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Comment by UncleMeat | Hacker News Reader

> Google doesn't care about you or what you think.

I find the Google/Startup dichotomy here fascinating. We are on hackernews, a site focused on startups. Pivoting dramatically, including throwing away your entire customer base for a different population, is considered an essential part of running a startup. But if a big company has a product that is obviously stagnating at a small userbase then the community demands that it be supported in perpetuity.

There is a pair of Cole Haan shoes I really like. I bought several of the same exact style over the years. It was eventually phased out. I can't buy it anymore. Is Cole Haan narcissistic for not offering me the shoe I want?

Is it narcissism, or good business?

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Why is it fascinating if it's not a false dichotomy? Google is not a startup. It's like saying that you're puzzled because companies operating from a garage are not held to the same standards than a fortune 500.

When Google tries to be disruptive in an emerging niche, it does it with a backing (brand & money) that could effectively snuff the smaller (and more willing) competition that it finds already operating in the arena. It enters as the 800lbs big G, smashing everything in its wake. Then sometime later, loses interest and goes home with its ball, leaving its users and the surviving smaller competition to figure out what's next.

Edit: If the service truly represents a dead end, why not sell it?

> Edit: If the service truly represents a dead end, why not sell it?

The practical reason is that it's statically compiled out of the monorepo and hosted on borg behind GFEs so there's really nothing to sell except the codebase and infrastructure of Google of which a snippet is the service in question, and the licensing that makes it possible is probably non-transferrable.

> The practical reason is that it's statically compiled out of the monorepo and hosted on borg behind GFEs so there's really nothing to sell except the codebase and infrastructure of Google of which a snippet is the service in question, and the licensing that makes it possible is probably non-transferrable.

That's not a practical reason, if it was a small company they would sell it.

The real reason is that Google would prefer to kill the service than have it continue with another owner which would compete with other Google offerings. And compared to Google's overall value, they don't particularly need the sale price.

The Real Reason (tm).

Why not both?

> The real reason is that Google would prefer to kill the service than have it continue with another owner which would compete with other Google offerings. And compared to Google's overall value, they don't particularly need the sale price.

The other problem is that if it's a dead or dead-end service then who would buy it? Maybe VC is easier than I thought... Perhaps Google values services more than most. They certainly spend a lot when acquiring other companies. Who would pay $2B for Google Reader or Daydream?

I think the other thing that was unstated in my last comment is that a lot of Google products are not much more than a veneer over material design and a bigtable or spanner backend. What is there to sell aside from the concept, glue code, and design work? The data? Now there's something that would really get people up in arms.

If you want to argue that the data Google has is very valuable then I agree wholeheartedly. It's also not going to sell that data which would be suicide from a privacy perspective. Letting new products use existing data is also pretty valuable, but doesn't make the resulting product as useful to anyone else.

> The other problem is that if it's a dead or dead-end service then who would buy it?

I guess also, a service that is ‘dead’ to google might be a huge userbase to another company.

It’s bad business if users won’t buy in future because you get a reputation for axing products, and/or you never apply yourself well to any one thing.

It’s debatable whether many people outside HN actually hold a grudge; Google’s overall favorability ratings are crazily high. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Stadia had a rough launch because of Google’s reputation.

Shoes are a bad analogy because there is little switching cost; you just ties a different pair of laces and you’re done. If you had five years of playlists on G Music and now you have to move them to Spotify, that’s a major project. (Source: I did this, and it took me many hours).

Put differently, as a happy customer, you don’t want the company to pivot. It’s usually bad news for all of the existing happy customers. A successful pivot is great for the company, hopefully great for the new happy users, and very disruptive for the old customers. In the best cases the net utility is even positive.

Your comment about Stadia gave me this thought. What odds would I be willing to bet that Stadia would be around in 5 years. I wouldn't take a even money bet. Maybe 5:1 that they'd still be functioning in 2025?

(edit, made the odds clearer)

It's an interesting question, I think i'd give it less than 10% but above 1%. It's outside their core competency, it involves them negotiating with rightsholders, and there's a bunch of competition coming from existing companies in the space (e.g. Microsoft, NVidia, etc.).

As I can see, their only edge is that they own a global content delivery network which in the best case might be able to give them a few years' head-start in terms of performance vs. other players that don't own IP infrastructure. (It's a recent development that cloud-hosted gaming is even viable from a latency perspective). But that doesn't seem like the core long-term problem; it might give you a first-mover advantage but I don't see that being enough to build a defensible moat in this space.

"Is Cole Haan narcissistic for not offering me the shoe I want?"

Yes. Absolutely.

First, shoes and music streaming are NOTHING alike.

Many products like shoes are so close to mass customization. Levis finally, mostly got smart about this.

Why can't I reorder the exact same glasses, shoes, jeans that fit?

It's mostly because of the broken feedback loops, missing backward flow of information. The designer, fashion buyer, PHB absolutely knows what you should want. Your opinion is moot.

Oh gosh it'd cost so much to build the infrastructure, complication, returns, we'd have to pay laborers a few pennies more blah blah blah.

Excuses.

I don't care.

Just make the shoes I want and I'll be a loyal customer forever.

PS- I asked LA Eyeworks to resume making the Big Bodhi (John Lennon, Steve Jobs) glasses for 20+ years. The pair I bought in the 90s were finally beyond repair. The lady I bought from said she could sell two dozen pairs overnight. I visited the original LA Eyeworks store twice, to make a personal appeal. Nope. Can't be done. Not possible. (The Big Bodhi are XL size, for my big pumpkin head.)

PPS- Speaking of Cole Haan... I had a pair that I absolutely loved. Bought them for working conventions. Standing on that concrete all day for 3-4 days. Sucks. Think of fashionable postman shoes. Gods, I loved those shoes. LOVED THEM. Best shoes I've ever owned. I tried so many times to replace them. I'm so mad at Cole Haan. I LOATHE them. Apparently they were bought by Nike or something and completely went to shit.

>"Is Cole Haan narcissistic for not offering me the shoe I want?" >Yes. Absolutely.

A mirror might help with your narcissist detection. There's a lot more involved in manufacturing than one person or even 20 people wanting it and that 3D printers exist doesn't change the equation so much. They've been around for a while. The short of it is a larger market is far more appealing than your brand of customer loyalty.

ELI5 why Cole Haan, LA Eyeworks can't do this:

https://www.levi.com/US/en_US/blog/category/make-it-yours/

Mea culpa: Worked for fashion retailer on recommendation engine. Have some experience with the players.

Your industry experience aside, are you asking why a ~2500 person company can't magically copy the latest tactic of a ~15000 company for just one of its product types? Are you asking why one niche of a clothing brand doesn't just do what the prime source for one of the most popular clothing items of all time does?

Or would you like to dive into the logistics of customized manufacturing when applied to ~$200 items?

Well. Then.

I'll save myself some time and just skip to The Correct Answer:

Made-to-order is the next growth opportunity. (Fast fashion has been played out.)

I'd watch someone like StitchFix or Trunk Club. They'll shorten the supply chain somehow (partnership, M&A, investment). Start offering made to order on select items. Strategically.

They'll need to do better measurements. Add MTailor features or equivalent.

Some are doing pop-ups, concierge. I'm now bearish on that approach. Mostly because of coronavirus. But I just can't think of any of the current players getting that kind of smart. I'll be delighted if someone proves me wrong.

I tuned out about 18mo ago. So haven't kept up. I'm told there's an MTailor like thing for sizing glasses.

I still don't have a clue how someone can do remote shoe sizing. Right now, everything's inferred from returns. But that's like diagnosing TBIs using phrenology.

I'm sure Amazon will continue to try any thing and everything. I haven't looked at their latest fashion effort. Mostly because whatever they do is a non-starter. Authenticity is table stakes for fashion, fast fashion, and therefore made to order. They'll certainly steal other people's lunch money, but are otherwise constitutionally incapable of anything new. Further, Amazon is entirely wholly hostile to authenticity. For them to pivot towards would invalidate their raison d'être. It could happen. I'm just betting against.

"...when applied to ~$200 items?"

You crack me up.

I dislike when a company throws away a user's data. It's not great for a startup, but at least there's the excuse that they ran out of money or whatever. Google doesn't even have that reason. They deleted our data when they 100% had the option not to.

I'll admit, I don't work in the startup space. However, it seems to me that Google doesn't really run their products like a startup generally does. It seems like adapting your product to your existing client base is usually better than launching a similar but different product while your current one is live. Once you've fragmented your user base then shuttering one of your products and (hoping?) that the users who didn't migrate will finally migrate to your new product... that seems like a lot of unnecessary risk? Or maybe that's just the startup game?

I feel like if startups ran their business like google runs their products, they'd fail pretty quickly. Am I off base here?

Talent retention. All the side projects are makework, amusement, seduction. So the top talent doesn't wander off to work some where else.

Is this true or is it what Googlers who work on the low priority products that will inevitably be killed off after a few years tell themselves to feel better about working on what is essentially shovelware clones of the latest idea someone else is having some success with?

Google are big enough and generate enough profit that they can afford to have entire divisions of developers who are kept around in case they're needed one day. That doesn't make those people good developers though. Obviously there are some very capable people on those teams, but if they're genuinely talented why aren't they working on Search or Ads? That's what makes Google money, so that's why the best people end up, not on little side projects.

I suspect this is just fatigue of seeing Google involved in yet another story along these lines. It has the emotional brand baggage of dozens of cancelled and pivoted products - of which a single user could have experienced many.

define 'small userbase'. one million users is small for google but any startup with such number would be an unicorn, or close to.

This is known as 'The Innovators Dilemma' and there is a book by the same name by Clayton Christensen[1].

Essentially, the bigger you get the harder it is to go after "small" opportunities. But some of the biggest disruptions come from those "small" problems.

It's a fine way to look for niches to exploit for a startup.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma

You are witnessing the brand lifecycle.

Facebook, Amazon, and Google are no longer the new underdogs and are old enough to be in the disenfranchisement trough. They will eventually stabilize like Apple and Microsoft.

Off-topic, were they the Cole Haan Grand Pro Runners?

Best shoes I’ve ever owned...

Software ain't fashion.

It's just good business, but that won't stop aging millenials from living up to their "entitlement generation" moniker by claiming it's narcissism.

It might be good business if it weren't Google. Have you used Youtube Music, their replacement service?

It's garbage. It's barely usable. I'm going to have to switch to Spotify.

Google always does this thing where it trashes a mature service and replaces it with something really new and immature that doesn't fit the use case of their previous customers in the hopes that they'll acquire new customers. But there's no sales pitch for Youtube Music. It doesn't do anything new. It's just, "the last one wasn't as successful as we'd like, so let's change things up a bit." And with an attitude like that, the next one won't be successful either. Which is why Google keeps doing this over and over.

They have corporate commitment problems. They never take a service and make it good, they just scrap it and start a new one in the hopes that they'll luck into a big hit. They've had like a dozen different instant-messaging apps in the past decade, and none of them ever caught on, because they keep scrapping them. I couldn't even tell you what the current iteration is. I used to use Google Allo a bit, which was their last one, but then they scrapped that and made this most recent one. I don't know why they do this.

I ended up switching to Apple Music. I know, I know, Apple, but like Google Music, they allow me to upload any music I have MP3s of. That includes all the tracks I bought from bands I love (usually through bandcamp, or ripped CDs) who aren't on streaming services yet.

Just import them into the music app on my laptop, sync my library, and boom those tracks are available everywhere, just like google music. I actually like it better, since it's an actual app and I don't need to upload the tracks through chrome – I don't use chrome, I use firefox, and I used to have to use chrome just to upload my music.

Just looked up Apple music myself and I'm surprised its available on Android. I might consider switching, I love being able to upload my mp3's, but YouTube Music has some crappy bugs, like choosing low quality YouTube versions of music, and always having the manually turn on shuffle for a playlist every time I drive my car.

People paying for a service and wanting it to continue existing is “entitlement” these days?

Of course not, but not enough people paying for a service and expecting it to continue, is.

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