So there are two arguments being made in this situation. The first is that because Google kills off services and products all of the time, that taking their word for a 7-year promise is foolish. In other words, you might not want to trust them because they killed off a Pixel Pass that 25 people signed up for, a Google Podcasts app that was basically a browser in an app shell that was given a proper replacement, a niche business presentation screen in Jamboard, and Stadia…freaking Stadia. They gave you all of your money back and let you keep the controller, guys.
C’mon guys they had a “proper replacement” and let you keep the controller! They’re not all that bad! 👅🥾
I’ll never forgive them for Google Play Music.
I do however believe they’re going to stick to their word here though. They make the processor and the OS, it’d have to take some extreme ignorance to fuck that up. It’s not like they’re reliant on Qualcomm to release new drivers for the chip, one of the big reasons devices stop being updates.
The article makes valid points but completely misses the real point. The real point, that has been pointed out every single time Google kills another product, is that every time they do that it erodes user trust. This point has been harped on for years, with more and more people agreeing with it the more and more Google kills products.
Is it any surprise then, that we’re finally reaching a critical mass of users not trusting Google? It’s less update this specific promise being untrustworthy, then the entire company being untrustworthy and this just happens to be the point that the dialogue had changed.
It’s a free app that syncs files to a central location. In my case, I sync any photo or video I take on my Pixel 7 to my Pixel 1. The Photos app on my Pixel 1 then uploads the new photos to Google Photos.
Also in defense of Google - I’m still grandfathered in to the $8 plan for YouTube premium because I signed up and have remained subscribed since 2013 when they offered promotional pricing at the beginning of Google Play Music. Years later, they added YouTube Red (now Premium) to the subscription which REALLY sweetened the pot. But they’ve never bumped my subscription price up.
IDK why people are downvoting. I could see it being decent for YT Music but for YT Premium you’re literally paying for features free software can do for free. So it’s not really a good deal by any metric.
Alright, can you elaborate on these ways? You could support a particular creator via Patreon, or by buying their merch, sure. What if somebody you’ve never watched before releases a very good video that you stumble upon and watch? What if you don’t have the financial resources to be a part of dozens of separate patreons?
As far as I’m concerned, YT Premium is the best way for me to support all of the creators behind the videos I watch. For me, I also like YT Music so this ends up being a pretty good deal overall
You can easily buy memberships for channels, which gives more money than premium. In fact, most memberships for channels I frequent are $0.99 a month, so you can definitely afford to support 10-15 of them for the same price as premium.
That’s great that it’s a good deal for you, but it doesn’t change the fact that google took features that were free to use and locked them behind a paywall. So by default it’s a bad deal on that front alone.
I don’t think that’s what a bad deal is. I make decisions based on what is a good deal for me and things I care about.
With YT Premium for $10/mo I get:
support unlimited amount of creators based on watch time
no ads
YT Music (which is pretty good imo)
Support infrastructure behind service
Without YT Premium for $10/mo I get:
support 10 creators directly
ads (or constantly fight battle to block them)
Now, I fully agree that removing features that were previously paid is a dick move, but those aren’t why I have YT Premium anyways. I just don’t think it is an objectively “bad” deal
Ah yes, let’s defend Google for not raising the price of features that were free to begin with like listening with screen off and background listening? Not really sure how much lower the bar can get here
Be prepared to pay when it dies. I assumed it wouldn’t count when I got a new phone. It does. So now they want me to sign up for a plan. Well, now they want me to pay more for a higher tier. I got a nas instead. I’m cancelling the plan.
I forgot that I had years of free uploads from my Pixel 2. That eventually expired. But I never had to pay for those uploads.
I also had 100 extra GB for two years for being one of the first Google Maps guides, populating the map with the first photos of businesses etc. When that expired, I did have to start paying. Google are smart - they got me addicted to having all my files right there wherever I was. It’s only $20ish per year for that tier, I have been happy to pay for it. I think this might be what happened to you. You may have had some sort of promotion that expired.
I never had to do this with all the media I uploaded via my Pixel 2 back when it has those benefits. Everything I uploaded that way counts zero toward my storage cap, to this day.
Maybe I’m just using lots of storage as I’ve got kids and that means lots of photos and videos. However, it seemed odd at the time, however it’s a few years since I noticed.
7 years of security updates is a promise that my phone won’t regress from where it was when I bought it - I typically buy a mid-ish range phone (currently running a Pixel 7a) when they are brand new, and run it for ~3 years before I start to want an upgrade. Lack of security updates usually forces the issue, so a phone with 7 years of security updates guarantees that I’ll want to upgrade before I’m forced to, and will be able to pass the phone along to a relative. Where I am, a claim like “we will provide security support until X” is backed up by consumer law, so I’d be entitled to a full refund if they fail to meet that guarantee.
Buying a phone because the manufacturer promises “feature drops” or because you expect that a future version of the OS will have some amazing features you want is like buying a preorder game - you are a fool for trusting marketing without concrete details
The thing is that they’ve clearly promised 7 years now, walking back on the promise would cause them massive issues with consumer protection agencies everywhere they sell - they might be toothless in the US, but Google also sells Pixels in Japan and the EU.
We’re now at the point where tech media has turned and will now have you believe Google should be questioned, is untrustworthy, and that their promise means nothing
This is worse than even the most insufferable apple fanboy.
The phones are nearly identical. The Pro has more RAM, a different secondary camera, and a third camera.
Apple absolutely should be (and is frequently) criticized for artificially locking features to certain models.
Obviously it’s a good thing to have increased software support. 7 years of security updates is, on its own, a big deal. Google deserves credit for that. But they also deserve to be called out on their bullshit, same as Apple or any other company.
What are you talking about? Apple should be lauded for at least having the phone tiers that they have. There’s choice for every type of buyer. The 15 pro vs pro max is 3x zoom and 5x zoom. That’s IT. You get the same features between each pro phone and get to choose the size that works for you.
Google has hamstrung the smaller phone with a worse screen, much worse camera system (video boost is locked to 8 Pro), no temperature sensor, slower wireless charging speeds, less RAM, gorilla glass Victus 1 vs 2, and an annoyingly glossy back glass.
I bought an 8 Pro for the camera system because I didn’t want to be locked out of the better ultra wide and telephoto, but I wish I could have gotten that in a smaller size.
In other words, you might not want to trust them because they killed off a Pixel Pass that 25 people signed up for, a Google Podcasts app that was basically a browser in an app shell that was given a proper replacement, a niche business presentation screen in Jamboard, and Stadia…freaking Stadia. They gave you all of your money back and let you keep the controller, guys.
It’s not a good look when right off the bat it dismisses what is valid concerns by treating the opposition like they’re just whining.
For real I was going to say this reads like a Google marketing AstroTurf. Just watched the linked MKBHD video and it’s not unfair; definitely not “weird”
I dunno, I kinda don’t disagree with them. Companies discontinue products all the time, and Google just seems to get a lot more flak for it.
Apples discontinued the iPod, and a bunch of different hardware devices. I’m about as worried that they’ll discontinue the iPhone as I am that Google will discontinue the pixel line.
I think more Pixel’s a true flagship product. Big Tech corps are always launching likely contenders, then they evaluate them over time and if the benefits don’t realize or they find a better product it gets discontinued.
But some products are proven. The only way Alphabet and Apple would discontinue their flagship phones is if there’s some kind of mass turn away from mobile phones. Same as how Alphabet is not going to exit the search engine field.
More that the concern feels hyperbolic. You should feel as much concern of Google canceling a flagship product as you do about apple doing so. I don’t see iPhones, pixels, or say, Kindles going anywhere soon.
It just doesn’t feel like a reasonable concern, proportional to how much attention it gets.
Google discontinue a lot more than almost anyone else though. It’s a meme at this point how often they kill things off. Does a website like this exist for any other company?
Google probably kills products that don’t hit their internal success metrics, and this allows them to go on and try new things instead of maintaining products that didn’t work out.
Have they made some questionable decisions? Sure.
However, for the Pixel to stop receiving these updates, that would essentially mean that Google is discontinuing Android development and there are much bigger concerns (ie Apple monopoly on smartphone OS).
Google will absolutely be stopping Android development in the relatively near future. They’re already making almost all the new features pixel exclusive, never making their way to AOSP.
Ok bud. They’re making pixel exclusive features, because it depends on their tensor chip. The whole point of the Pixel exclusive features is to draw people to the Pixels over other android devices.
Do you have any actual sources for this, or is this just an assumption because “Google bad and kills all their products!”
Will Google also stop developing their other products that actually bring a profit, like their search engine and Google ads?
Their pixel exclusive features absolutely do not require the tensor SOC. They would work on any flagship chip.
The source is Google want to be Apple with respect to phones. They crave that locked down closed source OS where everyone is beholden to them. They don’t like that their product is used against them by their competitors who often do it better. They’ll drop android development in the relatively near future 100%, when they have their closed source replacement.
No? Not sure how you got that from what I posted lol.
Google aren’t going to kill android. I never said that. What they’re going to do is make a new OS for their mobiles and devices and stop android development. As I pointed out, they’ve already begun this with fuchsia and by not adding 90% of their new OS features to AOSP. They don’t want their OS to be open source anymore, that was just how they would capture the market they wanted.
The last few Android OS versions outside of pixels have just been essentially UI and security updates. Virtually no new features. Everything is pixel exclusive. This is their way of weaning off Android into their new closed source OS. They’ve already updated all of their Google home hubs to fuchsia.
Ok so if Google can’t really kill Android, then why are people upset or concerned about this seven year promise?
Also since Google has “Seven years of OS, Security and feature drop updates” listed as part of the specs of the 8 Pro, they have to actually ship seven years of OS (Android, you can’t switch this to something else or they can be sued, and I’m sure Google wouldn’t want to pay these fines).
So then they are not patching security issues? Yeah I don’t think that will go over too well, specifically with the EU. It may not be a quick and easy process, but statements like this have consequences.
Well, no, but that doesn’t mean that it’s an accurate assessment.
Additionally, have you ever actually read what they put on that site? If Google changes the name of a product, then they “killed” the original. If they merge a product into another, then they killed one or both.
Did you know they killed Google street view? It’s now just a tab in maps. They also at one point had “leaving reviews of businesses” as a separate system, which they also killed by making it a core feature.
But yes, Google does kill more products than some other companies. They also make more products available than others. Apple has never developed a car, a series of bipedal robots, or blood sugar monitoring contact lenses.
So yeah, it’s a meme. I don’t generally take memes as honest statements of fact.
Because the opposition frames the situation as Google never keeping any promise ever, in addition to refusing to acknowledge Google’s positive precedent with Android updates.
If you view the Android update situation in isolation, you’ll see that in the 10+ years Google has sold Pixel and Nexus phones, they have kept each one of their Android update promises.
Stadia was amazing. I blame everyone but Google on its demise. You could literally play CP 2077 without a console but people still stuck to PlayStation and Xbox. Google handled the shutdown so well. I played around $500 worth of games got the money back. Kept two controllers and bought a steam deck with that money
Without a doubt it was amazing and me and my family were extremely sad, but in the end what is there to be mad about with stadia… I was part of something different, I was also a founder and played all the time. I think I owned all the games before I didn’t 😂
Cloud gaming is bad for history. If the game was only released for the cloud, and that game is shut down, or the cloud service shuts down, that game is gone forever.
They want to push it, because it gives them control over every aspect of the experience. They know everything you do in the game, you can’t mod it, you can’t pirate, you can’t play offline, you can’t do anything unless they say you can.
In 2015 Google said “With Google Photos, you can now back up and store unlimited high-quality photos and videos for free”. This is no longer true, even considering their vague corporate speak promise of “unlimited high-quality”. By Google’s own wording within the Google Photos app the options are “Original quality” or “Storage Saver”. There is no high-quality unlimited option.
But it’s not even about explicit promises. It’s about the constant erosion of user trust. Having to read into the details and interpret marketing vs legal speak does nothing to alleviate that Google has done this to themselves.
This lacks context and they did keep this promise after a fashion. They never promised it would be consistent across any phones but the pixel line at the time, and additionally never said it would continue on new pixel phones.
There’s a lot of asterisks attached to that sentence. My point being that no one wants to think about all the ways Google is going to wiggle out of its commitments each time they make a new one. It erodes trust and I’m glad that they are getting more and more negative press about it. They need to be held accountable. Their strategy of making a product at a loss while they drive out all competition until they realise it’s not a billion dollar product and promptly shut it down while shafting everyone who grew to rely on it needs to stop.
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