosystem and just more beneficial in that regard alone.
[+] [-] TillE|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] darknavi|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Zaheer|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] monlockandkey|2 years ago|reply
Now that has disappeared, many people are dissolutioned by the lack of focus and stagnation.
[+] [-] bluSCALE4|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] damsta|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] TwentyPosts|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] esskay|2 years ago|reply
Never trust Google for anything, ever.
[+] [-] iAMkenough|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] walteweiss|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Invictus0|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] henryfjordan|2 years ago|reply
You might be able to claim they made promises about the longevity of the program in order to get you to sign up but Google will say the terms were pretty clear and they delivered on the contract. It'd be an uphill battle, but maybe there'll be a class-action
[+] [-] htrp|2 years ago|reply
But you do get a 100$ off coupon for your next pixel.
The jokes literally write themselves at this point.
[+] [-] JEDI-HACKER|2 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] Scoring6931|2 years ago|reply
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