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The problem isn’t that Google wants to charge for a service. The issue is that they offered it for years for free or below cost effectively price gouging any co

The problem isn’t that Google wants to charge for a service. The issue is that they offered it for years for free or below cost effectively price gouging any competition. Now, with no alternatives they jack up the price. Classic monopolistic and anticompetitive behaviour.

emodendroket 8y ago
Essentially the Google Reader effect, right? Where killing their offering basically killed the entire medium.
- asfasgasg 8y ago
  You've got the causality reversed here. The medium was dying, so the Reader product was killed.
  - parrellel 8y ago
    You mean Google+ needed promotion so the Reader product was killed.
    - emodendroket 8y ago
      In the first place they'd rather you used something other than RSS so they can inject promoted content into it.
      - rlac16 8y ago
        Nothing stops promoted content being injected by the feed reader. Feedly does it on their free plans.
    - asfasgasg 8y ago
      Google+ only existed in the first place because of the thing that was killing the medium and its one hundred and forty character-limited cousin.
      - parrellel 8y ago
        As I look at the big list of RSS feeds I found this very thread in, I can't help but imagine that news of it's death is a tad exaggerated.
        asfasgasg 8y ago
        Well, there's that too, but people complaining about Google's decision r.e. Reader don't like being reminded that there are dozens of alternatives.
- sanderjd 8y ago
  I'm always so confused by this. I switched to Feedly the day Reader went away. It was just as good then and is better now. I subscribe to way more stuff now than I did then. I've never understood how this "killed the entire medium".
  - corobo 8y ago
    If we're doing anecdata when Reader was killed off I tried Feedly, didn't like it, stopped consuming via RSS. I've recently tried Newsblur but honestly I never check the thing despite having it on every device I can. I don't think RSS is a thing for me anymore outside of technically podcasts
    - emodendroket 8y ago
      Same here. I miss it but I haven't been satisfied with the options I tried (anyway Google long ago killed my list of feeds).
  - bjoli 8y ago
    I use RSS daily, but I am very much anomaly among my friends. For most people I know RSS just withered and died and got replaced by Facebook or whatever asocial media they are on. I ended up rolling my own server (in scheme using sxml) and writing some minimal clients for it (tui, Emacs and web). It is running on a raspberry pi 2 and is currently using about 5mb of memory (the guile runtime is a large chunk of that) and has been down once since I started it 5 years ago (power outage). Reader was to me the absolute best example of the good old web. Since then it seems like the web became insane with the idea of reinventing UI, which was then forced down our throats for both web and desktop, ruining two paradigms that worked just fine. I am old,I know.
    - sanderjd 8y ago
      Sure, yeah, using RSS is rare, but it always was, and nothing was going to keep the vast majority of people from using Facebook and Twitter instead. I don't understand why you rolled your own server. Feedly works great. If you did it because it's a fun project, that's awesome! But it certainly isn't necessary if your goal is just to subscribe to RSS feeds.
ajross 8y ago
Uh... the linked article compared 8 different competitors on various metrics. There are reasonable ways to disagree with Google's policy here, but "no alternatives" and "monopolistic" are just laughably silly.
- martimarkov 8y ago
  I’d disagree a bit. There are competitors but the quality and the service is not on the same level. Google have made it hard to compete so that they stay in the leadership position. More importantly google maps “owns” more market share than all of them combined so it is kinda a monopoly. I might not have explained my point well but I do think you get what I’m saying.
  - ajross 8y ago
    If players with the resources of Apple and Microsoft are lagging here, it's not because Google "made it hard", it's because it's a hard problem. Yet they are competing, and that's a good thing. Google is just better. And you want it for free. And thus we get back to the cry-me-a-river bit.
    - 0x0 8y ago
      Or is it because being in a #1 market position with a (until now) free price tag attracted thousands of volunteers submitting content and corrections for free?
      - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
        I've probably spent a few hours correcting Google Maps (and a couple of days on OSM).
    - vezycash 8y ago
      Maps quality like search engine probably increases with the number of users.
    - hueving 8y ago
bryanrasmussen 8y ago
mapbox is totally a reasonable alternative, and in a lot of cases you can build something quickly with leaflet that gives you everything you need.
collyw 8y ago
When I was a teenage I was told that thats how drug dealers operated - get you hooked on something for free, then ramp up the price once you are hooked. Never heard of any drug dealer that did that in my adult life, but I do see a lot of large corporations using that business model.

emodendroket 8y ago

Essentially the Google Reader effect, right? Where killing their offering basically killed the entire medium.

asfasgasg 8y ago
You've got the causality reversed here. The medium was dying, so the Reader product was killed.
- parrellel 8y ago
  You mean Google+ needed promotion so the Reader product was killed.
  - emodendroket 8y ago
    In the first place they'd rather you used something other than RSS so they can inject promoted content into it.
    - rlac16 8y ago
      Nothing stops promoted content being injected by the feed reader. Feedly does it on their free plans.
  - asfasgasg 8y ago
    Google+ only existed in the first place because of the thing that was killing the medium and its one hundred and forty character-limited cousin.
    - parrellel 8y ago
      As I look at the big list of RSS feeds I found this very thread in, I can't help but imagine that news of it's death is a tad exaggerated.
      - asfasgasg 8y ago
        Well, there's that too, but people complaining about Google's decision r.e. Reader don't like being reminded that there are dozens of alternatives.
sanderjd 8y ago
I'm always so confused by this. I switched to Feedly the day Reader went away. It was just as good then and is better now. I subscribe to way more stuff now than I did then. I've never understood how this "killed the entire medium".
- corobo 8y ago
  If we're doing anecdata when Reader was killed off I tried Feedly, didn't like it, stopped consuming via RSS. I've recently tried Newsblur but honestly I never check the thing despite having it on every device I can. I don't think RSS is a thing for me anymore outside of technically podcasts
  - emodendroket 8y ago
    Same here. I miss it but I haven't been satisfied with the options I tried (anyway Google long ago killed my list of feeds).
- bjoli 8y ago
  I use RSS daily, but I am very much anomaly among my friends. For most people I know RSS just withered and died and got replaced by Facebook or whatever asocial media they are on. I ended up rolling my own server (in scheme using sxml) and writing some minimal clients for it (tui, Emacs and web). It is running on a raspberry pi 2 and is currently using about 5mb of memory (the guile runtime is a large chunk of that) and has been down once since I started it 5 years ago (power outage). Reader was to me the absolute best example of the good old web. Since then it seems like the web became insane with the idea of reinventing UI, which was then forced down our throats for both web and desktop, ruining two paradigms that worked just fine. I am old,I know.
  - sanderjd 8y ago
    Sure, yeah, using RSS is rare, but it always was, and nothing was going to keep the vast majority of people from using Facebook and Twitter instead. I don't understand why you rolled your own server. Feedly works great. If you did it because it's a fun project, that's awesome! But it certainly isn't necessary if your goal is just to subscribe to RSS feeds.

ajross 8y ago

Uh... the linked article compared 8 different competitors on various metrics. There are reasonable ways to disagree with Google's policy here, but "no alternatives" and "monopolistic" are just laughably silly.

martimarkov 8y ago
I’d disagree a bit. There are competitors but the quality and the service is not on the same level. Google have made it hard to compete so that they stay in the leadership position. More importantly google maps “owns” more market share than all of them combined so it is kinda a monopoly. I might not have explained my point well but I do think you get what I’m saying.
- ajross 8y ago
  If players with the resources of Apple and Microsoft are lagging here, it's not because Google "made it hard", it's because it's a hard problem. Yet they are competing, and that's a good thing. Google is just better. And you want it for free. And thus we get back to the cry-me-a-river bit.
  - 0x0 8y ago
    Or is it because being in a #1 market position with a (until now) free price tag attracted thousands of volunteers submitting content and corrections for free?
    - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
      I've probably spent a few hours correcting Google Maps (and a couple of days on OSM).
  - vezycash 8y ago
    Maps quality like search engine probably increases with the number of users.
  - hueving 8y ago

bryanrasmussen 8y ago

mapbox is totally a reasonable alternative, and in a lot of cases you can build something quickly with leaflet that gives you everything you need.

collyw 8y ago

When I was a teenage I was told that thats how drug dealers operated - get you hooked on something for free, then ramp up the price once you are hooked. Never heard of any drug dealer that did that in my adult life, but I do see a lot of large corporations using that business model.