
Google Petitioned By Fans Of Google Reader To Reconsider Shutdown - ForFreedom
http://www.fastcompany.com/3006994/most-innovative-companies-2013/google-petitioned-fans-google-reader-reconsider-shutdown
======
drzaiusapelord
Whats incredible to me is that google co-opted RSS in chrome and practically
forced us to use their Reader product via Chrome's defaults. So we all gave up
on our stand-alone readers and readers built into other browsers. And now they
pull this crap?

I just wish they'd leave well enough alone. I greatly prefer Firefox's RSS
integration. Heck, RSS is more or less dying and I blame google and Chrome for
this. Shifting the reader from the browser to a webapp isn't helping anyone
and just means more backend infrastructure to maintain. Now they don't want to
maintain it. Typical cloud fail.

Are they going to toss in a built-in RSS reader into Chrome now? Is the
"cloudify everything" fad finally over? Simcity working yet?

~~~
pron
With Google Reader I can read my feeds on my phone.

------
arocks
It is not just fans of Google Reader who are shocked, the fans of Google would
be too. It goes against their "Don't be Evil" mantra which, as many would
interpret, puts common good before sheer commercial interests.

Google might be able to prove that Reader usage has been dropping. However it
was still the leading web based solution for reading feeds without any
marketing or updates for a long time. As we notice now, people don't even
_know_ the alternatives!

A really bad move for the Google brand.

~~~
anon1385
I'm pretty sure the Google brand is already heavily associated with killing
products whenever they feel like it, as they did to Code Search, Google Search
API (twice), Google Video, Wave, Buzz, Google Labs, Google Desktop, Google
Notebook, Google Sets, Google Squared, Google Catalogs, Google Answers, Audio
Ads, Google Base, Browser Sync, City Tours, Click-to-Call, Google Dashboard
Widgets, Dodgeball, Jaiku, Google Mashup Editor, Google Directory, GOOG-411,
Joga Bonito, Aardvark, Lively, Music Trends, Ride Finder, Google Shared Stuff,
Sidewiki, FastFlip, Google Translate API, Writely, Google Health, PowerMeter,
Google University Search, U.S. Government Search, Slide products (Disco, Pool
Party, Video Inbox, Photovine, Slideshow, SuperPoke! Pets), Google Pack, Image
Labeller, Google Dictionary and now Google Reader.

~~~
psbp
No, I expect Google to offer free services that serve my every whim until they
go bankrupt.

~~~
anon1385
Nobody forced Google to start up all those loss making services -- which they
did to gain positive PR or attempt to stifle competition in those markets --
or buy those companies and shut down their existing products.

~~~
atirip
Stifle competiton? Are you serious? All what Google does is destroying other
peoples's businesses for fun - see, we have shitload of money and nothing to
do, why we just offer that what you offer, but for free - haha looser.

~~~
arrrg
Offering your product for free (which smaller competitors will often not be
able to do) can drive the competition out of business and be anti-competitve
(i.e. evil).

This is not some absurd thing to say. The only question is whether that
happened. (I sort of believe it did, at least on some level.)

That doesn’t make Google super-evil in my eyes, but it’s a mark against them.

~~~
icebraining
That's essentially saying that being too competitive is anti-competitive, and
frankly, I think it's ridiculous. So what if smaller competitors aren't able
to provide the same solutions at the same price? Isn't that why it's called
_competition_? The point is to benefit consumers, not to keep inefficient
businesses alive by hurting them.

That said, I think there's some sense in calling anti-competitive when a
player lowers the price _temporarily_ , in order to drive out competitors and
jack up the prices afterwards. But that's clearly not what happened here.

~~~
arrrg
Nah, reducing the price and bringing it back up is not necessary.

It’s anti-competitive if Google Reader on its own wasn’t profitable and Google
nevertheless kept it alive (funding it with money from elsewhere in the
company), thus killing competitors.

~~~
icebraining
Then, does that make Hacker News an anti-competitive move by YCombinator? Does
it make Free Software anti-competitive?

Maybe it is, but then I say, hurray for the anti-competitives!

~~~
arrrg
No, it doesn’t.

This isn’t a black and white problem.

------
prawn
While it's frustrating for users of the service, I think this Reader shutdown
provides a great opportunity for so many smaller developers to spruik their
product or build another option in the space.

------
marknutter
Here's an alternative: Google throws a credit card form in front of Google
Reader and people can pay for the service.

~~~
bradleyland
Never happen. At best, Google could spin the service off in to a separate
company, but as Google exists today the product makes no sense. The income
from a paid Google Reader service wouldn't register a blip on Google's
financials, but would detract from their focus.

~~~
rkwz
>but would detract from their focus.

Why not just stop the development on it and let the service to continue?

I never had any problems with Google Reader, nor do I want a particular
feature to be added to it. It's fine as it is.

~~~
VikingCoder
It's fine as it is?

It's fine, as long as it crawls every feed, merges the contents, archives
them, serves up the bandwidth, allows people to write custom front-ends that
prohibit Google from even showing you any extra data like say an ad?

~~~
larsberg
As opposed to gmail, which I visited in a browser (with AdBlock) once, to set
up two-phase auth during that loud security push?

------
orillian
I refuse to build anything that uses Google API's for this exact reason, They
could pull the plug on gmail next week if they decided they were not getting
enough metrics from it.

Look at what happened to the translate API. How about the licencing changes to
Google maps API. They build something like this and if they can't find a way
to generate more money (maps API) it gets shut down(translate, now reader.),
even if a bunch of people use it. And by a bunch I mean a small collective of
tech people.

I would not be surprised to see Google Groups get munched once they finish
adding a few more features into the communities bag.

I do use gmail, I have multiple accounts in fact, but I backup everything
locally that I think might be valuable to me in the future...just in case.

O.

~~~
smithzvk
> I would not be surprised to see Google Groups get munched once they finish
> adding a few more features into the communities bag.

I would say that this is probably firmly in motion. I doubt that many users
enjoy using the Groups interface. For instance, I can't remember if there was
ever a time that the groups webpage correctly rendered on any of my Android
devices' browsers (it always thinks I'm using an old version of Safari?!?), or
was actually useful outside of a desktop (where it is merely annoying, but
usable). I think this is a good indicator that they are divesting from any
work there probably in preparation of dropping it.

> I backup everything locally that I think might be valuable to me in the
> future...just in case.

One thing I absolutely trust Google to do is provide a mechanism to get my
data out of one of their services, particularly if the service is going to be
discontinued.

------
mr_penguin
Considering Marissa Mayer green lit the project back at google. It'd be nice
to see yahoo step in to fill the void.

~~~
genericbrandx
or Amazon? Cloud service, like Google Reader, plus Kindle support would be
nice

------
soupboy
I used to be a heavy Google Reader user and I'm actually happy they are
shutting it down. This will force innovation in this field by removing the
biggest player in the market.

------
dccoolgai
This is just like when they cancelled Firefly...

~~~
tuzemec
... or Futurama...

------
ececconi
People who think there is going to be a reaction remember that the public's
reaction to this is probably going to be...

"Google Reader? What's that?"

or

"Google Reader? Is that like Google Wave or something?"

or

"Google had a product that would read to me?"

~~~
arindone
Exactly -- it's a product with a loyal following, but not necessarily
significant... and when you work on the scale of Google, a few million people
(or even a few dozen) does not move the needle for them

------
mwexler
You know, I haven't seen anyone yet mention the obvious. I'd pay something per
month to keep using Google Reader. Is there some reason they don't want my
money?

We keep complaining that they are killing this free service. How about keeping
it up, charging me something, and terminating only the "free" part?

------
netrus
(Disclaimer: I have no idea about Google's code base) Why don't they
opensource Google reader? Sure someone could build a small nice business out
of hosting it. It's no loss for them, and gathers lots of goodwill in the nerd
community.

~~~
schmrz
I've read that Google reader is deeply integrated with Google Search so that's
probably the reason.

Here's the link: <http://gigaom.com/2013/03/13/chris-wetherll-google-reader/>

------
rjv
Keep it for the goodwill. I can't imagine it's a huge hassle to keep it
going.. nobody is asking for them to continuously update and evolve the
product.

~~~
tiziano88
when the rest of the infrastructure around it is changing all the time, it's
hard not to end up spending a considerable amount of time and effort just to
keep the service up and running

------
orangethirty
Google cant change its mind like that. It wod project a badly on them.

------
torbit
I like how that blogs links are the same colors has static text.

