Today, the team behind the Google Home experience is doing an AMA (short for “Ask Me Anything”) on Reddit. The team posted the news of the AMA about two hours ago and will start replies at 12:00 PM PT. Hopefully, the team is prepared, because there’s trouble a-brewin’.
So far, a high percentage of the questions come laced with criticism and negativity, with some being pure anger. Here are some highlights (lowlights?):
- What is it like to launch a feature that…well, might make some users happy, while the entire platform is falling apart, feeling outdated, and people are having absolutely horrible experiences here and there?
- Why does broadcast not work? Why remove features people like? Why add new features instead of fixing existing ones? Why not just start the AMA by going through any of the numerous complaint posts that are on the subreddit? People want answers to those.
- Can you elaborate on any plans or initiatives that would restore confidence in Google Home for users like me, who bought in based on advertised and actual functionality, but have since pulled back investment due to the routine planned removal of that functionality?
- How long before Google kills off these products? I’d like to try to sell mine before they become paperweights of broken dreams.
- When can I get rid of my Nest app?
- You guys are brave to do this here with how bad the Google Home/Nest products have become lately. I feel this post will quickly turn into a roast fest.
Four members of the Google Home team, including two product managers and two engineers, will field questions like these. They clearly have their work cut out for them. Here’s hoping they don’t just skip all the critical ones and focus on the tamer ones. However, at least 50% of the questions so far are pretty harsh, so ignoring them would be difficult.
