
A eulogy for every product Google has killed (145 and counting) - bookofjoe
https://www.fastcompany.com/90322103/a-eulogy-for-every-product-google-has-ruthlessly-killed-145-and-counting
======
VikingCoder
Wow, a lot of these are ridiculous or silly. I welcome corrections to my list.
If you object and think it should be listed as Dead, that's fine, that's your
opinion, and I respect it. To me, some of these are absurd to list as Dead.
Here's my list:

Tez was rebranded, it didn't die.

Encrypted Search basically replaced unencrypted search.

Chromebook Pixel, yeah, now it's a Pixelbook.

Google Showtimes, yeah, now it's built in to search.

Google Nexus, yeah, now it's Pixel phones.

Nexus Player, yeah, now it's Chromecast / Android TV / Aria.

Google X, it was re-orged, and not consumer-facing anyway.

Picasa is kind of odd to complain about, because Google Photos is better in
almost every way.

Google Play edition of Android phone, yeah, phone models go away all the time.

Google TV is kind of odd to complain about, because now there's Chromecast /
Android TV, and Youtube TV.

Google Chrome Frame, we should celebrate IE dying.

Nexus Q, yeah, it's now Chromecast / Android TV.

Google Chart API is still running, unless I'm mistaken.

Google Video... Yeah, now it's YouTube. Why are we complaining about this?

Google Sky Map was donated and made open source, is now "Sky Map". This is a
victory.

Noop Programming Language. Come on. It was literally two engineers. I'm all
for holding Google accountable for killing things we love (Google Reader,
chief among them), but this is ridiculous. It's also open source.

Google Dictionary, it's not folded in to Search.

Google Real-Time Search is basically folded in to Search, right?

Google Hotspot is now folded in to Maps, right?

Google Ride Finder is now folded in to Maps, right? At least Uber and Lyft
are, right?

Grand Central is basically rebranded as Voice, right?

Google Page Creator is basically Google Sites, right?

Writely became Google Docs, right?

~~~
panarky
Great points, this list is ridonkulous.

Tech companies quit, rename, reorganize and merge products all the time. Is
Google particularly worse than other tech firms?

I can think of some pretty big Microsoft pivots, and I don't begrudge them
their choices at all.

Media Center

Kinect

Zune

PlaysForSure DRM

Microsoft Money

Windows Home Server

Microsoft Kin Phone

Microsoft Mobile, previously known as Nokia

Windows 10 Mobile

The Band

TechNet

Hotmail

Live Messenger

Live Mesh

Groove Music Pass

Android and iOS versions of Groove Music

Encarta

Windows Small Business Server

Flight Simulator

Microsoft Works

Microsoft FrontPage

Windows Embedded Automotive, formerly Microsoft Auto, Windows CE for
Automotive, Windows Automotive, and Windows Mobile for Automotive

------
sanxiyn
Direct link: [https://killedbygoogle.com/](https://killedbygoogle.com/)

~~~
Navarr
I feel like some of these are stretching it..

For example, it lists the Google Glass OS and Google Glass separately - and
the latter is still an enterprise product.

Hardware models are listed (Nexus phones, Chromecast Audio, Chromebook Pixel)

~~~
bookofjoe
My 2013 Google Glass (consumer — not enterprise — version) still works
perfectly: doesn't this mean Glass & Glass OS haven't been killed?

------
edtechdev
Classic Google Sites will be discontinued in 2021:
[https://gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/2019/01/google-sites-
im...](https://gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/2019/01/google-sites-improvements-
new-roadmap.html)

~~~
r00fus
Who uses classic sites? It's more like a v1 to v2 forced upgrade than a
shutdown.

------
bashwizard
Next up: Stadia.

~~~
stillbourne
I asked in the Stadia announcement thread "How many years until its canceled
and our game libraries erased from all existence?" I got downvoted and someone
likened my comment to making fun of the fat kid at the gym. I was like, when
did this become hail corporate? Its not like Stadia is some type of new year's
resolution, but then again, Google will probably drop it as quickly if it
becomes unprofitable.

------
kristiandupont
Since my beloved Zeit has decided to go all Lambda, I need to move my hosting
somewhere. It struck me that even though Google is a very big player here, I
am worried that they might do something similar so I am much more inclined to
look at AWS or Azure. This, I guess, is a price they are paying for this
culture of exploration and pivots that I otherwise consider healthy in many
ways.

------
debacle
They've just recently announced Stadia, a streaming gaming platform. Industry
veterans immediately gave the product a 2 year lifespan.

~~~
qwerty9876
Quit the circlejerk.

Yeah, Google shuts off unpopular, unsuccesful projects. So what? Most of the
ones listed are literally useless and/or outdated relics of the past which
have been replaced by something better. Google is a business after all, not a
charity. They don't want to maintain an useless project from 2005 written
using who knows what technology stack.

If Stadia becomes mainstream and acquires a lot of users, they won't kill it
off as it will be profitable. If it has an user count of 500 in two years, it
will be gutted, why support an unprofitable product?

~~~
cannonedhamster
Google has purchased and killed off numerous profitable companies. They've
killed off Hangouts, Allo, Gchat, and I'm sure I'm forgetting a few wildly
popular chat services only to replace them with inferior products. They've
killed off Google Reader which someone built a clone of and appears to be
making a profit. They killed off Google Fiber, Nexus, and Glass all solid
hardware that many people are/were still using. The point is you can't trust
Google to not just drop something at a moment's notice, even if it's older or
profitable, try getting help from them as well good luck finding want kind of
support unless you happen to know someone inside the company personally. As a
business they are hard to work with and notoriously flaky, I'd always choose
to go elsewhere now after years of being a Google advocate. They're even
looking to replace Android so what can you trust from them?

~~~
joshuamorton
Neither Nexus nor glass was killed.

Nexus became pixel. Glass never left beta and is still an enterprise product.

~~~
llampx
Nexus and Pixel are very different. They are both phones but the market and
strategy is not the same.

~~~
joshuamorton
In what way?

The major differences are that Google is more involved with pixel hardware
design than nexus (probably a good thing), and that pixels are more expensive
(which follows the market price for flagship phones).

They both fill the niche of first-party flagship devices with the "pure, as
google intended" (or something) android experience.

------
Wohlf
I don't think it's a bad thing for a company to try out new products and
services to see what sticks, then kill off ones that aren't working, the
alternative is to stagnate and slowly die out. It does sting as a consumer
when something you use is killed off.

Some of these were killed off because the functionality was added to other
products. I was an Inbox user until the app warned me it would be discontinued
recently, but all the features were added to the Gmail app.

~~~
micael_dias
Except Inbox was so much better. Gmail is so heavy for what I want from email.
Also, Inbox grouped emails related to a trip and showed a summary of the trip,
from what I can see Gmail doesn't do this.

------
sct202
At least it gives an opening to someone else to try to fill the need if it was
useful.

~~~
O1111OOO
> someone else to try to fill the need

There aren't many Google Products that I really missed (or even used) that are
on that suspicious site[0] (and echoed by a news source w/o verification)
except for _Reader_.

You are right: for _Reader_ , someone didn't just fill the need, many
different someones filled that need. Honestly didn't miss a beat when Reader
was shut down. The alternative, non-BigTech solutions, have been awesome.

[0] I say suspicious because the coder acknowledges that he created the site
out of anger over _Inbox_. As a result, he has lost objectivity and it shows.

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bookofjoe
Up to 147 now

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moocowtruck
don't really like when they kill good products, but was hoping dart will soon
be on the list

~~~
tazard
I have never used dart, but always thought it looked interesting. Can I ask
what you don't like about it?

