> It costs very little to let old software run, especially in case of a Google-sized company. The cost model is actually the reverse of what you may think. Bec

> It costs very little to let old software run, especially in case of a Google-sized company. The cost model is actually the reverse of what you may think. Because of security concerns, every existing service is a vector for attack waiting to happen; under-maintained services doubly so, as they won't have the passive eyes-on that minimize the chances of something slipping through the cracks. At a company the size of Google, it's not just the passive cost of maintaining the API; it's the active cost of maintaining the API, maintaining the servers its implementation is running on, and doing the security concern analysis to make sure someone can't use the feeds API to crack into a user's GMail account, multiplied across all services Google runs, etc.