[endtime]

I worked at Google for ten years (as an IC). Here's my personal perspective.

Yes, of course, the individual employees know. But the decision making for these kinds of things is usually a full-time middle manager, who isn't deciding on behalf of Google as a whole, but on behalf of their organization within Google (could be 50 people, could be 2000). It's not just _not_ that manager's job to make the globally optimal decision for Google, it's actually likely often in direct conflict with their job, which is basically "set the priorities of your org such that they launch things that make your boss look good to his boss". Spending headcount on maintaining niche stuff is usually not that (and takes resources away from whatever is).

[jjani]

And this is exactly why they need to be broken up. If that offering was their core service, you can bet it would be the priority of the middle managers.

[rkomorn]

I'm personally unconvinced that smaller companies put out better products, and that breaking up google would raise the bar either at the new entities, or at the competition.

The integration between Google products is definitely one of the things that keeps me with them.

I've seen more than a few companies that are no better at their core service than the giants.

[ponector]

How smaller company will have other incentive for middle managers?

Small companies I've been working in are sometimes even worse.

Web app which takes 10+ sec to fully load? That's ok, focus on the new features!

[endtime]

I wish Google weren't like this, but I don't agree it should be illegal.