Will Google Fonts ever go away?

Dave Crossland

(As always I say the below as personal opinion and it is not the views of my employer or anyone I may be associated with.)

Wow, nearly 10 years ago I thought this was fun to see again after so many years, especially after the "OpenType 2.0" panel yesterday here in Paris at ATYpI 2023 where the proposals have come from projects I've commissioned:

LeMo aka PatternMan aka Frank E Blokland said:

A company like Adobe changed the font market with new technology. This is something Google is not doing; it simply changes the market by a different earning model supported by an immense power. IMHO Dave is largely responsible for this. I know him a bit as he was for a short period a student of mine in Antwerp and we kept in contact since. I’m convinced that he really wants to add knowledge, technology and quality to the métier. And I also believe that he will succeed. At the same time companies that for instance invested a lot of money and time in the development of global fonts see their market rapidly shrinking and the value of their proprietary technology reduced. 

Since then I have indeed worked hard to improve the font marketplace with new technology; but certainly I am not solely responsible for this, and work with many colleagues inside and outside the company.

fonts.google.com/knowledge, variable fonts and QA tools, and also new type releases with strong quality were indeed added to the métier. 

Yet I still believe, as I stated 10 years ago many times, that this sees the global fonts marketplace demand growing, not rapidly shrinking, and I believe there are more type designers working today than in 2014 - and more foundries developing multi-script projects than ever before.

I am not aware of an apocalypse, but of course - as in any marketplace - there is competition, and some competitors are uncompetitive. Yet as the overall marketplace is growing, there is a lot of opportunity to realize.