The Podcasts app is just the latest product to go through a process I’ve come to call The Google Cycle. It always goes the same way: the company launches a new service with grandiose language about how this fits its mission of organizing and making accessible the world’s information, quickly updates it with a couple of neat features, immediately seems to forget it exists, eventually launches a competitor out of some other part of the company, obviously begins to deprecate it and shift focus to the new competitor, and then, years later, finally shuts it down for real. The Google Graveyard is full of apps like Reader, Duo, Inbox, Allo, Wallet, and countless others that have been through The Google Cycle, and it feels just as bad every time.

  • jeromyokc@lemmy.okla.social
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    3 months ago

    I first started not trusting them when they killed off Reader. Then when they announced the end of the free google workspaces (Apps), I was done. I moved my email/drive over to a paid account on 365. I finally have Immich running to replace Photos finally, it runs great and it’s getting backed up to backblaze.

    • alansuspect@aussie.zone
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      3 months ago

      Damn I forgot about Reader 😞 I kept my late-00s “Legacy” Google Apps account until the end of last year, when their discounted rate (after fully removing free) was about to go up.

      • Timwi@kbin.social
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        3 months ago

        I’ve been using Backblaze since 2017 when CrashPlan shut down. Have not run into a catch yet, except of course the possibility of it going the way of CrashPlan one day.