Walter Watts
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Google Pulls Plug, Everyone Misses Point
« on: 2007-08-14 20:30:35 » |
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Dvorak is right on again as usual......
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Google Pulls Plug, Everyone Misses Point
ARTICLE DATE: 08.14.07
By John C. Dvorak
Google pulled the plug on the moribund DTO/DTR portion of Google Video, in which users could pay to download videos to own or rent. It never caught on for various reasons, as outlined by the recent news stories detailing its demise. Google didn't like what it saw, so it sent out this note:
As a valued Google user, we're contacting you with some important information about the videos you've purchased or rented from Google Video. In an effort to improve all Google services, we will no longer offer the ability to buy or rent videos for download from Google Video, ending the DTO/DTR (download-to-own/rent) program. This change will be effective August 15, 2007.
To fully account for the video purchases you made before July 18, 2007, we are providing you with a Google Checkout bonus for $2.00. Your bonus expires in 60 days, and you can use it at the stores listed here: http://www.google.com/checkout/signupwelcome.html. The minimum purchase amount must be equal to or greater than your bonus amount, before shipping and tax.
After August 15, 2007, you will no longer be able to view your purchased or rented videos.
If you have further questions or requests, please do not hesitate to contact us. Thank you for your continued support.
Sincerely,
The Google Video Team
There are two things that struck me about the note. The first was the weaselly assertion that the company is killing the service to "improve all Google services." As if killing a service in order to improve service makes any sense whatsoever. In fact, I thought that this sort of BS was out-and-out insulting. How dumb does Google think its customers are?
This is simply a low-rent rewrite of the "we're doing this for your own good" nonsense. It's usually followed by a gunshot to the head.
What was more important—and overlooked by most—is the simple fact that after August 15, you will no longer be able to view your purchased or rented videos. WHAT!?!?
Let me get this straight: I subscribed to this service, paid my fee, and now you're pulling the plug and screwing me out of what I bought? I can just hear the folks at Google saying, "Yeah, and here's two bucks, kid. Get lost." Yes, there's a refund, but it's a bit of a hassle. They're not giving you cash back, so this kind of smells of old bait-and-switch tactics (call your attorney general!).
The community can go nuts over this all they want—and they have. I've already received e-mail about it and Google's "do no evil" crap. But let's dig deeper and see the really onerous aspect of the situation.
Shuttering this service proves once again that all of these online applications—no matter who they're from—are vulnerable, and that taking them down can affect you adversely. I complained about this in the 1990s, during the original dot-com era, when we saw the first iteration of Internet-based computing. It began as client/server apps, and after several years of evolution, it's now usually referred to as Web app server, application server architecture, or applications service provider (ASP) or whatever. It seems to have a million names, to confuse the investors. But it's all the same thing with minor tweaks. At its core, it's using a remote computer to run applications for you. Generally speaking, the software can run only remotely and is not possible to duplicate locally.
Anyway, here's the key thing to examine in this situation: Google used a remote server to verify and approve the DRM used by the videos, and now it's simply going to shut down the DRM server, making it impossible to watch those videos. During the late 1990s, when I had a radio show called Software/Hardtalk, representatives from company after company appeared on it and went on and on about one free online system or another and how they would always be free and the user would never have to worry.
One by one, those apps bit the dust, leaving customers in the lurch. Some of the data was salvageable, luckily, via standard file formats, but some wasn't. It was a total crapshoot. I wrote numerous columns complaining about the ideal that had to exist for any of this to move forward and how important it was to have a contingency plan if the ASP went belly-up. And I should mention that removing data from some complex proprietary mechanism that runs on a big machine and duplicating its functionality someplace else is a big deal and probably very costly.
The scary part is that we are not talking about some flaky, small underfunded company. We're talking about Google, a behemoth. This tells me that if Google can throw in the towel and abandon one of its online-related services, then anyone can do it—and they will. And then they'll all point to Google. "Well, if Google can do it after it made promises, then we can do it."
It can happen anywhere. You have all your family photos online? Good luck with that. Your blogging software and blog are all online? Have a nice day. Your business is completely reliant on online systems? How does your insurance policy look?
Yes, there are plenty of large, reliable operations doing great things with the ASP model (no letters please). But they have got to be concerned when a company like Google randomly pulls the plug and sends the message that the end user is a fly speck if the money isn't pouring in. Geez, thanks, Google.
Copyright (c) 2007 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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