A few years back (or maybe several now) I used to listen to a few of the TWIT network podcasts and the one that talked about google had mentioned a new CFO at the time. They mentioned how they were “tightening the belt” and trying to control google’s massive spending. Looking back, I’ve enjoyed google products/services less and less ever since and I feel like it’s down to profits. They used to spend a ton of money developing very interesting new things and as far as I can tell they just don’t anymore. If they do it’s something like google bard which is only because ChatGPT blew up.

Everything cool that already existed is being filled with Ads (in some form) or abandoned. Are they even still trying to do the self driving car service?

Old google was wild, they even forced ISPs to offer higher speeds in the US to compete with their Google Fiber. Who knows what speeds we’d still be at right now if they never did that.