4 ms·

Google doesn't seem to realize that one of their most valuable assets is trust. And that trust has eroded a great deal in recent months.

melling 13y ago
It really is time to grow up. They have a product where they can't make money and can't fit it into their corporate direction. Good companies eventually cancel projects like this. Yes, we had a great product for free for a long time. Now it's time for someone else to fill the vacuum.
- RockyMcNuts 13y ago
  no, you seized control of an open RSS ecosystem with Reader and Feedburner, made those a platform no one could compete with, and then pulled the plug on the ecosystem. If you don't even understand that, that's why you can't be trusted.
  - melling 13y ago
    Open Office has seized control of the document suite. Any day now Microsoft is going out of business, and the GIMP is about to destroy Photoshop... Bottom line is if there is a real market for something and someone makes a better product.
    - xradionut 13y ago
      Your analogy sucks and you could have easily fixed it: "If Microsoft gave Office away, destroyed the competition, then killed Office..." Google killed Reader and trust.
      - melling 13y ago
        My comparison is simply that someone built a solid product and gave it away. Yes, people still pay hundreds of dollars for the same software when Open/Libre Office will work for most people.
        Kerrick 13y ago
        The difference is that Google gave away access to the product, while Open Office and The GIMP gave away the product. If Open Office dies (like it almost did in the LibreOffice fiasco), you can grab its source code, recompile it, and keep on working. When Reader dies, you have nothing.
- acdha 13y ago
  Your apologia is begs the question of whether Google could make money or find a fit for it when they never even allowed the team to try: “‘There was so much data we had and so much information about the affinity readers had with certain content that we always felt there was monetization opportunity,’ he said. Dick Costolo (currently CEO of Twitter), who worked for Google at the time (having sold Google his company, Feedburner), came up with many monetization ideas but they fell on deaf ears.” http://gigaom.com/2013/03/13/chris-wetherll-google-reader/ http://gigaom.com/2013/03/13/chris-wetherll-google-reader/ Had there been interest, revenues were easy to find: a college student trying their first project would at least have slapped some Google text ads on there. Given Google's other projects, they could have just made Reader a service with a $5/year charge, bundled it with Google Drive subscriptions, etc. The Google+ integration was a hopeless botch full of obvious opportunities to make both services more valuable but they simply did not try and succeeded only in making a strong, active, influential community use their services less and distrust their executives‘ vision and competency.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- npsimons 13y ago
  In my experience, those who loudest scream "Grow up!" are the ones who most need to do it.
r00fus 13y ago
One imagines they felt they were leaving too much on the table, or that they felt the counterparty (ie, us users) didn't value it as much as they did their lost opportunities.
- skarmklart 13y ago
  Personally, GR is one of few services that I would have gladly paid $100/year for. They should at least have asked us users if we wanted to pay for the service in exchange for letting it live on.
  - amirmc 13y ago
    Even then, there probably aren't enough of you to make it worthwhile (and you're not a growing market). Keeping things free gives the provider tremendous leeway to do as they please.
  - VMG 13y ago
    The blowback on google charging for a formerly free service would have been a magnitude worse than them just shutting it down.
    - acdha 13y ago
      That's an unproven assertion which the torrent of people saying “I'd have paid for Reader” calls seriously into question.
      - VikingCoder 13y ago
        It should be trivially easy to look at the Graveyard, and find products that Google cancelled, where someone else later produced a competing product - for pay - that has attracted comparable users. http://pinterest.com/googlegraveyard/google-graveyard/ http://pinterest.com/googlegraveyard/google-graveyard/ People say they would buy things, all the time.
    - gwern 13y ago

melling 13y ago

It really is time to grow up. They have a product where they can't make money and can't fit it into their corporate direction. Good companies eventually cancel projects like this. Yes, we had a great product for free for a long time. Now it's time for someone else to fill the vacuum.

RockyMcNuts 13y ago
no, you seized control of an open RSS ecosystem with Reader and Feedburner, made those a platform no one could compete with, and then pulled the plug on the ecosystem. If you don't even understand that, that's why you can't be trusted.
- melling 13y ago
  Open Office has seized control of the document suite. Any day now Microsoft is going out of business, and the GIMP is about to destroy Photoshop... Bottom line is if there is a real market for something and someone makes a better product.
  - xradionut 13y ago
    Your analogy sucks and you could have easily fixed it: "If Microsoft gave Office away, destroyed the competition, then killed Office..." Google killed Reader and trust.
    - melling 13y ago
      My comparison is simply that someone built a solid product and gave it away. Yes, people still pay hundreds of dollars for the same software when Open/Libre Office will work for most people.
      - Kerrick 13y ago
        The difference is that Google gave away access to the product, while Open Office and The GIMP gave away the product. If Open Office dies (like it almost did in the LibreOffice fiasco), you can grab its source code, recompile it, and keep on working. When Reader dies, you have nothing.
acdha 13y ago
Your apologia is begs the question of whether Google could make money or find a fit for it when they never even allowed the team to try: “‘There was so much data we had and so much information about the affinity readers had with certain content that we always felt there was monetization opportunity,’ he said. Dick Costolo (currently CEO of Twitter), who worked for Google at the time (having sold Google his company, Feedburner), came up with many monetization ideas but they fell on deaf ears.” http://gigaom.com/2013/03/13/chris-wetherll-google-reader/ http://gigaom.com/2013/03/13/chris-wetherll-google-reader/ Had there been interest, revenues were easy to find: a college student trying their first project would at least have slapped some Google text ads on there. Given Google's other projects, they could have just made Reader a service with a $5/year charge, bundled it with Google Drive subscriptions, etc. The Google+ integration was a hopeless botch full of obvious opportunities to make both services more valuable but they simply did not try and succeeded only in making a strong, active, influential community use their services less and distrust their executives‘ vision and competency.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
npsimons 13y ago
In my experience, those who loudest scream "Grow up!" are the ones who most need to do it.

r00fus 13y ago

One imagines they felt they were leaving too much on the table, or that they felt the counterparty (ie, us users) didn't value it as much as they did their lost opportunities.

skarmklart 13y ago
Personally, GR is one of few services that I would have gladly paid $100/year for. They should at least have asked us users if we wanted to pay for the service in exchange for letting it live on.
- amirmc 13y ago
  Even then, there probably aren't enough of you to make it worthwhile (and you're not a growing market). Keeping things free gives the provider tremendous leeway to do as they please.
- VMG 13y ago
  The blowback on google charging for a formerly free service would have been a magnitude worse than them just shutting it down.
  - acdha 13y ago
    That's an unproven assertion which the torrent of people saying “I'd have paid for Reader” calls seriously into question.
    - VikingCoder 13y ago
      It should be trivially easy to look at the Graveyard, and find products that Google cancelled, where someone else later produced a competing product - for pay - that has attracted comparable users. http://pinterest.com/googlegraveyard/google-graveyard/ http://pinterest.com/googlegraveyard/google-graveyard/ People say they would buy things, all the time.
  - gwern 13y ago