Google Is Shattering Under Its Own Weight (The IBM-Ification of Google?)
Source: Hacker News
Introduction
I used to think Google owning the full vertical stack—silicon, TPUs, data centers, proprietary models, and the search engine—was a masterstroke. Nobody else had that level of integration, so it seemed like an unbeatable fortress. I was dead wrong.
The GCP Account Ban
A billion‑dollar startup running on Google Cloud had its account abruptly deleted. No warning, no phone number to call, no account representative—just “Poof, gone.” The same automated response that a low‑effort spam bot receives was given to a major B2B customer. This erodes trust and makes the enterprise cloud “gravy train” feel like a train waiting to hit the tracks.
B2C and Indie Developers
For smaller developers, alternatives such as Hetzner, OVH, and many other providers offer faster, cheaper hosting. GCP sits in a dead‑middle ground: big enterprises distrust it because of random bans, while regular users find it too pricey and complicated.
A Growing Graveyard of Products
Google has killed a long list of services—Reader, Hangouts, Stadia, Inbox, Plus. When a new product is announced, excitement is replaced by a countdown to its funeral. This pattern makes it impossible to build trust with users when the company repeatedly discards its own software.
Search and AI Overviews
Search, once built on the content created by bloggers, forums, and niche sites, is now increasingly unusable. AI Overviews scrape exact answers, strip hyperlinks, and repackage them in a blue box without attribution. The result feels like a house‑guest who eats all the food and never introduces you to their friends.
YouTube’s Decline
YouTube is being eaten from the inside out. While demonetization annoys creators, the real problem is the flood of low‑effort AI‑generated content. The platform’s original moat—real creators in a genuine marketplace—vanishes when the supply side is replaced with garbage, a fate already demonstrated by TikTok.
Android’s Betrayal
Android once felt open: sideloading, choice, freedom. Now reCAPTCHA demands a real phone number, sideloading becomes harder each year, and the experience drifts toward a worse version of iOS with “terrible vibes.” Even G Suite’s UI scrollbar was deliberately broken to hide the unsubscribe button—a choice, not a bug.
The IBM Parallel
IBM was once thought “too big to fail,” yet it became irrelevant gradually and then all at once. Google appears to be following the same trajectory: not a sudden crash, but a slow deflation. The fun, indie engineering energy has vanished, leaving a corporate, desperate shell.
Brand Damage
Eric Schmidt, who led Google for a decade, was recently booed on stage. When a company’s own alumni are heckled, the brand suffers a toxic blow that isn’t yet reflected in quarterly earnings but erodes word‑of‑mouth and the cult following.
Apple’s Contrasting Strategy
Apple, when lacking compelling new investments, simply buys back its own stock and focuses on what users want—affordable MacBooks that don’t sound like jet engines. The approach is boring but avoids alienating the user base.
AI Search and Monetization
Google is chasing every shiny object, including AI‑driven search with sponsored slots—a move Linus Torvalds has criticized. The company is squeezing the last drops of juice from a tired lemon while its core products rot in the sun.
Conclusion
Owning the entire stack only matters if the resulting products are things people actually want to use. Right now Google behaves like a digital slumlord: functional, extractive, and cold. The vertical monopoly that was supposed to be its superpower has become dead weight, and the company is cracking under it. The frustration stems from a former admiration turned into disappointment—“don’t be evil” feels like a distant memory.