
Google is about to learn a tough lesson - calbucci
http://blog.calbucci.com/2013/03/google-is-about-to-learn-tough-lesson.html
======
llambda
> Google made a big mistake cancelling Google Reader that will have severe
> ripple effects to its empire.

Oh come on: enough already. Obviously there was a /vocal/ user base which is
very loudly now upset that the product is being sunset. Guess what, Google
didn't see it as a large enough set of people to make it worth monetizing.
Such is life. Move on. It's certainly not the end of Google if that's what
this article is trying to imply. It isn't even the beginning of some horrible
backlash either. It is however getting old.

~~~
henrikschroder
I don't think people who use RSS realize what a small minority they are. I
don't use RSS or Google Reader, I've never even _seen_ it, but this week my
Facebook has been filled by a tiny slice of my friends who are incredibly
upset.

The vast majority are just shrugging and not caring one bit.

Only Google has the actual numbers on how many people are using their Reader,
and they simply did the math. End of story. It's not going to affect Google
one bit that they cancelled a tiny non-profitable product.

~~~
mcherm
The point here is that your facebook has been filled. In other words, there
may only be a few upset people, but they're people that other folks (like you)
listen to.

~~~
henrikschroder
In this case it doesn't matter, because the vast majority of my friends don't
know what RSS is, don't care, don't use it, and don't care about Google
Reader.

The few that cared posted their angry rants, and noone cared. Noone commented.
It's a complete non-issue.

And even if you accept the premise of the article, that the ones who care
about Google Reader are influencers, what exactly does that mean in practice?
Google doesn't have very many services that regular people use. There's
search, and you'll never get people to stop using that. There's gmail, and
you'll never get people to stop using that. There's Google+, and you'll never
get people to use that, because they've got Facebook, and it's only nerds on
G+ anyway.

I get the abstract point of the article, that if you upset influential people,
they'll badmouth your product, and the Microsoft Word example made a lot of
sense, because it stopped people from buying the latest version of it and
sticking with what they had.

But that scenario doesn't apply here. Those of you who are upset about this,
exactly which Google services will you stop promoting to your friends, and
which alternatives will you suggest?

~~~
incongruity
The bigger issue isn't whether they influence the masses, it's whether they
influence the decision makers who _do_ matter to Google's revenue streams –
and that's an open question, IMHO.

The idea that you can't rely on Google to keep services around is a bit of a
chilling one for many and too much of that vibe may well mean that established
companies and smart startups are more careful about what services they depend
on (and who they get them from).

But we're not at that point yet... and Google is hardly alone in the general
rug-pulling-out-from-under-you trend these days.

------
simonsarris
I sympathize with Google Reader users. I find it occasionally tiresome to be
half-foot in an ecosystem. But I've come to accept that this is just the way
that Google does things.

I love Gmail/Calendar/Maps/DamnNearEverything. I love Groups, which they've
recently taken pains to hide[1] so I suspect its up soon for the chopping
block. Heck I even love Google+.

All that said, at least they had the gall to kill it. One thing that pains me
more than killing a product they don't want is letting one _languish broken
for ages._

I'm fully in the G-cosystem[2] but sadly Google Finance is nearly worthless,
and only edited about once a year, usually to break something and fix it a
month later.

You can't switch to a current (non-closed) holdings view where it only shows
you information about stocks you own right now, instead you have to make two
portfolios. You can't reorder portfolios so my real portfolios and my
"lookers" are separated in an awkward list. News stories are half spam and
appear out of order anyway. Finance doesn't sync well with the Android app,
sometimes it finds zero portfolios and makes me make temporary mobile ones
that I have to delete later.

How many Java errors are on the Finance homepage today? Just one. How about on
a stock ticker page? Thirty-one. And it's still using _Flash._

I don't think the Reader backlash will hurt Google. There are just some
products they _plainly don't care about_ and will continue to ignore them
until somebody brushes over the "shutter" button while the rest of the company
shrugs.

~~~

[1] <http://i.imgur.com/bs7i5pL.png>

Groups isn't even on the extended products list in the Gmail header bar,
though Reader is! You have to click "Even more" to get to Groups.

[2] I cringed writing that but it was too good to let go.

~~~
kanzure
> Groups isn't even on the extended products list in the Gmail header bar,
> though Reader is! You have to click "Even more" to get to Groups.

They have been really destroying Groups for a while now. The new ui is
terrible, the new url format is also bad. They got rid of instructions for
emailing for subscriptions, and someone reported to me earlier today that
emailing list+subscribe@googlegroups.com doesn't even work anymore.... are
they just going to dump their usenet archives?

~~~
Teckla
It's probably too late to ask now (the story was posted 19+ hours ago, as I
write this), but -- do you know what happened to Google Groups digest emails?
They just stopped working for me a long time ago, with no communication about
what happened.

~~~
kanzure
No, I don't use the digest email feature. Sorry. The other day I had to clean
out some old Groups subscriptions, because apparently you can only subscribe
to 200 groups at a time. What a fucking joke. :(

------
danilocampos
So, what's going to happen, exactly?

"Influencers" who liked Google Reader, now jilted, are going to use their
magic influence beam to halt the growth of Android, to erode the dominance of
Google in search, and prevent the regulatory approval of self-driving cars?

Google has quite a few heavy responsibilities on their hands. They have to
manage growth and competition in hugely complex, emerging fields.

The lesson they learned _correctly_ was that focus is essential. RSS is dead.
A handful of nerds enjoy it, it solves a handful of problems, but it's not a
hot technology around which you can build a business on the scale that will
move needles for Google.

So they cut it and they're not even going to notice it in the rearview mirror.

In an amusing, if anecdotal, aside – Gina Trapani, an OG nerd influencer if
ever there was one, tweeted that she'd checked out of Google Reader long ago.

<https://twitter.com/ginatrapani/status/312451705692385280>

~~~
xaa
Search, which provides the majority of Google's revenue, is precarious because
there are very low costs for someone to switch to another service.

To combat this problem, Google started providing all these associated services
-- Finance, Reader, Blogger, etc, etc -- so that people would begin to use
their Google ID as a significant component of their online identity. These
services were never supposed to be profitable, they were supposed to provide a
competitive "moat" for search.

If people begin to take their data out of Google services -- which is the only
rational response given Google's repeated and blatant disregard toward its
"customers" -- these customers might start looking toward Bing and DDG very
soon. Then Google _will_ have a problem.

Even Android could have a problem if people begin asking the question, "what
happens if/when Google sunsets Play? Will I still have access to my apps?"

~~~
danilocampos
They built Gmail. People need it desperately. So far, no one distrusts it or
has any reason to. That's their identity moat.

~~~
stephenr
People don't need gmail. They need email. You know, that thing that existed
for years before gmail.

To say people don't distrust google/gmail shows your naïveté and/or your rose
coloured google glasses.

Search and the collaborative part of google docs (ie multiple concurrent
editors on a document) is the _only_ thing where it's hard to find a true
competitor that you can self host, not to mention hosted solutions.

~~~
danilocampos
>People don't need gmail. They need email. You know, that thing that existed
for years before gmail. To say people don't distrust google/gmail shows your
naïveté and/or your rose coloured google glasses.

Aren't you a charmer.

I'm about as far from a Google fanboy as exists. Trust in this conversation
has been about existing tomorrow or not. No one doubts Gmail is going to exist
tomorrow.

And while you're right about the very obvious assertion that email existed
before Gmail, that misses the point. There's a switching cost involved in
changing your email. You have to inform all your contacts, update all of your
accounts, learn a new web interface.

It's a damn good moat.

~~~
stephenr
If you're using a gmail domain email, setup auto reply/forwarding for a few
months/indefinitely.

Businesses would largely be using their own domains, so the point is moot.

~~~
ufo
If you forwards emails through gmail then Google still gets your data.

~~~
neeee
Only what doesn't go directly to your new email yet.

------
notatoad
Perhaps google learns a tough lesson. Or perhaps bloggers who think they are
"influencers" are going to learn a tough lesson about how much impact their
influence really has.

Google knows what they're doing. They haven't forgotten the outrage that
happened after they stripped the social features out of reader and replaced it
with the +1 button. They knew all those people and more would be pissed. And
they decided it didn't matter.

~~~
crander
No, they hoped it wouldn't mater. Unless they've perfected the ability to
predict the future they and everyone else won't know for quite some time.

~~~
saraid216
How will we tell whether or not it matters?

------
Afforess
>Third, and lastly, Google is sending a strong signal to the market that it
will have no mercy of killing whatever product it doesn’t think it’s going
well.

Yep. I was just investigating Cloud SQL storage today and Google has a free
Cloud SQL trial plan and decent pricing. I passed it over because I am
concerned Google isn't interested in long term maintenance of products, and
their support is non-existent. I'd rather go with some no-name startup that
probably cares a lot more about my business.

<https://cloud.google.com/pricing/cloud-sql>

~~~
arkem
[Disclaimer: I work at Google in an unrelated area]

Google platforms like Cloud SQL generally have a deprecation policy that will
give you an idea of the minimum length of time that they'll be maintained. For
Cloud SQL it's 1 year (it's in the Terms of Service), which means that you'd
get at least a year's notice before it could be turned off. It's on par or
slightly better than what I know of Amazon's policy (they have 1 year
deprecation on their APIs and an undefined deprecation policy on their service
offerings).

In my opnion having this deprecation policy would make Google Cloud SQL a
lower risk proposition than a 'no-name startup', at least until the startup is
in a position to make similar guarantees (and the financial resources to stick
to those guarantees).

Edit: I guess my point is that some Google products have service agreements as
to how long they'll be maintained and so comparing consumer web services to
Cloud SQL isn't really appropriate.

~~~
mratzloff
Tell that to users of App Engine who have experienced frequent, repeated
downtime and utter apathy from Google. Google's customer support sucks.

------
arihant
This just shows Google just doesn't get design. Sure, they may have figured
out CSS3 and made Gmail super hard to use, but they don't really get design.

Ever noticed how Facebook kills a feature? Slow, steady, they drift you away,
showing you by hand what better is out there, and then the feature disappears,
first from our conscious, and then from the website. If FB was the one calling
shots here, they probably would have somehow merged G+ and Reader, and then
slowly started to show us those stories better using Currents, and by the time
everyone is comfortable, would have killed Reader.

Google doesn't get design. It has to be in everything. Even in killing
products off, there is design. You can't design with a corporate sledgehammer.
All they seem to be doing is kill off established niche products in hopes of
somehow making a niche social network successful. If only someone builds a
better search engine, right this moment.

~~~
calbucci
This is a great observation. Google could have turned all this frustration
into energy for Google+, but they didn't.

------
samspot
RSS was a literal life changer when I first discovered it. Instead of going to
the 5-10 websites I frequented to look for new stories throughout the day, I
could check my reader when I took a break and stay up to date on everything.
It probably cut my surfing time by 90% or more.

Additionally RSS allows me to follow far more things than would normally be
possible. Instead of 10 I have 100, including things that don't update even
every month.

Previously the discussion was always about how to make RSS usable for the
masses, but I suppose this problem was never solved. Social media seems to
work for some people, but it isn't the same. I can only count a handful of
times in the last decade that I site I was interested in didn't have an RSS
feed. It is practically universal. Facebook does indeed have a lot of people,
but there is also the constant friend spam, and the algorithmic filtering to
worry about.

When I look at the alternatives to Google Reader, it is clear that many of
them don't get me. They are focused on content discovery, but i want to do is
Keep Track. I don't want to miss a word from my favorite sources, and I need
my reader to hold on to their words until I get to them.

I really hope RSS doesn't die. It is my handle on the internet, and without it
I would still be refreshing sites all day.

~~~
baby
It was a change of life for me too. But a bad one. Instead of checking my
favorite websites separately I started checking a hundred websites.

I would eat information. I would get a new post every 30 seconds. I would
spend my days just sitting at my desk and archiving what didn't seem of
interest and read the rest.

After a few month I started realizing I wasn't enjoying what was written
anymore. I wasn't enjoying visiting a website, its design, its UI (And I know
the saying, we're not supposed to learn a new UI every time we browse a new
website, but I like seeing a websites renovating its design, I like reading an
article in its real environment )...

I decided to ditch it. I didn't need the technology. Nobody needed the
technology. I didn't mind opening multiple tabs to check different websites.

I use bookmarks, multi row toolbar and tree style tab on Firefox and it's all
I need for my big consumption. And I'm a power user. So imagine the normal
users, why would they care about Google Reader?

~~~
veridies
It doesn't help you. But that doesn't mean it's not useful.

I subscribe to about fifteen developer blogs that update only two or three
times a year. Huge waste of time to visit their websites, but whenever
anything important happens, I'll know.

I subscribe to the New York Times' main feed. I don't read most of the
articles, but I'll flip through all of the headlines for ones that I want to
look at. Much faster than the main site.

I'll Option-R right before I leave the house, so if I'm stuck without internet
for a while (the cell phone connection is very spotty on a commute I make) I
can still read the news and the blogs I'm interested in.

It doesn't fit your use case, but that doesn't mean no one needs RSS.

~~~
icelancer
>I subscribe to about fifteen developer blogs that update only two or three
times a year. Huge waste of time to visit their websites, but whenever
anything important happens, I'll know.

This is the EXACT use case I desperately need it for.

------
Mindless2112
This was my second thought when Google announced that they were retiring
Reader (the first was "Nooo!")

Half of my friends use Gmail because I suggested that they switch. I am
starting to see Google move toward the dark side, and that means you won't see
me recommending Google products to friends. It'll take a while, but there will
be backlash... because I'm not the only one in this boat.

~~~
tomkarlo
In what way is this a move "towards the dark side"? I understand it's
disappointing, but whenever someone doesn't do what you want, do you assume
they're evil?

There's an underlying sense of entitlement in the tech community that really
rubs me the wrong way sometimes, honestly. Sometimes folks are going to make
decisions that you don't agree with. That doesn't justify freaking out.
"Getting disappointed" shouldn't be filed in the same drawer with "getting
cheated" or other such violations.

~~~
mattchew
I agree that "dark side" is over the top. (I never thought Microsoft was so
terrible either.)

Maybe some of the resentment here is from the lingering feeling that Google
should still be the best thing on the internet. For quite a long time,
everything they did, they did so amazingly well. I _loved_ that company.

They got worse, the rest of the internet got better, and they really don't
stand out the way they did. But sometimes I forget that the new Google isn't
the same as the old Google, and I feel stung about things like this.

(FWIW, I don't blame them for doing _something_ about Reader. I just wish they
had tried selling it on subscription before fitting it for concrete shoes.)

~~~
takluyver
I've seen a handful of people say that they would have been willing to pay for
Reader. But overall, I imagine that the complaining would have been just as
loud had they started charging users for something that was previously free.
And what if it was still unprofitable? They'd need to go through all the
complaints a second time if they decided to close it down anyway.

------
cek
I love Marcello and am a fan, but this is an emotional, not well thought
through reaction.

The best leaders, the best organizations, the ones that create excellence, are
those that are as good at saying no as they are at saying yes.

I've worked at a large company. It is easy for outsiders to think "oh, they
have infinite resources and can do anything". This is not the case at all.

I am not much of a Google fan. I dropped Reader about 2 years ago and have
used NewsBlur since. The only Google product I like is Chrome.

Google will continue to be successful, not by doing a bazillion little things
poorly, but a few things, really, really well.

And to do a few things, really, really well, you have to be excellent at
saying no. Google has decided Reader is a little thing it could not do really,
really, well. So it is saying no.

I applaud that. (Even if it's caused NewsBlur to become almost too slow to
use).

~~~
CamperBob2
_The best leaders, the best organizations, the ones that create excellence,
are those that are as good at saying no as they are at saying yes._

Google doesn't say "No." They say "Yes... yes... yes... no! Just kidding!
Psych!"

I can't tie my personal or corporate strategy to that.

------
kevinalexbrown
I love the idea of loss-leaders aimed at a specific, influential segment of
the entire market. I'd never really thought of services like that.

I'm curious what uses there are for this specific type of loss-leader (as in
not the Dropbox freemium type). Ethics aside, for instance, Google could have
tried to steer conversation among an influential group toward certain topics,
by more aggressively suggesting certain Google blogs to follow, or specific
stories relevant to Google.

I'm also very curious what other such loss-leading services exist. One example
is this forum. It advertises to potential founders with the small banner ad at
the upper-left-hand corner of the screen. It also provides an ecosystem for
the discussions about and (indirect) promotions of organizations or ideas YC
invests in (like Watsi, or job postings).

The other example I can think of is "high-brow" political magazines like The
National Review. Often, parties dedicated time and money on promoting ideas
there, even though it's a very small segment of the entire market of voters.

Has anyone here designed a service or product with this specific aim in mind?
How did you use it to further some broader agenda?

~~~
csense
Microsoft's vulnerable among college students in computer/IT fields, because
they have technical knowledge, lots of time on their hands and little money --
a perfect audience for FOSS.

So they offer big academic discounts to try to keep them in the Microsoft
ecosystem.

------
Xion
I love how the closure of Reader reveals something about the tech journalists
and "celebrities".

They throw tantrums. They throws hissy fits. They scream bloody murder. They
divine doom and gloom for Google about how severely this will affect it in
much more important markets like Android and Chrome.

And yet the world is not ending, and not every Facebook wall has this petition
[1] plastered all over. Even GOOG stock underwent as a much as a correction,
still hovering comfortably above $800.

What did happen, though, is that self-important "opinion leaders" had their
illusions of power dispelled. No wonder they are furious.

[1] [https://www.change.org/petitions/google-keep-google-
reader-r...](https://www.change.org/petitions/google-keep-google-reader-
running)

~~~
mkr-hn
It's too soon to say whether or not the power of the trendsetters was
illusory. The nature of trendsetting is that the setters have to figure out
what it means for them before they can communicate it. Any change will take
time to distribute itself.

------
nemothekid
I'm unconvinced Google is about to learn anything because this isn't the first
time they have killed a product with a large following. It seems now if a
product doesn't generate at least 100 million, it isn't safe from being
discontinued. So YouTube, will continue to live alongside Search, but it looks
like Picassa is on its way to be rebranded "Google+Pictures"

Instead it looks like everyone else is going to learn tough lesson - Google
isn't a charity, and anything that doesn't provide them any strategic value
and/or revenue can be discontinued.

~~~
r00fus
Of course, Google deserves to support/sunset whatever products they want.

The danger is that they've tasted Microsoft-level power in their ascendant
Android/Chrome business, and want more.

There is a lot to be said about "leaving something on the table" and not
maximizing everything. When you're the largest collector of personal data
(other than perhaps the US Govt), you need goodwill or (influential) people
will revile you.

------
IgorPartola
Look, the TFA is full of crap. Here is the reality: today I would have a hard
time coming up with a better alternative for a free productivity suite and
search engine for most individuals and small to medium enterprises. When I am
talking to someone looking to run things under their own domain, they might
ask "do you think Google is going to discontinue support for
Apps/GMail/Docs/Drive/etc?" To which I would have to reply "very unlikely". I
think the OP overestimates the influence of the people that used GR. Sure,
some had pull but the pragmatic ones can see the difference between Google's
flagship products and GR.

There are plenty of reasons to not buy into the Google Ecosystem, but this is
not one of them. Then again, all we need to do is wait a few months and see if
the earnings report supports the OP's claim or Google's strategy. My money is
ong Google.

------
jonknee
Similar to the lesson(s) they learned after shutting down Google Code Search,
Google Buzz, Jaiku, Google Health or any of the others? You just happened to
like a product that was an overall failure. It happens.

------
marknutter
Twitter and Facebook killed RSS. It's a far friendlier interface for people to
keep up with news and people they find interesting. Geeks may be lamenting the
loss of Google Reader, but they make up a very small percentage of the
internet population these days. When I suggest that Twitter/Facebook is the
new RSS I often catch a lot of flack for it, but honestly, that's how far more
people consume information than any other service.

~~~
illicium
I can't subscribe to <insert-generic-Wordpress-blog-here> with
Twitter/Facebook. With RSS, content authors only have to update their websites
and not worry about crossposting to a social feed.

~~~
marknutter
That's exactly what "following" is.

------
gfodor
One thing I haven't seen mentioned is how odd it is that google is killing a
product likely used widely _within Google_.

~~~
wmf
I guess it's a sign of maturity when Google realizes that their own employees
are not representative of the general Internet market that Google is
targeting.

~~~
guard-of-terra
Lying in a coffing in a fancy suit is a sign of maturity too.

Why is that kind of maturity good these days? For whom?

------
carbon8
Parts of this post are premised the "influencer" marketing model, but there is
at least some research indicating that it might not be as powerful as
generally assumed. For example:

* <http://misc.si.umich.edu/media/papers/wsdm333w-bakshy.pdf>

* [http://www.digitaltonto.com/wp-content/uploads/WattsandDoddi...](http://www.digitaltonto.com/wp-content/uploads/WattsandDoddinfluentials.pdf)

"Grouped: How small groups of friends are the key to influence on the social
web," the book by Paul Adams @ Facebook ([http://www.amazon.com/Grouped-
groups-friends-influence-socia...](http://www.amazon.com/Grouped-groups-
friends-influence-social/dp/0321804112)), talks a bit about this.

Anecdotally, I've also seen quite a bit of evidence first hand that suggests
the impact of influencers is not clear-cut.

------
vineet
If Google is shutting down reader, are they going to remove RSS feeds from
Blogger? What about Feedburner?

I think Google's better move would have been cut a few features and 'Plus-ify'
Reader - kinda like they have been doing with their other products. They would
have evolved an important user base, shown commitment to the RSS standard, and
kept a number of important apps using their api's.

Aren't they after all supposed to be championing the open web?

I don't think this is intentional, but it now hard to argue againsT people
saying that they intentionally waited till they killed the RSS readers market
and then shut down their product.

~~~
camus
blogger and feedburner are next. They want you to move to spooky G+ ...

------
WiseWeasel
What are "influencers" going to do about it? Give Reader a bad review?
Complain about the death of a product no one knew existed? I don't see how
they have any leverage in this situation. The comparison with Microsoft's Word
Count incident seems weakly relevant.

~~~
nlawalker
>> What are "influencers" going to do about it? Give Reader a bad review?

No, but you may start seeing instances of phrases like "I wonder how long it
will be until FeatureX/ProductY gets the boot like Reader did" or "Perhaps
this product will languish for years without innovation like Reader" or "Maybe
Google will opt to ignore users of this product too" in the press related to
Google products. Next time Google kills a product, the media will reflect
about how it's "just as bad as what they did with Reader in 2013." Killing
widely used products is now something Google does; it is a behavior they are
now strongly associated with.

In terms of influencers, it's not about the individual product, it's about the
behavior of the company that operated it. Don't piss off the people that give
you free advertising by taking out features they like, even if they're the
only ones who use them.

>> a product no one knew existed

While I find that a stretch, the point the article was making is that no one
_needs_ to know of the existence of Reader for this to have a negative impact
on Google. Except for the influencers, who did.

------
finnp
And as everyone knows the word count tool initiated the downfall of microsoft
word empire. Seriously, I don't think it was a bad decision to kill the
reader. Not a nice one, but I think certainly not one where Google is going to
learn a lesson about.

~~~
Mindless2112
That wasn't quite the point -- it was that the influencers cared about the
word-count tool. (You might also notice that Word currently has a word-count
tool.)

~~~
danielweber
I think his story got mangled in a game of telephone. Microsoft loves their
word count. Competitors got bit by it, though:

 _This story is as old as the PC. Most of the time, what happens is that they
give their program to a journalist to review, and the journalist reviews it by
writing their review using the new word processor, and then the journalist
tries to find the "word count" feature which they need because most
journalists have precise word count requirements, and it's not there, because
it's in the "80% that nobody uses," and the journalist ends up writing a story
that attempts to claim simultaneously that lite programs are good, bloat is
bad, and I can't use this damn thing 'cause it won't count my words. If I had
a dollar for every time this has happened I would be very happy._

From former Microsoft employee Joel:
<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000020.html> He has links to
reviews in the original

There are stories, though, of Microsoft shipping out beta copies of Microsoft
Word with debugging all turned on, which made it slow, and despite saying so
very carefully to all reviewers who got a copy, they still got torn apart for
it being slow. I think the story is in "Coding The Microsoft Way" which I
haven't seen in over a decade.

------
jblock
I can't wait for this debacle to stop being news.

Google cancelled a product. It let you read websites quickly. There are other
ways to do it. Moving on...

------
webwanderings
Makes a lot of sense.

As an average Joe, I am preparing to go on Google-free diet come July 1.
Firefox, Bing, Outlook. Will find a reader somehow. These are the daily habits
which accumulate over time and provide GOOGLE what it needs to survive. So
will do everything possible to cut down the ...

~~~
sentenza
Better go yandex than bing. They at least manage to be ahead of google in some
niches.

------
zer0gravity
I guess they're doing everything they can to get everyone to Google+. If they
can't bait you, they force you. They want their own Facebook. Probably Blogger
will also be phased out as soon as they afford to.

But I don't think the future will belong neither to Google+ nor Facebook. I'm
looking forward to a descentralized, user centric platform, that anyone can
run on its raspberry pi box at home, that allows you to manage your data
however you please.

~~~
fernly
They are still "enhancing" Blogger. Less than a month ago they introduced a
drastic change in the image-upload UI that basically broke it for everyone. It
appears to have been meant as an improvement but whoever did it, clearly
didn't understand who used it and how. Now they are "looking at" how they can
fix it.

So what are the good alternatives to Blogger? And what if you have multiple
blogs with hundreds of posts in them? Reader at least is emphemeral, there's
no investment of work at risk.

~~~
mkr-hn
WordPress.com can import from Blogger, and then export an almost human-
readable XML file with posts. It costs money to point your own domain at it,
but it has a DNS editor (text-based, but it has some click-based tools). It's
worth the small price if you're concerned with easy portability.

And it's not a peripheral service like Blogger. Automattic _is_ WordPress.com,
and all their peripheral products exist to serve it. The best part? You can
take your WordPress.com and turn it into an identical WordPress.org with a
billion different service providers.

------
kevink245
An article full of nonsense. Discontinuing Google Reader IS NOT sending a
message to enterprises that they should not use Google product for the long
term.

~~~
ak217
Sorry, but your statement needs more to back it up, because the opposing
viewpoint has an easy logical justification. Why should companies transfer
their core infrastructure onto Google's products if they know Google might
decide one day to discontinue them?

I know lots of companies rely on and pay for GMail, I'm sure it won't be
discontinued anytime soon, but I'm also sure this event puts thoughts in the
back of many people's minds about that eventuality.

~~~
Hytosys
The day that e-mail becomes widely irrelevant is the day that Google
thoughtfully cancels Gmail. Google is a business. If they lose enough
customers, it's not worth maintaining an expensive system just to satisfy the
vocal minority who gets up and writes self-entitled articles like OP's. Google
has been pulling plugs on services for the longest time; they're not a
charity, they're a company. I don't think this makes them _evil_!

------
sdeville
No one mentioned it in the thread so far. I am working in academia, and RSS is
a lifesaver for us, to keep track of new academic papers. I am following
around 50 journals, everyone of which publishes a few articles daily, at
least. That makes around 1k papers/month. There's no way for us to check every
journal website every morning. Twitter or Facebook are totally unsuitable for
this. My second constraint is that during my day, I use 2 different computers,
a phone and an iPad to check on my RSS feed, depending on where I am and what
I do. Reader was providing a flawless solution for the sync. There will be
another one soon, that's ok. But according to my twitter stream, many, many
people in academia are pissed off about this decision. I posted my feelings
here <http://wp.me/p1eIvd-d2>

------
devnetfx
\- Reader wars start again. This can be a big positive from this news. Already
people are finding new readers to meet their needs. It will drive innovation
and I expect to see some great products coming in.

\- As many people know things were pretty stagnant on Google Reader. Though it
worked for a lot of us, products like Google+ were always going to get more
focus. In this way Google might have done us a service by retiring a product
it was not developing fully.

\- Wonder if the product name was a limitation in itself. Google Reader was
always going to be a reader even if you add social stuff into it. If that is
the case, maybe they should rename Google Finance to Google Money!

\- People are asking if we can trust with Google on providing all these free
services. Pragmatic among us say "NO" and will remind us that they have been
saying this for ages. Optimistic among us say, well "Gmail", "Youtube" etc.
are for "forever".

\- Most people like Google services because it means "one login", and it goes
all the way to help Android as well. Even if some people are considering their
relationships with Google, it is not in Google's best interests.

\- Another side effect of the above is - what happens on next spring cleaning?
Should I wait to use a product until that product acquires enough momentum? I
will be a bit more hesitant to recommend other Google products.

\- There is a debate going on between free and paid services. I think it is
more about getting a right business model. Services can fail even if you pay
them. Most people are not going to pay more than $5/$10 a month for a service
like this.

\- A big opportunity for a company like Yahoo to get an app for all the
devices, and among the influencers. I will be surprised if they don't try to
raise their game on readers and provide a better "Google Reader". (this advice
is for other companies as well, however I believe, yahoo, will be the one to
grab it.)

\- Was a bit surprised with all the bitching going on at hacker news. I mean,
let them close it, we will have another one or built a new one! And, no
petitions please.

------
hlfcoding
I'm biased about this topic, but don't take my word for it. Robert Scoble is
one such 'influencer' and here's his take and the discussion around it:
<https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/499071000129201>

Key takeaway: it's not the 'vast majority' that bring about innovation and
change on the web. It might be Google doesn't care about innovating on the web
front anymore, at least less than the hardware and integrated systems fronts.
So ironically, this might actually hurt Plus.

~~~
ivix
Precisely. Google _exists_ because of the nerd minority! Once they lose sight
of that they're doomed. Who do they think will be the early adopters of self
driving cars?

------
twelvechairs
It shouldn't really come as a surprise that Google is acting more and more now
like a big established company with shareholders (which they are). When you
become an established industry leader (as a profit-driven shareholder
company), you tend to focus on minimising overheads, cutting cruft and
focusing on core profit-driven services.

They aren't going to be benevolent dictators of the internet forever - we
should be thankful that their benevolence has lasted so long (and still is
lasting through many free services provided).

------
Thiz
I haven't used a feed reader in more than three years. I believe that fad is
gone. Google has closed many more important services and they're still strong.

Nop. There is no lesson to be learnt.

------
eCa
> Third, and lastly, Google is sending a strong signal to the market that it
> will have no mercy of killing whatever product it doesn’t think it’s going
> well.

They have been doing that for years. I'm not sure if anything but Search and
Gmail are safe from the axe. They'll _probably_ not end-of-life Maps or G+,
but almost anything else should probably be treated as a beta that can be
removed at will.

~~~
mkr-hn
I read a post a while back where someone theorized that Google owns enough
fiber to make YouTube inexpensive to run, and it's deeply embedded in the
minds of most web users.

------
chaostheory
"By killing a product that was beloved and heavily used by most influencers,
you start to alienate those folks. Killing a product like Picnik with tens of
millions of users, might have less impact on the business than killing a
product with less than a million users, where most of those users are
influencers."

Reminds me of what Apple is doing with the Mac Pro.

------
alexfarran
It's very easy to make up a story like the one about MS Word after the event.
Not so easy to predict in advance who these influencers are, who they
influence, and if they exist in the first place. Duncan Watts has researched
this and there's an interview here. [http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-
branding/scientist-in...](http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-
branding/scientist-influencer-theory-bogus-105981)

" They throw parties or they give away free samples or they advertise in
particular publications that brand themselves as reaching an influential
audience and run some campaign in their normal manner. And if it works, they
say, "We reached the influencers." And if it doesn't work, they say "We didn't
reach the influencers" or "We weren't able to make them help us." In that
sense, it's just a rhetorical device to help you explain the randomness that
you actually experience in the world. "

~~~
disgruntledphd2
That was an extremely interesting link, thank you.

------
andr3w321
Meh, I don't use google reader or really care, but I am pissed they plan on
ending igoogle in November. It's insane to me that they will do this.

It's my homepage and I'm sure millions of other people's homepages. Setting
your homepage to an internet company's site is pretty much their whole goal.
It's insane to me that they will give this up.

~~~
stcredzero
_> Setting your homepage to an internet company's site is pretty much their
whole goal._

That always felt hokey to me. I was always more likely to "homepage" a website
that just gave me great content and proportionately less likely to "homepage"
a site that wanted to be my home page. This is why HN/reddit are basically
this for me.

------
ddunkin
How many little web services have you all used, that have come and gone over
the years, that never had as much money behind them as Google? Most people are
going to trust that Google has a better chance long-term, even if the product
has a chance of going away some day. I am always leery of my data with small
companies, and make sure there is a good backup/exit strategy (obviously, this
applies to Google too).

I see a lot of passionate tweets over just another web service. If Google
wasn't killing the service, but asking users to spread the word to keep the
service, would they be so passionate about it then? Maybe. People don't often
go to Twitter when their service is working, generally when they're pissed
(unless the service is mind-blowing great). I just don't think all the whining
is going to do much convincing at this point, or that it will impact Google
all that much.

------
mcintyre1994
The right way to respond to this backlash would be to make Reader a paid app
and tell people it'll stay while enough pay for it (and of course be
transparent about user count etc). I can't see Google going that way though,
it was free and if they don't want to pay to support it there's no reason to
expect them to.

~~~
r00fus
Reader is getting the axe because it's getting in the way of the new protege
project, G+.

They can't have anything holding Google from becoming what they think Facebook
should be.

In fact, they don't just want to become/defeat Facebook, but also Apple (see
Nexus/Chromebook) and Amazon (see Shopping Express), not to mention Groupon
(see Offers). By trying to be all things, they will become none.

They are on the path to becoming Microsoft. I desperately hope that the
Glass/Driverless-car part of the company prevails in corporate culture. I fear
that will not be the case.

~~~
camus

        >    By trying to be all things, they will become none.
    

I just agree 100% they are an advertising company ,that's all they will ever
be. The rest is bull. And i'm not going to use any of their vaporware anymore.
But it's a great wake up call against all this Saas bull* , i guess
journalists had a taste of what the implications of cloud computing are.

~~~
mcintyre1994
I don't think that's fair. They're an AI/machine learning company at heart
now. Primarily that powers advertising of course, but they have the potential
to do so much more.

~~~
r00fus
Just that it used to be that they'd do it because it was cool, and potentially
profitable.

Now they'd do things to be profitable first, and cool as a side effect.

It's arguable which iterative path leads to a greater market social and market
impact.

~~~
mcintyre1994
Of course. We shouldn't expect them to pursue things that some people might
deem "cool" and their shareholders will deem a loss leader, but to argue that
they are just an advertising company is to miss the bulk of what they do in my
opinion. They'd be nowhere without AI and machine learning, and really are
pushing boundaries of where we can take them things. Primarily to sell adverts
and be profitable sure, but what they are doing is not equatable to any other
company that sells adverts.

------
ebiester
If it isn't Google search or Gmail, I'm not making any decisions that depend
on it. It's that simple. And frankly, I'm likely moving my email off it as
soon as I get some spare bandwidth to find something I like enough. (I really
like webmail.)

------
kolev
I had exactly the same feelings when I heard about the decision. Now I'm
planning to stop using Google Voice, which has the same indications of getting
killed soon (zero development, no promotion, etc.) I am less excited about
Google+ as well - I just cannot tolerate a company that kills features and
products like this. This decision from Google is really damaging to them and
they are idiots of they don't see it. This "focus" thing applies to small
shops. Google is huge. They can afford to keep a product like Google Reader -
small shops can't.

------
ozataman
I'll say this: This behavior by Google has gotten me for the first time to
take a deeper look at Microsoft's 365. I'll also be much more careful in the
future before using GCE for a real business purpose.

~~~
icebraining
Yeah, MS is oh so much more trustworthy. Like when they discontinued POP (and
IMAP?) access on Hotmail accounts, before Gmail came about.

------
edsm
As a user of Google Reader, I'm kind of glad it's going away. Why? Because now
good quality web-based RSS feed readers will finally arise. Sure, there are
some out there now, but with Google's monopoly on the product nobody really
cared about them and they weren't very good or reliable. Now that will be
forced to change.

To me this is like if in 2002 Microsoft had decided to stop making Internet
Explorer and force everyone to use a different browser - quality browsers
would have been developed and adopted a lot faster.

------
stcredzero
_> First, Google says that it “gets” social, but you can’t “get” social if you
don’t get the concept of an influencer. By killing a product that was beloved
and heavily used by most influencers, you start to alienate those folks._

If op is right about Google Reader users, then the same thing is happening
with OS X users. A part of the reason for OS X's success was adoption by
influencers. Samsung, Android, and others have made a lot of inroads on
influencer groups.

------
joejohnson
I'm not saying that Google "gets" social (because they obviously don't), but
everyone I know who uses Google Reader is definitely not the influencer type.

------
dstroot
How I read HN: 1) Subscribe to HN feed in Google Reader 2) Install Reeder app
everywhere (phone, iPad, laptop) 3) Link Reeder to Google Reader 4) Read
happy... all items synced across all platforms, read, unread, starred. 5) Any
time I have a free moment I pop open Reeder on my phone and read HN.

I don't give a %$@*%& about "social"...

Mission #1 is now to find another service that will reliably feed RSS feeds
into Reeder.

------
WilliamTJ
Google Reader is not just a feed but also as a tool for many people that are
oppress by internet censorship it the only way people get free information and
fight oppression...

I guess Google don't care

[http://www.technologyreview.com/view/512566/unintentional-
in...](http://www.technologyreview.com/view/512566/unintentional-interfaces-
google-readers-censorship-busting-power-will-be-hard-to/)

------
jhonovich
I saw a HackerNews thread ranking/listing RSS alternatives, found Feedly was
the top one and migrated my feeds from google reader. Now, I kick myself for
using Google Reader all this time when Feedly is clearly far better (for me).

While I've lost a little respect for Google, I am overall happy to find a
better RSS reader alternative.

------
joshualastdon
My first inclination seeing the title of this post even before I read the
article was to comment, "are you a fortune teller?"

But seriously, to put it mildly my friend, I don't agree with you. Google
determined that the best thing to do was to kill it and they did. They
continue building other stuff; life continues.

------
csense
Actually, I'd say it's the _audience_ that learns a tough lesson: If you use
an application that requires a server operated by somebody else, there's never
a guarantee that the service will operate forever.

This is a compelling argument in favor of DRM-free desktop applications.

------
binderbizingdos
all of this (I think) is Larry Page in action. for a long time there was no
clear strategy with Schmidt. "products" would pop up everywhere with no clear
relationship. now Larry is cutting the wild growth. while it hurts some people
I think in general it will strengthen Google.

> Oh, and I’m pissed with Google Reader going away. I used it 3-10 times a day
> to consume about 100+ feeds.

look, if you want to have a more effective RSS reading habit, use rss2email
<http://www.allthingsrss.com/rss2email/> and plug into the power of email-
filtering. you don't even have to go to some "reader" to get updated.

------
jmount
I think we are all just going to learn the tough lesson of how little we
matter.

------
pyrocrasty
> Sure, I’m pretty sure Gmail is not going away, but what ... YouTube? I think
> a lot of products would be happy to as precarious a future as Youtube...

------
esalman
With this decision, Google made it lot easier for our company to choose
between self-hosted mail server and Google Apps business account.

------
richardw
If I were Microsoft I'd be pushing Bing Reader out the door ASAP. I'm sure
they'd find a use for all those disgruntled influencers.

------
campuscodi
If you really want Google to bring Reader back we should all delete our
Google+ accounts. Not banter in a corner of the Internet.

------
idont
Google has made a pure "Top-down decision". Apple also made one like this:
replace Google Maps by Maps Apple style. #Fail

------
ommunist
Heck, if you display feed titles, excerpts from Google Reader aggregated feed
on your website, this will be dead too!

------
badhairday
"Microsoft new about it but didn’t care because it had data that showed that
feature was just minimally used."

What?

------
stretchwithme
Seems like wishful thinking.

------
nonamegiven
Why would Google want to maintain and promote an app that makes it easy for
people to go to non-Google sites?

~~~
ganz
Isn't that the core purpose of Google Search?

~~~
OGinparadise
it was

------
OGinparadise
Google officially lost the "we're not Facebook /Microsoft /Apple [other "evil
empire"] company." They have played that game for way too long and many people
fell for it. Since Larry Page took over, Google has lost it's soul; now it's
just a greedy, money grubbing machine.

Nothing is sacred anymore, no matter how much they repeat
<http://www.google.com/about/company/philosophy/>

~~~
giblfiz
wait... your saying that because they are discontinuing a product?

I'm not suggesting that google is/isn't evil these days, but I would suggest
that there is absolutely no moral aspect to discontinuing a feed reader.

~~~
panacea
"discontinuing a product"

I guess you need to unpack what that product was. It was loss-leading free
product that killed the ecosystem that proceeded it. That whole 'embrace,
extend, extinguish' thing is what many people are decrying as a tad 'evil'.

~~~
OGinparadise
Google did that to websites too: first they penalized a slew of sites such as
local search, travel, finance, shopping comparison for having "shallow
content," and then they introduced the Google versions of said sites, on top
of everyone else on search results.

~~~
cromwellian
Google's mission is to organize the world's information, to be a Search
Engine, not specifically a "Web Search Engine". People come looking for
answers, not just sites. When I search for "Samsung TV", I don't want a link
to another vertical crawler as the top answer, I want links to where I can
read reviews and buy it. Vertical search is getting rolled up into search, not
just by Google, but by Microsoft too, because ultimately, search engines
should be smart enough to understand the semantics of the search to an extern
where a special curated vertical isn't needed anymore. When Jean Luc Picard
asks the Enterprise computer for the nearest Starbase, it doesn't tell him to
phone up StarBases.com and ask them for a list instead.

When I ask "AAPL", I want the current price of AAPL. This has a direct,
factual, answer, I am not looking to be sent to finance search engine or
portal as the top answer.

Even before Google built reader, the "RSS" market was mostly free. No one was
making a killing selling RSS readers, anymore than commercial web browsers
really succeeded. Is Mozilla evil because a free open source browser "killed
the market" for commercial-for-pay browsers? That ship has already sailed.

What's arguably evil is using a lossleader to kill another product, and then
jack up the price once you have a monopoly. But releasing free services when
the price was already zero is hardly anything to write home about.

If you want to know who really killed RSS, ask Facebook.

~~~
OGinparadise
_Google's mission is to organize the world's information, to be a Search
Engine, not specifically a "Web Search Engine". People come looking for
answers, not just sites._

Their mission changes based on their revenue needs. First it was no ads on
top, then send users as fast as possible to other sites, now it's almost all
ads and keep users at Google at any cost. Even if what Google provides is sub-
standard, very typical of companies that gain a monopoly in a field. You can
argue that they might have a right to do it, not that it is the right thing to
do. If major websites go out of business, how is the web better off? Google
produces no content and now wants to send no clicks to the producers.

>> _When I search for "Samsung TV", I don't want a link to another vertical
crawler as the top answer, I want links to where I can read reviews and buy
it._

Yes, but Google decided that _they_ have the best reviews and best price.
Either way, they gained share by being nice and now they are on top, with lots
of money to buy off protection from politicians.
[http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/google-
accumulat...](http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/google-
accumulated-25m-for-lobbying-during-ftc-probe)

 _What's arguably evil is using a lossleader to kill another product, and then
jack up the price once you have a monopoly._

Google clones everything and when those cloned go out of business, consumers
lose. Any hope that they may charge $1 /month vanishes when Google clones
their app /features.

 _Is Mozilla evil because a free open source browser "killed the market" for
commercial-for-pay browsers? That ship has already sailed._

Mozilla is one company, Google clones a product and uses it's billion users to
have it adopted. Imagine if Microsoft used that muscle to have users adopt
Bing or IE, by showing ads for them virtually each time you went online.

~~~
cromwellian
Vertical crawlers and linkfarms going out of business is different than
publishers going out of business. The web's fertile lifeblood is content,
federated, distributed, content accessible by URL. I worry more about
newspapers going out of business than comparison shopping sites or RSS readers
that never could charge $1 per month, that's nostalgia for a history that
never existed.

The open source community as a whole continues to put people out of business
by offering free alternatives. We don't call it evil, we just tell those who
can no longer compete with free to find another business that isn't com-
modified.

There was a time when people also sold memory managers and TCP stacks and
everyone OS vendors put them out of business by including their features.

If anyone is hurting the Web these days, it is mobile, and a new generation of
DRM'ed, native, locked down computing devices that take away far more rights
than people who had general purpose computers used to have, and who push a new
way of distributing applications that is platform dependent, distribution
dependent, even carrier dependent in some circumstances.

Yeah, but keep droning on about ads, ads, ads, as you seem to do in every
post, and how the world would be a much better place if somehow people had
paywalls and subscriptions for stuff they access for little transaction cost
today.

~~~
Apocryphon
People seem to be clamoring for subscriptions to ostensibly free services that
come at a cost, whether it's the threat of cancellation or restrictive use of
their APIs. That's why App.net got so much buzz, remember?

