When Google announces the axing of one of their service, it is often wrapped in a phrase of “to focus on the core user experience.” WTF is that? It sounds like the end of a movie where the person hearing the line does not get what they sought…

This was originally published on Storify at https://storify.com/cogdog/google-closing-lines but because they are trashing their web site in May 2018, I have liberated my content here using the Storify Link Extractor tool.

This all started when Martin Hawksey noted that Google announced they were going to pull the plug on hosting app sites on Google Drive, something a few of Martin's genius projects rested upon (one of which is pretty important to my core user experience, the auto updated twitter archive)…

http://googleappsdeveloper.blogspot.com/2015/08/deprecating-web-hosting-support-in.html

WTF?

Who writes something like "In the time since we launched web hosting in Drive, a wide variety of public web content hosting services have emerged. After careful consideration, we have decided to discontinue this feature and focus on our core user experience."

So I wondered if this was how famous movies ended…

Technically, this was not the closing line of Casablanca (that would have been "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful core user experience." So I used a Google service called "Search" (I sure hope that remains a core user experience) to find a resource….

http://www.shortlist.com/entertainment/films/50-best-final-lines-in-movies

Hey, Google has only swept up 70 apps into the Core User Experience dung pile… your favorite tool may likely end up on the chopping block (Here's looking at you, Google+).

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/03/a-second-spring-of-cleaning.html