Google is planning a new burial in its now vast graveyard of discontinued apps and services. This time Grasshopper has to believe in it. The app will no longer exist this summer.

In 2018, Google’s Area 120 division introduced the Grasshopper app for Android and iOS. The application makes it possible to learn JavaScript in a somewhat playful way. Through gamification, Grasshoppers lures users back day after day to keep learning. Design-wise, Grasshopper is a bit reminiscent of Duolingo, with the main difference being that the language you’re learning is a programming language. After its mobile launch, Grasshopper also became available as a web application.

small success

All of this has come to an end now. Google announces the discontinuation of Grasshopper. The final blow will come on June 15, 2023. From then on it will be impossible to download the app or log in. Those who are logged in can continue using Grasshopper for a while.

Grasshopper was a modest success nonetheless. Even before the web version was launched, the service had reached more than two million people in 2019. In a context where there is a lack of people with programming skills, Google has made a valuable contribution with Grasshopper.

Relentless Executioner

Minority popularity has never been enough for Google to keep services alive. If there’s one common thread in company policy, it’s that solutions are buried as soon as someone at Google has the slightest doubt about their long-term success. And doubts, they apparently do that often with Google.

The latest example is the Google Stadia service, which Google supposedly fully supported, but still had to believe when the great success failed to materialize after a few years. One of the biggest points of criticism at the start: the risk of the acquisition due to fears that Google would shut down the service prematurely.

Fire

So this summer, Grasshopper will be in the famous Google graveyard. That the locust gets the death penalty is probably related to the decimation of the Aria 120 division. He is exploring more experimental ideas but has suffered badly in recent rounds of layoffs. Half of Area 120 projects had to believe it already.