Google Helpout is shutting down

Google Helpout is shutting down(support.google.com)

14 points by aren55555 11 years ago | 3 comments

tsomctl 11 years ago |

Let's say you're traveling, passing through a foreign city, and are going to spend the night there. Several days previous, you had talked to an acquaintance, and they were going to let you sleep on their floor for the night. Now, when you show up, the acquaintance closes the door in your face and you have to go find a motel 10 o'clock at night.

Similar thing when Google shuts down a service. Yes, it was a free service, and they have no legal obligation to keep it going. But it is still rude. People have invested time into using it, and now must invest more time into finding a competing service, and transferring everything over. People are going to stop using Google's smaller services to avoid this risk.

coda_ 11 years ago |

Hopefully this can be a constructive conversation. Instead of just bashing google for once again shutting something down, I'd like to hear what obligation people feel a company has to keep a service alive that isn't living up to it's expectations.

skullum 11 years ago | |

I'll give it a shot. Its about a difference in expectations for success, specifically how Google's differ from its users.

So what obligation does Google have to keep the service alive? None. But the spirit and marketing of the site was to connect and create a community of people helping each other. And Google is going to destroy that community for (probably very reasonable) business reasons.

I guess I would like Google to give a warning that if a site doesn't reach some n DAUs then the service won't take off. It might give some people pause before putting a lot of work into something they ultimately don't have control over.

I feel users have a legitimate cause to be upset when a site is closed -- this was a real community that because Google couldn't make enough money off them, is gone.