

All the Mashed Potatoes - tambourine_man
http://daringfireball.net/2013/05/all_the_mashed_potatoes

======
thaumaturgy
Gruber might be struggling to make the point that Google seems unfocused right
now. At least, I hope that's the point he's trying to make; it's the only one
I can see that might have some validity.

He sees some kind of hypocrisy in Google that doesn't exist in other major
companies, including Apple. The quote from Jony Ive is distracting (of course
Apple's goal was to make money -- otherwise Apple's pricing would've resulted
in a different financial outcome than "more money than God"), but Gruber seems
to think there's still some kind of difference between that quote and Larry
Page's recent comments.

At first glance, Page seems to be saying much the same as Ive: that the focus
is (or should be) on product development. Ive says, "we focus on great
products and money will follow", Page says, "we [as an industry] should be
focusing on building great things".

You can watch Page's keynote speech at [http://www.businessinsider.com/larry-
page-google-io-speech-2...](http://www.businessinsider.com/larry-page-google-
io-speech-2013-5) \-- the comments relevant to the current discussion start at
~2:57:00, but the whole speech is worth listening to.

I think Page is just saying, "look, if the industry stopped focusing on Google
versus someone else, we'd all get to enjoy better technology and a better
life." He expresses his frustration with companies that resist cooperating. I
don't see any hypocrisy here; he's expressing a positive attitude about the
future of the tech industry and its role in people's lives -- and that, to get
to that future, other people and companies need to change their attitude too.

Gruber seems to interpret all of that as Page saying, "Google doesn't deserve
criticism for competing with other companies".

So that's a poor interpretation of what Page was saying.

 _But_ , I think it's clear that not all of Google's products fit Page's
vision of the future, either.

For a while, Google seemed to operate on a business model that depended on
applying their strengths from one problem to the next. In developing its
search product, Google pioneered massively scalable storage and processing
technology. They then applied that to email. When it was released on an
invitation basis, Gmail's storage and search & filter capabilities were
revolutionary. Google then applied its AJAX technology in Gmail and storage
technology in Search to a new Maps product. Google Labs was essentially an
effort to see how Google could apply its resources and skills to other
problems. (For brevity's sake I'm going to skip over a mind-boggling number of
other products.)

Then there was a subtle change in Google's focus: they went from focusing on
stuff they could do well, to focusing on stuff that other people weren't doing
well. I think this might be where Gruber sees hypocrisy.

Android (and the Nexus) was Google's answer to the way Apple handled the
market it developed. Remember that the iPhone wasn't even available on non-
AT&T networks for _years_ , and that Apple got into an aggressive war with
users and hackers that attempted to use the devices in ways that Apple didn't
design for. The App Store, when it came out, was the first serious effort to
centralize all third-party software distribution for a platform. Suddenly, the
device wasn't really _yours_ anymore. So, I think Google's top management
looked at that and said, "we don't like where this is going, let's build our
own version of this."

Google Plus was Google's answer to Facebook. There was a similar situation
here: Facebook had suffered a number of criticisms over user privacy, the
inability to delete accounts, and the inability to export your data.

More recently, there seems to have been another change in Google's focus: they
want to be the one-stop shop for everything someone might need online. This is
the only way I can see GPMAA fitting into Google's product development. It
doesn't appear to do anything better than Spotify
([http://techland.time.com/2013/05/16/google-play-music-all-
ac...](http://techland.time.com/2013/05/16/google-play-music-all-access-
review-not-a-spotify-competitor-after-all/)) or other players in the industry;
it just exists as an alternative to other services so that Google's user base
has one less reason to ever leave the Google brand umbrella.

Contrast this with Apple's approach, which (under Jobs) was to focus with
laser-like attention on a single new market, nail that down with a few new
products or services, then put it on life support and move on to the next
market.

So, I think Page was being genuine in his speech, but Gruber and others are
having difficulty reconciling his statements with a Google that seems to want
to own a piece of everything.

~~~
djanogo
I disagree, the article was pretty clear with that point about Google just
feeding to Googlers what they want to hear(like politicians?). Google can
enter any market they want and run that product with loss just to put the
competitor's product out of market.

I also disagree with your suggestion that Google plus was created because
Facebook had privacy issues, it's pretty much well known that Plus was created
to protect the future of it's core money making product. Ads.

However as article points out, this is capitalism at work. Gruber's point is
google is just trying to sugar coat this.

~~~
thaumaturgy
People aren't going to abandon competitors just because Google offers a
cheaper service. I don't think we know Larry Page well enough to adopt a
cynical interpretation of his time on stage.

"It's pretty much well known" translates to, "this is the reasoning a lot of
people have decided they like, it's entirely guesswork." The _stated_ reason
for Google+, from the introductory blog post
([http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/introducing-google-
pr...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/introducing-google-project-real-
life.html)), was, "In this basic, human way, online sharing is awkward. Even
broken. And we aim to fix it." If someone wants to make the claim that one of
Google's motivations was _also_ to make more ad revenue, I certainly wouldn't
disagree. But, I think that at that stage of the company, Google's executives
simply chose to compete with Facebook because of the at-the-time well-
publicized problems people had with Facebook. I'd need to see some actual
evidence, like statements from Google executives or insiders closely
associated with the project, before I'd believe that Google+ was only about ad
revenue.

If that's Gruber's point, it would be a remarkably stupid one to make. I'd
rather give him a little more credit than that.

------
kibibu
I think it's very difficult to underestimate just how much good will Google
have lost recently, and I suspect it's almost entirely due to shutting down
Google Reader.

While it's not the end of the world, there has been a _marked_ shift in the
narrative around Google's products and services after that announcement, and
you'll notice that _every_ new announcement from Google has some sort of "but
how long will it last?" commentary.

------
taylodl
_What rankles about Google is their hypocrisy._

Google is an order of magnitude more evil than Microsoft had ever hoped to be
and yet Microsoft was unabashed for who they were. Google continues to
deceive. Deception is a fundamental component of their corporate strategy.

~~~
cleverjake
Do go on

------
shimsham
Rankles is a great word. Google appears to have at least as many
googlepologists as apple does fanbois, tho one doesn't recognise that whilst
the other sees it for what it is.

------
pupppet
What do you expect from Apple's unofficial cheerleader. He's made a career out
of shaking his pom-poms in Apple's direction.

