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Okay, I'm not even going to finish reading this drivel... Using the closure of Google Reader as an example of how Google could "turn off huge parts of web" is
by RIMR 8y ago
Okay, I'm not even going to finish reading this drivel...
Using the closure of Google Reader as an example of how Google could "turn off huge parts of web" is ridiculous.
Google reader was just a web-based RSS reader. Its user base was dwindling because RSS was falling out of fashion. Google alerted users well ahead of time of the closure, and gave users ample opportunity to move their subscriptions to another RSS aggregator.
Closing their own service is not a big deal. It's wasn't the first service Google has shuttered, nor will it be the last. Every company does this to services that no longer benefit the company.
No data was removed from the web.
No functionality was destroyed.
The Google Reader source code was made available to the public.
Competing services were champing at the bit to replace Google Reader (and didn't succeed, because hardly anyone uses RSS anymore).
It seems like Dave Winner suffers from a lack of understanding of how the web works, and an irrational distrust of large corporations.
- ajross 8y agoYeah. I think a lot of people tend to scapegoat Google for the death of openly indexed content, when all they really did was jump ship well after it was clearly dying. I mean, it's true that Google Reader was a better product than the competition, and being free it probably did "suppress" the market for paid readers, leaving an impoverished landscape when they exited. But if RSS was a vibrant technology, would they have killed it? No, they'd have tried to exploit it somehow. But it was going nowhere. Frankly, if you want to point a finger for the death of RSS, blame Facebook and Twitter.
- slrz 8y ago> The Google Reader source code was made available to the public. It was? Where to find it? Please don't tell me it got lost when Google Code shut down.