BARD SUCKS: Google Bard sucks or atleast that seems to
be the general opinion. Hating on Bard definitely seems to be the popular thing. Twitter is
literally filled with tweets mocking Bard for its failures and it’s no wonder why. From resorting
to Bing to get the answer to recommending Edge over Chrome, Bard has made quite a few hilarious
blunders. But I don’t this is the real problem. I mean, there’s plenty of compilaations of ChatGPT
making mistakes as well. From thinking that inches is a unit of mass to not knowing how to multiply
negative numbers, ChatGPT is prone to making a bunch of mistakes as well. But what is different
between the two is how people respond to the same mistakes. When Bard messes up,
people tend to laugh at it and the attitude seems to carry a negative connotation. “If I were Sam
Altman or Satya Nadella, I would be feeling VERY concerned right now.” When ChatGPT messes up,
however, it tends to just become a meme. It’s the classic case of people tend to laugh with ChatGPT
while they laugh at Bard. Of course, this is very much anecdotal but I think there’s more to it than
just that. Take a look at the adoption rates for example. Bard was able to reach 30 million
users within 1 month of launch which sounds great until you realize that ChatGPT was able to reach
100 million within just 2 months. And yes, I do know that Bard launched with a waiting list but
I don’t think that really made a difference. Just take a look at Google’s own trends data.
This becomes exponentially worse when you consider that ChatGPT came from OpenAI, a no name company
that most people have never heard of, while Bard literally came directly from Google, likely the
most ubiquitous internet company in the world. Clearly, there seems to be a general hesitance
when it comes to even trying Bard. I mean think about this. People are literally willing to go out
of their way to use Bing and Edge to use ChatGPT instead of just using Google and Chrome. And I
don’t think it has anything to do with how good or bad Bard actually is. I mean, you can easily
make a case for Bard being better. For starters, it has live access to the internet, it integrates
with Google, and the UI is arguably far better. Yet no one seems to care and I think this has more
to do with the Google brand as opposed to Google Bard. So, join me as we examine the deterioration
of the Google brand and why Bard is at a major disadvantage regardless of how good it really is.
GOOGLE’S SECRET SAUCE: To understand why Bard is
how should I say it flopping by all accounts, we have to take a look at why other Google products
did so well to begin with. Looking back, it’s actually been quite a while since Google hit
a homerun. Google’s glory days were really back in the 2000s when they were launching
bangers left and right. They had Android in 2008, Chrome also in 2008, YouTube in 2005,
Google Maps also in 2005, and Gmail in 2004. Clearly, they were killing it but by all
accounts they shouldn’t have been. Gmail came out in an era when Yahoo mail and Hotmail had already
won over the market. And contrary to popular belief, YouTube is not the OG video sharing
platform. Both Vimeo and Dailymotion actually came out before YouTube. And as for Chrome,
well Chrome came out during a time when Internet Explorer was ubiquitous. So, Google should’ve had
no chance yet they were able to rise above the big tech companies of the era Microsoft and Yahoo. So,
what gave Google the edge? Well, one of the biggest factors that propelled Google forward was
the fact that they were the scrappy startup trying to take on these big tech companies. And much of
Google’s success actually didn’t have to do with how good Google’s products were and more to do
with how much people hated Microsoft. This might be hard to imagine today given that Microsoft has
largely faded into the background out of the public spotlight but back in the early 2000s,
Microsoft was the most highly contested company in the world. There was literally a supreme court
case regarding whether Microsoft should be broken up into 2 different companies. Microsoft would
barely escape this fate by the skin of their teeth but the same could not be same about
public perception. The fact that Microsoft was able to monopolize the computer space and get
away with it made people outraged. This was one of the main selling factors of Firefox.
The idea was that people would be more willing to support an open source project as opposed to a big
tech offering and they were right. Up until Chrome came out, Firefox was rapidly eating
into Internet Explorer’s marketshare peaking at over 30% marketshare. Something else to note is
that virtually all of Google’s most successful products were copycat products. A search engine,
not new. An email, not new. A browser, not new. And as for the Google office suite, I mean,
do I even have to say anything? Now, Google did make these spaces better with their offerings.
Google search made it easier to find things. Gmail gave more storage. Chrome was way more
reliable. And collaboration with Google Office was light years ahead of Microsoft Office. But
wait a minute, isn’t Google trying to do the same thing with Bard. Sure, they copy pasted ChatGPT
but they’re trying to make it better in terms of UI, live info, and better integration? Well,
yeah, but people aren’t impressed given Google’s resources. The bottomline is that people used to
resonate with Google’s slogan of “Don’t be Evil” during a time when people felt that big tech and
especially Microsoft was evil. This perception hasn’t changed all that much over the years but
Google’s position within the totem pole has. They are quote on quote evil big tech company now and
people are just naturally inclined to embrace the underdog which in this case is ChatGPT.
GOOGLE’S LOST MOJO:
Hearing all this, you might be inclined to believe that the deterioration of Google’s
brand is more of a recent trend but that’s not the case. In fact, Google has been fighting this
uphill battle for over a decade at this point and they’ve actually been losing for quite some time.
The first example of this trend dates back to 2011 with Google+. If you’re not familiar with Google+,
it was basically Google’s attempt at creating a social media platform and taking on Facebook
but it ended up flopping massively. Why? Well, for starters, 2011 was clearly not too late to
launch a social media platform as we’ve seen massively successful platforms being launched
way after, so timing wasn’t the problem. Many reports like to claim it was Google+’s lack of
distinguishing factors and lack luster UI that led to it’s eventual failure but really the number one
factor that destroyed Google+ was the fact that Google was pushing it down people’s throats. They
figured that since they already had a bunch of users, they no longer had to convince these users
based on the merit of their platform. Instead, they could just force their existing YouTube
users to become Google+ users as well. With that, Google made it required to have a Google+ account
to make comments on YouTube. This ended up being one of Google’s most controversial decisions of
all time. Not only did millions of YouTube users rise up against Google but even a cofounder of
YouTube rose up, Jawed Karim. After 8 years of not posting anything on his YouTube account, he would
post: why the f do I need a Google+ account to comment on a video. After taking this much heat,
Google would of course roll back the Google+ integration with YouTube but by this point,
the reputation of Google+ was already toast. For the first time, people felt that Google
had become the villain. Bundling Google+ in with YouTube was very much a Microsoft move. Moreover,
Google was by no means the underdog within the social media scene. You had Instagram
and Snapchat and WhatsApp and even Facebook who were all much younger than Google. But it wasn’t
just younger companies that Google was losing to either. Google was also very much losing
to established companies as well. Likely the best example is Google Meet which was trying
to take on Skype and Webex. Again, Google Meet didn’t exactly flop just because it
was late to the game. Just think about how big of an opportunity they had during the pandemic
but no one chose Google Meet. Everyone chose Zoom or Teams. The reason being that Google
Meet really didn’t add anything to the video conferencing space other than the fact that it
was from Google. Google Meet just felt like a product that was meant to expand Google’s
reach and control as opposed to something that really improved video conferencing. If anything,
it made video conferencing worse as it was browser based which came along with a bunch of
shortcomings. And those are just two examples. Some other massive flops from Google over the
past decade include Google Buzz, Google Tango, Google Daydream, Google Allo, Google Trips, and
Google Stadia just to name a few. So, as you can see, Google has struggled to launch a new product
for quite some time now both against startups and established giants but it get’s even worse.
SELF SABOTAGE:
Not only has Google struggled to launch new successful products but they have also been
putting off existing users by making a slew of controversial decisions. For
example, with YouTube, they removed the dislike button despite the community being largely
against it. Similarly, more and more Google search results seem to be dominated by ads. Of course,
these aren’t ground breaking developments but each and every one of these choices make users just a
little bit more frustrated with Google. Also, we can’t talk about Google’s shortfalls without
talking about their privacy and data collection concerns. To be honest, I think most people have
simply come to accept that less privacy is simply how the modern world works but that doesn’t mean
that people are exactly happy with Google and Facebook which brings us into the launch of
Google Bard. Just by it’s initial response, you can tell that people are predispositioned
to find it unappealing. This isn’t to say that Google will necessarily shut down Bard. In fact,
you can bet that that’s the last thing they’ll do as they try to make it into the AI space. But this
doesn’t exactly mean that Bard will be successful. Sure, a good number of people will always use it
just because of how popular Google is as a company but Google will have a pretty tough time making
Bard the dominant language model. Instead, it’s likely that Bard will end up like Bing and Edge.
It didn’t matter how good these products were or what incentives they offered. Edge has been faster
than Chrome for years and Bing has literally been paying users to use it. But despite this,
everyone continued to use Chrome and Google and treated Edge and Bing as second tier products.
And judging by public perception, it seems that a very similar fate is up ahead not just for Bard
but any consumer oriented product that Google launches in the imminent future. Likely the
only way to combat this perception is time. Back in the late 2000s, Microsoft was faced with the
same dilemma and everything they launched flopped regardless of how good it was whether that’s the
Zune or the Windows phone. The way that Microsoft overcame this dilemma was stepping out of the
spotlight, focusing on the enterprise business, and letting people find a new Microsoft to hate on
which was Google and Facebook. And suddenly people are willing to give Micorsoft a chance again.
So, the answer for Google may be to also step back and focus on their enterprise cloud business and
let people find a new Google to hate on. This would give Google the best shot of success in
the consumer space becuase the truth with Bard is that doesn't matter how good it is because
people have already made up their minds about Bard. And that why’s Google Bard doesn’t stand
a chance even if it’s better than ChatGPT. Things aren’t super rosy at OpenAI either
as they’re very much going through a funding crisis. Check out this video to learn more.