Google 2025
Published on Jan 24, 2025, filed under misc. (Share this post, e.g., on Mastodon.)
I like Google. I’ve worked at Google for a number of years and had an incredible time for which I’m most grateful. I’d always be down to joining or leading a googley team, preferably in Europe, if an opportunity arises. (I had been in advanced talks a few years ago which I ended over Trump I, but would always consider entering again.)
But. Google has changed on the inside, as I know, and for that reason has also changed on the outside.
Here’s my individual view on some things Google:
AI: Ever since OpenAI landed a hit with ChatGPT, Google seemed to be running after them and everyone else in the space. Google has everything to lead in AI, but the way I perceive it, Google kind of panicked and ended up marketing themselves as #2 or #3.
Search: It’s still the best (which makes me use it often even though my default search engine hasn’t been Google for years), but I increasingly connect it with ads. Ads, ads, ads. Ads and Wikipedia, Reddit, or MDN results. While the results work, a blend of ads, always the same sources, and Gemini AI noise means that Google Search does not offer a great experience anymore.
YouTube: Cluttered UI with deteriorating usability, and likewise flooded with more and more and more ads, ads that are incredibly poorly targeted at that. * The Android version is nearly unusable, too, unless you pay.
Gmail: Felt stagnation for 10 years. It’s email, sure, but no one ships perfection—and in Gmail, there are things to perfect.
Ads: Bureaucratic and unusable, so much that it actually feels like being asked to abandon any attempt to use—and learn—it. What rubs me the most here is how Google completely missed the boat on making legal compliance easy for site owners (see the next point).
Analytics: Unusable. Like Ads, entirely missed making compliance easy, which is the first thing Google could/should have done in response to the GDPR—ship an easy-to-use consent management solution that integrates Google products like Ads and Analytics. † I didn’t follow it closely enough but the whole switch to GA4 smells like it could have been done with more user focus, too, for the good of Google as well.
Translate: Harder to use than a regular dictionary, nearly always poor quality of longer translations. It feels like Translate was pumped up with additional languages (which makes language selection slow), at the expense of improving quality. The advice in my household, which may illustrate just how little useful Translate has become: Use ChatGPT instead.
Chrome: Incredible product (whose team and ecosystem really drive the web platform) but not appearing trustworthy anymore—Chrome seems mingled with Google’s ads interests, which in turn raises questions about the Chrome team being willing and able to effectively protect user privacy. ‡ Take Privacy Sandbox alone, which looks more like—I’m stopping myself from an unfavorable industry comparison.
Social: No, no complaint here, but no joking around, either—I do somewhat miss Buzz and Google+.
Products in general: No particularly creative ideas in years? (Or is that just me?)
Design in general: No improvements since 2012’s Project Kennedy? §
Standards: Google associating with criminals!?
That’s a snapshot of my perception, which is to be inaccurate but which I share because I like Google, and because I root for Google to become as creative, confident, googley as it had been. Focus on the user, deliver excellence, don’t be evil—just like the old Google. Which is still there in pockets of the org, and which I don’t think I romanticize.
* I’m vegan, and you wouldn’t believe how many ads try to sell me something containing killed animals.
† That Google didn’t do this is one reason why I’ve long stopped using Ads and Analytics on my properties.
‡ I use Vivaldi, because I like to use a Chromium browser that comes with stronger protections, something that is more credible with a browser vendor based in Europe.
§ On this note, I think I’m close now to winning the error page bet!
About Me
I’m Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I’m an engineering lead, guerrilla philosopher, and indie publisher. I’ve worked as a technical lead and engineering manager at various companies (e.g., Google); I’m an active web and tool developer (code optimization, digital defense), a contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and a book author (O’Reilly, Frontend Dogma).
I love trying things—in web development and engineering management, but also in politics and philosophy, where I hold to one idea in particular: that we can only be well if we take good care of everyone. Here on meiert.com I talk about some of my perspectives and experiences. (Please share feedback: Interpret charitably, keep it friendly, but do be critical.)