It's Google+ All Over Again

Another one bites the dust as Google is killing off Currents in favor of its new Spaces. Google's announcement is the latest in a long string of products the company has killed off, from Google+ to App Maker to Loon. Currents now joins that list, another product that never reached its full potential.

Google is notorious for killing off its products, leaving many users searching for alternatives. KilledbyGoogle.com is a website dedicated to tracking the products in "Google's graveyard." As of February 2022, there are dozens of products listed.

In fact, Google's reputation for dumping its products is so bad that it had to reassure cloud customers that it wouldn't abandon its own cloud APIs. The company is trying to gain ground in the cloud market against its larger rivals, AWS and Microsoft. Unfortunately, having a reputation for abandoning projects doesn't inspire confidence in companies looking to build their entire business around a cloud platform.

In July 2021, the company unveiled Enterprise APIs, stating: "Our working principle is that no feature may be removed (or changed in a way that is not backwards compatible) for as long as customers are actively using it."

Unfortunately, it's unlikely the latest Currents news will put many minds at ease.

In many ways, Currents was the continuation of one of the most high-profile projects Google killed off, Google+. Google+ was the company's attempt to take on Facebook, but it was a spectacular flop.

Despite the company killing it off in 2019, elements of it lived on for G Suite customers, who used the product for internal discussions. On July 6, 2020, however, Google killed off the last vestige of Google+, replacing it with Currents.

Now it's Currents' time to be killed off, replaced with Spaces. The company describes Spaces as "a dedicated place for organizing people, topics, and projects in Google Workspace." Tighter integration with Google Workspaces is one of the platform's main selling points.

Google plans to start winding down Currents in 2023, but will continue to add feature to Spaces to ensure it can adequately replace its predecessor. These new features will include larger communities, improved leadership communication, advanced search, content moderation, and more.

Only time will tell if Spaces is successful, or if it will become another addition to Google's graveyard.