alt Hacker NewsGoogle breaks promise to provide 10 years of updates to Chromebooks
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My pet theory with this move from Chromebooks to Googlebooks is simply that Chromebooks have a major stink on their entire brand reputation, especially in the younger generation that went through school with terrible cheap (and likely used/damaged) Chromebooks being given to them for schoolwork.
I think if you say "Chromebook" around most 20-something and unders, they have an instant negative association with the word.
Is Googlebook OS going to be "open source" like Chrome OS was (through Chromium)? Or is this also a forced transition from open -> closed? (that would make me far madder than simply forcing a migration).
The actual update:
> ChromeOS devices will continue to receive regular updates and security patches through mid-2034. For qualifying devices purchased today whose 10-year support lifecycle extends beyond 2034, Google is committed to supporting your transition to Googlebook OS, with many devices offering direct migration paths.
In other words, support will be offered until 2034. if you're buying a new Chromebook today and intend to keep it for longer than 8 years, you're doing so at your own risk.
The willful ignorance of the tech community is getting out of hand. This is the same thing as the "windows 10 is the last version of windows" discourse which stems from the absolutely abysmal state of tech journalism. You would think that by now that it would at least match financial journalism, but apparently we're fine settling for people who don't care about or understand what they are writing about.
This isn't an issue, the 10 years of support was promised for the hardware, not the software. They are fulfilling that promise by updating the devices to GooglebookOS.
I'm sure it was just a pinky promise with a million lines of small print saying they can actually do whatever they want regardless of what they said.
Also, in 2034 things will likely be radically different in computing. A local llm will likely either make such considerations entirely obsolete because support will be easy, or all current tech will be taken away from consumers anyway and everything will be much tighter controlled and monitored.
Curious that we have expectations for google to maintain such promises. Any other major companies with similar level of expectations?
A maybe not-so-silver lining is that the major consumers of Chromebooks (schools, mostly) probably won't see their hardware survive that long.
>Stuff like this should not be legal.
Alternatively, if users want legally binding contracts they should not treat promises as such, and demand a contract instead.
I will support you for 10 years for this car I am selling you now.
(things change in-between for a year)
I will support you less than 5 years for this car, if you buy now.
---
Google didn't do anything wrong legally, because the good sold a year ago is not the same as the good you are selling at current point.
YOu can have different support schedule.
Yes, it's very shady shit, because some people would find Chrome book in blogs/review a year ago thinking, oh 10 years, only to find out now it's less than that.
This is the first time I've heard of this promise for 10 years of updates.
That seems quite impressive when compared against the 2-3 years of updates android phones historically got.
For anyone currently owning a Chromebook and worrying about this:
The only reason I'd consider buying a Chromebook is to install Linux on it... Same is true for Googlebook.
Is anyone surprised at this? Abandoning products in an untimely fashion is their specialty. I've never bought a hardware product from them for that reason, except for a 2nd gen Chromecast which was something whose longevity I didn't care too much about.
Are the people who made the promise even still at Google?
It reminds me of those sketchy companies on Amazon promising "lifetime guarantee" on their products when they know already they're gonna close shop and reopen on a completely different brand the very next year.
Long term support is not the Google way
Good thing I did not trust Google 10 years ago either.
What we see here is a strategic shift by Google; you need to connect this here, with the prior Google strategy of no longer open sourcing Android-related stuff or with a huge delay. This is not an isolated thing - Google is planning Evil again, as usual.
Stuff like this should not be legal?
Isn’t it illegal? It’s actual false advertising. You can sue them, it’s just no one has.
I can't be the only one who thinks Googlebook is the least appealing name I may have ever heard for a hardware product.
So it's as low as 8 years instead of 10 for models purchased in the last 2 years (2034 being the cutoff), with those few devices being covered by a separate commitment to transfer them to GoogleOS by 2034.
Pretty lame detail to be enraged about, but it is Google and this is HN. This aligns with Apple's timeline for killing Intel MacBook support after releasing Apple Silicon (2029 being the last commitment).
Since when has Google ever been trustworthy?
This is just standard operating procedure. Remember --- "Don't be Evil".
As a great philosopher once said "Don't be eval".. if you cant be compared, you cant be cornered..
Discussed a lot here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49893653
Seems to be more reasonable than this title suggests?
Some comments: "So they have introduced a major change and said any older Chromebooks bought going forward will only get 8. So its not a retrospective reduction for existing customers." (Edit: actually I think this comment is wrong, if you bought a Chromebook 1 year ago, you'd only get 9 years of ChromeOS updates)
"From my understanding of the article, it sounds like ChromeOS support is getting pared back for those devices, but the devices themselves should still be supported, albeit via a (planned but not yet in existence) migration path to GooglebookOS."