Google ditches its free WiFi service in South Africa, three months after launch
This is how it works:<p>1. Googler wants a promo. They know they need to &quot;launch&quot; to get promo. They can&#x27;t get a promo if they just improve or maintain something that already exists.<p>2. Googler gets together with other googlers and puts together something they could launch. Nobody cares if it makes any sense.<p>3. The thing launches. Googler gets their promo. It is now pointless to spend any effort on maintaining something that you can&#x27;t &quot;launch&quot; again. Googler moves on.<p>4. Project dies and gets shut down after a while because no sane person would touch maintenance work with a 10 foot pole.<p>9 out of 10 projects at Google go through this lifecycle, pretty much verbatim. This is why you have three different Google-provided messsengers on Android, and why stuff launches with great fanfare and then quickly runs out of steam. You get the behavior you reward. This is what Google rewards.