The biggest problem with Google is that they became so successful in search and ads. It confuses the hell out of the company who their real customer is.
What if instead of monetizing via ads, they had gone with premium accounts with personal search history and enterprise search products? That would have forced them to innovate on their core expertise and kept them empathetic to the end user. Right now, all they care is about usage stats.
Also Google never had a good design ethic right from the beginning. Early products like Chat, Groups were badly designed and very inconsistent. They cared more about scale and performance at that point.
The Google we see today is probably because of those early decisions made on the backs of runaway ad revenue. I hope the management has a change of heart, because I can see other companies chipping away at Google otherwise.
What if instead of monetizing via ads, they had gone with premium accounts with personal search history and enterprise search products? That would have forced them to innovate on their core expertise and kept them empathetic to the end user. Right now, all they care is about usage stats.
Also Google never had a good design ethic right from the beginning. Early products like Chat, Groups were badly designed and very inconsistent. They cared more about scale and performance at that point.
The Google we see today is probably because of those early decisions made on the backs of runaway ad revenue. I hope the management has a change of heart, because I can see other companies chipping away at Google otherwise.