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The big offender here is Google. They nuked it with killing Reader and FeedBurner is also minutes away of being sunset. Choosing between evils, Google seems a

The big offender here is Google. They nuked it with killing Reader and FeedBurner is also minutes away of being sunset. Choosing between evils, Google seems a better bet then Facebook, ofcourse, but these actions they've taken will backfire for them eventually. The more "open" and "accessible" web, should be in their benefit, long term thinking. But what I see, what they're busy with is self driving cars, google glasses, augmented reality and all of that: GREAT. But supporting some basic, easy, cheap, webstandards, they're just completely neglecting and they might up being the next AT&T, or IBM. They do have some charm offensives going ("Google News Lab") and, well, basically any big tech corp looks better then Facebook -- if you care about the internet in it's current form, Google is really screwing us over. I really am convinced Google is completely losing it's way. There's no real good quick adequate alternative that I can think of, but they could've just done things so much better, and it would've costed them, quite literally, nothing.

bad_user 9y ago
> Choosing between evils, Google seems a better bet then Facebook We are treating these companies as if they are sports teams. No, we don't have to choose between evils. > The more "open" and "accessible" web, should be in their benefit, long term thinking. An open Internet is only in the benefit of small and medium companies and startups. Companies like Google have virtually unlimited resources at their disposal. All doors are open for them, all possible loopholes are within reach. When all else fails they can just drop a couple of billion $ and nobody can say no to that.
- 5_minutes 9y ago
  The comparison with Facebook is because, yes, we're at a point of choosing which companies ethics you believe in most, and feel most comfortable handling your personal data. Privacy, security, openness, ads, ... at least it does to me. And yes, I do think for any company out there crawling the web, RSS feeds are a good indicator. Ofcourse, Google algorithms got to the point that they don't really need RSS feeds anymore, but that's perhaps also the reason why quite often their search results kind of suck, as soon as you dive deeper. The real problem, for all of us out here - is that no-one even bothers making a search engine anymore. Everyone has given up. And Google can just do whatever they want. And that's exactly what they do.
  - ece 9y ago
    Yep, with their infrastructure it's a much easier task to build something and take advantage of the scale in multiple ways, I believe GReader was a 20% time project too. I don't think any one has come close to matching the ease and scale that GReader operated at. Sure their search has improved too, but it's pull instead of the push model that RSS is. The social networks are no substitutes, though Twitter comes closer than FB because it doesn't have to deal with my other network posts when trying to surface content I would be interested in.
  - tejtm 9y ago
    DuckDuckGo is still hanging in there (for me anyway) https://duckduckgo.com https://duckduckgo.com
    - dsparkman 9y ago
      Yeah DuckDuckGo is awesome. I have been using them exclusively for the past couple of months for search. In that time I have found their results as good as Google's results for the topics I cluster around.
- lucideer 9y ago
  > > Choosing between evils, Google seems a better bet then Facebook > We are treating these companies as if they are sports teams. No, we don't have to choose between evils. This is very very slightly OT but I've asked this exact question within HN comments before and never really received any satisfactory answers... Yes, I fully agree that it shouldn't and doesn't need to be a choice between the two sports teams, but even in a hypothetical world where it was, how on earth is anyone presuming that the infinitely pervasive Google is somehow more ok than the very opt-outable facebook?
  - chriswarbo 9y ago
    > how on earth is anyone presuming that the infinitely pervasive Google is somehow more ok than the very opt-outable facebook? The only way to "opt out" of either is to avoid Javascript and try blocking as many of their ad/beacon/tracker domains as possible; although that's a bit of a Hydra. Yes, you can opt out from getting an account and using their applications; the worse part is all of the "shadow profiles" and third-party tracking which is pretty much everywhere these days :(
    - lucideer 9y ago
      Using most content blockers with default settings will block all Facebook tracking you'll encounter without visiting the site itself. In contrast, opting out of Google is a largely unviable feat for most.
  - dageshi 9y ago
    Facebooks core service is a walled garden, Googles core service is a gateway into the open web. More to the point, as someone who was using the web before Google existed, Google Search specifically has helped me immeasurably over the years far more than anything Facebook has ever done.
    - lucideer 9y ago
      I think you're confusing value and virtue. Everything you've said is true, but not really relevant to this particular discussion I think?
jasonkostempski 9y ago
The beauty of RSS is no one has or ever had a monopoly on it. The comings and goings of particular readers is of absolutely no consequence. The only issue is the reduction of sites offering feeds, but I don't think Google is one of those offenders. They offer RSS feeds for things including Google News and most YouTube channels, they're just not always visible on the page.
Turing_Machine 9y ago
"FeedBurner is also minutes away of being sunset" One may hope. FeedBurner is horrible. It wasn't great even when it was new, and Google's neglect of it coupled with the standard Google non-support black hole if anything breaks (as it regularly does) hasn't exactly made things better.
- bastawhiz 9y ago
  It's probably on the way out, but it'll be a very bad thing. Tens of thousands of podcasts and blogs use FeedBurner for their feeds exclusively. If FeedBurner shuts down, even if more than half of folks successfully migrate away, incredible amount of content will be lost forever.

bad_user 9y ago

> Choosing between evils, Google seems a better bet then Facebook We are treating these companies as if they are sports teams. No, we don't have to choose between evils. > The more "open" and "accessible" web, should be in their benefit, long term thinking. An open Internet is only in the benefit of small and medium companies and startups. Companies like Google have virtually unlimited resources at their disposal. All doors are open for them, all possible loopholes are within reach. When all else fails they can just drop a couple of billion $ and nobody can say no to that.

5_minutes 9y ago
The comparison with Facebook is because, yes, we're at a point of choosing which companies ethics you believe in most, and feel most comfortable handling your personal data. Privacy, security, openness, ads, ... at least it does to me. And yes, I do think for any company out there crawling the web, RSS feeds are a good indicator. Ofcourse, Google algorithms got to the point that they don't really need RSS feeds anymore, but that's perhaps also the reason why quite often their search results kind of suck, as soon as you dive deeper. The real problem, for all of us out here - is that no-one even bothers making a search engine anymore. Everyone has given up. And Google can just do whatever they want. And that's exactly what they do.
- ece 9y ago
  Yep, with their infrastructure it's a much easier task to build something and take advantage of the scale in multiple ways, I believe GReader was a 20% time project too. I don't think any one has come close to matching the ease and scale that GReader operated at. Sure their search has improved too, but it's pull instead of the push model that RSS is. The social networks are no substitutes, though Twitter comes closer than FB because it doesn't have to deal with my other network posts when trying to surface content I would be interested in.
- tejtm 9y ago
  DuckDuckGo is still hanging in there (for me anyway) https://duckduckgo.com https://duckduckgo.com
  - dsparkman 9y ago
    Yeah DuckDuckGo is awesome. I have been using them exclusively for the past couple of months for search. In that time I have found their results as good as Google's results for the topics I cluster around.
lucideer 9y ago
> > Choosing between evils, Google seems a better bet then Facebook > We are treating these companies as if they are sports teams. No, we don't have to choose between evils. This is very very slightly OT but I've asked this exact question within HN comments before and never really received any satisfactory answers... Yes, I fully agree that it shouldn't and doesn't need to be a choice between the two sports teams, but even in a hypothetical world where it was, how on earth is anyone presuming that the infinitely pervasive Google is somehow more ok than the very opt-outable facebook?
- chriswarbo 9y ago
  > how on earth is anyone presuming that the infinitely pervasive Google is somehow more ok than the very opt-outable facebook? The only way to "opt out" of either is to avoid Javascript and try blocking as many of their ad/beacon/tracker domains as possible; although that's a bit of a Hydra. Yes, you can opt out from getting an account and using their applications; the worse part is all of the "shadow profiles" and third-party tracking which is pretty much everywhere these days :(
  - lucideer 9y ago
    Using most content blockers with default settings will block all Facebook tracking you'll encounter without visiting the site itself. In contrast, opting out of Google is a largely unviable feat for most.
- dageshi 9y ago
  Facebooks core service is a walled garden, Googles core service is a gateway into the open web. More to the point, as someone who was using the web before Google existed, Google Search specifically has helped me immeasurably over the years far more than anything Facebook has ever done.
  - lucideer 9y ago
    I think you're confusing value and virtue. Everything you've said is true, but not really relevant to this particular discussion I think?

jasonkostempski 9y ago

The beauty of RSS is no one has or ever had a monopoly on it. The comings and goings of particular readers is of absolutely no consequence. The only issue is the reduction of sites offering feeds, but I don't think Google is one of those offenders. They offer RSS feeds for things including Google News and most YouTube channels, they're just not always visible on the page.

Turing_Machine 9y ago

"FeedBurner is also minutes away of being sunset" One may hope. FeedBurner is horrible. It wasn't great even when it was new, and Google's neglect of it coupled with the standard Google non-support black hole if anything breaks (as it regularly does) hasn't exactly made things better.

bastawhiz 9y ago
It's probably on the way out, but it'll be a very bad thing. Tens of thousands of podcasts and blogs use FeedBurner for their feeds exclusively. If FeedBurner shuts down, even if more than half of folks successfully migrate away, incredible amount of content will be lost forever.