There's alternatives to all of the Google services, although some will be harder to replace in the short term than others. In terms of usefulness, Reader, as a

There's alternatives to all of the Google services, although some will be harder to replace in the short term than others. In terms of usefulness, Reader, as an information sieve, is a tool that saved me hours a week. If Google had offered a paid version to keep Reader going instead of shutting Reader down, I would have paid. Now I don't trust any "free" service they offer to be there in the long term. I guess Google "free" isn't "free". Explains why both OSS and commercial software(with long term agreements) are better choices.