5 ms·

I've always felt that the shuttering of Google Reader really was the end of an "age" of the web. We went from a really vibrant blog culture with a ton of platfo

I've always felt that the shuttering of Google Reader really was the end of an "age" of the web. We went from a really vibrant blog culture with a ton of platforms and different setups to the super closed gardens of the social platforms. F'ing painful.

gumby 5y ago
You skipped the first part, where Google Reader drove out most of the rest of the rss ecosystem, replacing it with something more centralized around Google. Then killed it. The worst of both worlds.
- voakbasda 5y ago
  Microsoft may have popularized the Embrace, Extend, Extinguish modus operandi, but Google loves that play too. Honestly, I don’t understand how anyone can trust them. It really only seems like a matter of time until they have stabbed every single one of their customers in the back.
  - deleted 5y ago
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  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - yayr 5y ago
    I wonder if that strategy is an unavoidable modus operandi, if so much of your management / work force motivation is derived from increasing the stock price. ...and at least consumers in that are not the customers, but the product...
  - Zak 5y ago
    I don't think any for-profit entity can be trusted with a monopoly over an important piece of infrastructure. It's healthy to have competing options. It remains to be seen whether a non-profit entity can be trusted with such a position.
  - rchaud 5y ago
    The same strategy was pursued with Android. It was open-source, but Google set up the Open Handset Alliance with OEMs in 2007 and one of the membership stipulations were that OEMs could not create competing OSes based on forks of the open source code. Over time, more and more functionality became linked to Google Play Services, which was not open source. The logical result of this was that OEMs simply went with the Google-approved proprietary flavour of Android.
    - Dracophoenix 5y ago
      How Samsung stay on while selling Tizen OS?
      - rchaud 5y ago
        Tizen is a Linux foundation project, it's not an Android fork. In any case, Samsung can always arrange for preferential treatment as they are the flagship OEM.
- chii 5y ago
  > Google Reader drove out most of the rest of the rss ecosystem but how come it's not reviving now that the biggest gorilla is gone? There's some inherent commercial unfeasibility to RSS i think, which google uncovered by having a free client.
  - Tenoke 5y ago
    There were a lot more rss readers popping up and/or getting more attention immediately after Reader shut down. Feedly was one of the earlier winners for example.
    - deelly 5y ago
      Inoreader is good Google Reader replacement (at least for me).
  - TheRealDunkirk 5y ago
    Even if Google revived Reeder, I'd still use NewsBlur over it. Once burned, twice shy.
zimpenfish 5y ago
> We went from a really vibrant blog culture with a ton of platforms and different setups I mean, don't we still have that? I know that my RSS feed is still too content-free to keep up with (even after culling a double-digit number of hefty ones.) And now we have even more RSS aggregators (Feedbin, The Old Reader, etc.) than we had before!
- oriolid 5y ago
  I feel like doing stupid comparisons right now. Feedbin, The Old Reader, or even running a feed aggregator on your own computer are like the sound of a tree falling in the woods. They're also not like The Matrix, because not only they can't be explained but the people who still complain about Google Reader don't understand them when they see them themselves.
- mro_name 5y ago
  yes, but all lack design that would inspire the mainstream. Being niche is fine but the reader was big with multiplicators like journalists etc. You don't get them with wholemeal bread.
  - d1sxeyes 5y ago
    I use Feedly, which is pretty nicely designed (it has other drawbacks, but it looks and feels like a modern, proper app). The real frustration is that websites only put short extracts of their content into the RSS feed to force you to go and... look at their ads, I guess? But I'd imagine the number of folks using RSS feed readers who don't also use ad-blockers is vanishingly small.
    - stereoradonc 5y ago
      Inoreader provides more value than Feedly at a fraction of the costs.
      - pinkano 5y ago
        really?
asiachick 5y ago
end of Reader didn't kill blogging, Social Media killed blogging by effectively allowing anyone to blog with zero effort. FB and Twitter are or were where the majority of discussion was happening.
user-the-name 5y ago
If it could be killed by the removal of a single app then it was not actually a viable culture in the first place.

gumby 5y ago

You skipped the first part, where Google Reader drove out most of the rest of the rss ecosystem, replacing it with something more centralized around Google. Then killed it. The worst of both worlds.

voakbasda 5y ago
Microsoft may have popularized the Embrace, Extend, Extinguish modus operandi, but Google loves that play too. Honestly, I don’t understand how anyone can trust them. It really only seems like a matter of time until they have stabbed every single one of their customers in the back.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- yayr 5y ago
  I wonder if that strategy is an unavoidable modus operandi, if so much of your management / work force motivation is derived from increasing the stock price. ...and at least consumers in that are not the customers, but the product...
- Zak 5y ago
  I don't think any for-profit entity can be trusted with a monopoly over an important piece of infrastructure. It's healthy to have competing options. It remains to be seen whether a non-profit entity can be trusted with such a position.
- rchaud 5y ago
  The same strategy was pursued with Android. It was open-source, but Google set up the Open Handset Alliance with OEMs in 2007 and one of the membership stipulations were that OEMs could not create competing OSes based on forks of the open source code. Over time, more and more functionality became linked to Google Play Services, which was not open source. The logical result of this was that OEMs simply went with the Google-approved proprietary flavour of Android.
  - Dracophoenix 5y ago
    How Samsung stay on while selling Tizen OS?
    - rchaud 5y ago
      Tizen is a Linux foundation project, it's not an Android fork. In any case, Samsung can always arrange for preferential treatment as they are the flagship OEM.
chii 5y ago
> Google Reader drove out most of the rest of the rss ecosystem but how come it's not reviving now that the biggest gorilla is gone? There's some inherent commercial unfeasibility to RSS i think, which google uncovered by having a free client.
- Tenoke 5y ago
  There were a lot more rss readers popping up and/or getting more attention immediately after Reader shut down. Feedly was one of the earlier winners for example.
  - deelly 5y ago
    Inoreader is good Google Reader replacement (at least for me).
- TheRealDunkirk 5y ago
  Even if Google revived Reeder, I'd still use NewsBlur over it. Once burned, twice shy.

zimpenfish 5y ago

> We went from a really vibrant blog culture with a ton of platforms and different setups I mean, don't we still have that? I know that my RSS feed is still too content-free to keep up with (even after culling a double-digit number of hefty ones.) And now we have even more RSS aggregators (Feedbin, The Old Reader, etc.) than we had before!

oriolid 5y ago
I feel like doing stupid comparisons right now. Feedbin, The Old Reader, or even running a feed aggregator on your own computer are like the sound of a tree falling in the woods. They're also not like The Matrix, because not only they can't be explained but the people who still complain about Google Reader don't understand them when they see them themselves.
mro_name 5y ago
yes, but all lack design that would inspire the mainstream. Being niche is fine but the reader was big with multiplicators like journalists etc. You don't get them with wholemeal bread.
- d1sxeyes 5y ago
  I use Feedly, which is pretty nicely designed (it has other drawbacks, but it looks and feels like a modern, proper app). The real frustration is that websites only put short extracts of their content into the RSS feed to force you to go and... look at their ads, I guess? But I'd imagine the number of folks using RSS feed readers who don't also use ad-blockers is vanishingly small.
  - stereoradonc 5y ago
    Inoreader provides more value than Feedly at a fraction of the costs.
    - pinkano 5y ago
      really?

asiachick 5y ago

end of Reader didn't kill blogging, Social Media killed blogging by effectively allowing anyone to blog with zero effort. FB and Twitter are or were where the majority of discussion was happening.

user-the-name 5y ago

If it could be killed by the removal of a single app then it was not actually a viable culture in the first place.