7/ end

I think Google News gives a credibility and authority to the company's search products that it will always undervalue, so I really hope I'm off the mark here -- and that by making this prediction, I'm cursing it to be wrong.

6/ If I wrap all of that together, it feels straightforward:
-- The internal Product focus hasn't been on gNews for a long time
-- User behavior points toward Discover, Gemini, etc., and away from Google News
-- Execs have air cover to shut down gNews, given industry/political winds

5/ News has always been a headache for Google execs. See: ongoing regulatory threats in multiple countries; "innovation fund" deals through the Google News Initiative or other government-backed programs, etc.. This work sucks up a ton of oxygen that leadership would surely want to deploy to Product.

[Disclosure: I was part of the Twitter layoffs; and in Jan 2023, the team I had built at Google was part of *those* layoffs.]

4/ Now to the more cynical elements of this prediction. In late 2022, Musk's Twitter layoffs gave Google air cover to make a similar jobs cut in Jan 2023.

Zuck's fact-checking move last week now gives Google the same sort of air cover to shutter Google News.

3/ Discover is ascendant. It's highly volatile, but has clearly won the referral race with gNews as the company's flagship "query-less" surface. Again, this is a one-way trend.

2/ Integrating gNews results into Web Search has been the long-term direction for *years*. As user behavior shifts toward Gemini, this will only accelerate.

1/ gNews was born when the company was expanding into other search areas. That era has long since concluded. Alphabet doesn't need Google News anymore as a growth or retention driver.