A few weeks ago someone here (or was it on Reddit?) explained this: Since Google found advertising to be a huge hose where money pours out like crazy, they're trying to find another such hose.
I think that explains a lot of their behaviour and why they're even shutting down seemingly successful (from a user's view) services - because they don't earn enough money.
Another big point is that to be successful at Google, you have to create new projects. Nobody gets promoted by maintaining existing projects. Also, it seems as if there's no communication between groups. So if a group gets reassigned or key people leave, their project (e.g. the umpteenth messenger app) gets sunset, too.
I don't think this is all political, but rather they're aimlessly throwing projects at the wall to see which stick.
> Since Google found advertising to be a huge hose where money pours out like crazy, they're trying to find another such hose.
Other than advertising, which scales like crazy and has negligible unit costs, there isn't much that would meaningfully move the needle at Google scale. Cloud computing would work there, but it's definitely a lower margin business than selling ads online, since there are actual costs for hardware and ongoing software maintenance.
> I don't think this is all political, but rather they're aimlessly throwing projects at the wall to see which stick.
Which is kind of funny, because a decade or so ago, Larry Page said that they'd put "more wood behind fewer arrows." [0] That article even mentions Google+:
> Can Google still push the creative envelope without a testing facility? That’s yet to be proven. Although last month’s successful launch of Google+ could be taken as an early indication that Google’s knack for inventiveness will live on outside of the lab.
I guess that's move fast and fail fast for you. It's like a weed generating lots of tiny seeds to make sure as many potentially fertile spots as possible get explored.
I think that explains a lot of their behaviour and why they're even shutting down seemingly successful (from a user's view) services - because they don't earn enough money.
Another big point is that to be successful at Google, you have to create new projects. Nobody gets promoted by maintaining existing projects. Also, it seems as if there's no communication between groups. So if a group gets reassigned or key people leave, their project (e.g. the umpteenth messenger app) gets sunset, too.
I don't think this is all political, but rather they're aimlessly throwing projects at the wall to see which stick.