Dear Google: Why You Guys Now Suck.

I am writing this not out of a desire to take up my rhetorical bludgeon and beat the crap out of Google, but because I mostly like Google.

I really do.  I well remember the days when the leading search engines were Ala Vista and Yahoo.  A search would yield two pages of paid advertising, which you had to scroll down through before you could see your desired search results.  That was a real pain in the ass.  The results pages also had a lot of advertising graphics.  Because most people back then had had dial-up service through Assholes America on Line[1] and other dialup services, it took forever for the search results to load. 

Then came Google.  Its clean interface and relative lack of advertising were astonishing and users (including your humble scribe) began using Google.   Google grew and began offering (and buying up) other services.

The grownups at Google[2] have not messed with the search engine interface.  The search engine is Google's money tree.  Those early engineers, the guys who now have their own G650s or BBJs, would probably immediately fire[3] any one of the Google kiddies who mucked around with the search engine interface.

But the kids have to have their fun.  So Google lets them play around with the other, lesser, Goggle products.  That is why Google has, in this year, changed the interface for both Gmail[4] and Blogger.  Not because the changed interfaces are any better.  Not because the users were unhappy with what they had.  Google changed it because they can.

It is no different than the model changes that Detroit used to introduce every year.  Bigger tail fins!  More chrome!  New shades of color![5] It was change for the sake of change. And it was both wasteful and stupid.

A very long time ago, when I was but a butter-bar[6] in the Navy, a very senior officer came for lunch and talked to the young officers.  His comment about work was this:  "If it's not fun, you're doing it wrong."  It's not like I make any real money doing this.  Blogging is sort of a hobby.  Google's changes to the blogger interface have made this less fun.

So I'm going to mull over where else I can take this blog.  But in the meantime, expect to see fewer of the "wow, I ought to put up a short post about that" sort of blog entries.  
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[1] There was a time when everybody in the freaking country would get junkmail from AOL with a disk containing the latest version of AOL, first 3.5" floppies, then CDs.  The CDs made good coasters.

[2] The few that apparently exist.

[3] Or simply have them killed. 

[4] I'm switching, slowly, away from Gmail as well.  Nice going, guys.

[5] And pretty much the same crappy frame, engine and drive train.

[6] Ensign.