[mareksotak]

I get the revenue point, but it doesn’t entirely feel that way from the outside. Google does try to sell Workspace as a coherent, modern collaboration suite, yet some of the decisions make it look like the product direction isn’t really thought through end-to-end.

What adds to the confusion is how often Google seems to re-surface or re-announce features that have been in Workspace for years, even though they’re not really polished for what teams need today or anywhere near on par with the competition. The recent “shared inbox” announcement is a good example: it’s basically mailbox delegation with a new coat of paint, but still not viable for real shared workflows.

And I keep seeing comments from people saying things like: “We’re looking for this feature so we can finally move off Microsoft 365.”

So there is demand. And not just for this feature alone. There are multiple areas where users clearly want functionality that keeps them inside Workspace instead of pushing them toward third-party tools or competitors’ ecosystems.

[akagusu]

Google is in a position where it doesn't need to offer good products; an ok-ish product is more than enough to keep people using it and the "re-announce features" is the marketing part that keep people signing up for the service; once they have signed their data is trapped and they will keeping using the product not because the product is good, but because it is so hard to leave.