Your dismiss response has made me even more confident Google plans to immediately abandon this (as well as other services I might be interested in, including end-user ones like Stadia), not less.

It's not a meme. It's a very real problem that prevents people from wanting to invest in Google services. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy too when people don't use these services, then they get shuttered for low usage.

Google has a huge amount of work to do to earn the trust they've burned, and responses like this damage the cause further. You've cemented firmly in my mind that staying the hell away from this and anything Google has to offer is the right choice, as they clearly don't take this problem seriously and won't even acknowledge it.

I really think you should reconsider.

The point is, what differentiates products that come out of this project from another startup that is also struggling to stay afloat? If the answer is nothing, then why should anyone treat you any differently (because those other companies also get hit hard on that point)? Why shouldn't customers be weary about relying on your products if there isn't a commitment? You are free to call it a boring meme, but to me, these are very valid concerns. Sorry, you don't get a free pass because you're Google, and IMHO it should get scrutinized even more because its from Google for obvious reasons (poor privacy, track record of poor UI performance, s/w is often sluggish/resource hog, etc, etc)

>Then you have a company like Microsoft that keeps things around in perpetuity, but sometimes to the chagrin of users who want new features added or you get incongruent UX (you can still find plenty of very old apps in Windows 10). And this is fine too, but it's not a meme and so never comes up.

I'm not exactly the biggest fan of MS, but our company has saved tens of thousands of dollars in software costs because we could use old software designed for Win XP/7 on Win 10 w/o re-buying the software from the vendor. (Biotech s/w costs can get super crazy, esp with 21CFR validation)

It's not a "meme". It's a real fact that anyone who's considering depending on a Google product has to consider.

It's also a consequence of the business models that Google has explicitly chosen, i.e. your employer has chosen to incur this reputation.

Even if the complete public distrust of the companies ability to be reliable is "just a meme" it's brand damaging and creates a scenario that impacts adoption of new products.

While products come and go is true, it's more a matter of scale on why this reputation exists.

I know I personally have been burned by the platform I was using going out from beneath me. That memory comes up each time I am considering between an AWS (where its never happened to me), azure, and google cloud solution.

Really not helping the condescending Googler stereotype there bud. Or perhaps its OK for you to be this way as a tech "elite" that makes $450k a year.

There's that trademark Google arrogance we all know and love.

Have they fixed the incentives yet? Or is it still "ship = good, maintain = bad," guaranteeing that the pattern continues?