Are Indian engineers your favourite coolies that will do the dirty work of keeping your systems running after you've lost interest in them ?

Isn't that were US companies are outsourcing to? Why would Google use expensive Silicon Valley-engineers to do bugfixes on a product they'd rather cancel? Are you denying there's a price difference?

I can tell you that I am going through the experience for the 3rd time now of my entire team being let go in favor for engineers in India.

So far it seems to be like this.

1) Have a big spin up in the US. Create a new product in 1 year or less. 2) Stabilize the product over the 2nd year. 3) Slowly lay off US engineers and support teams in favor for guys in India.

Don't get me wrong, I have no issue with Indian engineers. The problem seems to be management cares about headcount and not quality. It would be one thing if we were being replaced by better engineers, but that is not the case.

I was with you up until "handfull of indian engineers". No need.

That about sums it up for me. Unsurprised disappointment.

Was great to have it. I'll miss it. I hope someone picks up where they left off. I'm unsure whether I'll be willing to pay for it if someone does.

Gmail is still fairly incredible overall, but it's simply par now rather than the revelation it once was.

I'm sure they could support all new services for a decade if they wanted to. But that's a costly commitment to make, to the point that exploratory projects like Inbox might never make it out of planning in the first place.