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At the same time, I'm pretty sure an RSS Reader founded today inside Google would go the way of Wave. If Reader was ultimately unmonetizable, I'll cry when its

At the same time, I'm pretty sure an RSS Reader founded today inside Google would go the way of Wave. If Reader was ultimately unmonetizable, I'll cry when its gone, but I don't think anyone should feel entitled to a free service. I'm not a Google employee, but I think Reader is poor measure for how "open" Google is right now. I mean, christ, with Project Loon, I don't think they are any worse, however they have a limited amount of engineers and maintaining an RSS application in 2013 doesn't seem like a huge priority.

epistasis 13y ago
>If Reader was ultimately unmonetizable, I'll cry when its gone, but I don't think anyone should feel entitled to a free service. I don't think that it was not monetizable, any less than GMail is. Perhaps there were high, hidden costs in maintaining such a large feed database that would mean that a comparable revenue stream from Reader would not pay for itself nearly as much as GMail does. I think that in the end it's just that Google did not care about the Reader users. They didn't need them, there wasn't enough of a stink when they said they were going to get rid of Reader, either internally or externally.
- bryanbuckley 13y ago
  >I think that in the end it's just that Google did not care about the Reader users. What % of Google employees do you think are also Reader users? edit: I assume it is something like 90%. Which is why I'm pretty impressed that this change went through.
  - tempestn 13y ago
    I highly doubt it's even close to 90%. If it were, I think you're right that it's much less likely it would have been shut down. There are many very technical people out there that just don't find RSS fits with their workflow. Personally, I have a list of blogs I like to read in a couple bookmarks folders, and when I feel like reading them, I'll go to the bookmarks and see what's up. I don't really care if I miss posts, so I have no real need for a system that will catalog them all for me. I have tried a couple times to get into it, but just found it wasn't for me. (As a means of consuming media. I do use RSS for automating various processes, as well as the occasional RSS-to-email when I really need notifications for something (like rare classifieds posts I'm searching for).) Anyway, my point is, I'm pretty technical - I run a web based company and embrace plenty of modern technologies - and I never got into RSS. I'm fairly certain the majority of Google employees don't make regular use of an RSS reader either. (Although I imagine a significant minority do as well.)
    - medde 13y ago
      or maybe they don't want their employer knowing everything they read?
  - fyrabanks 13y ago
    You think low-level employees can stop a change like that? I talked to a Googler who used Reader; he's very upset about it, obviously, but said they internally communicated the reasons they were shutting down the service and they made sense.
- epsylon 13y ago
  Google shut down Reader because they think that we should be using Google+ instead.
  - Pxtl 13y ago
    Currents, more likely. Either way, they should've had a synced web version of currents before killing reader.
- cma 13y ago
  "Perhaps there were high, hidden costs in maintaining such a large feed database that would mean that a comparable revenue stream from Reader would not pay for itself nearly as much as GMail does." For search, they already scrape the entire web, including RSS feeds.
  - VLM 13y ago
    The large database cost is noticing that people who follow JGCs feed also tend to follow the feeds from the Chris's, furthermore they're apparently real human beings and have been reading for awhile, therefore when optimizing search engine results I'd put something linked to by JGC much higher than something linked by rgfbebgep240895i who is probably a SEO spammer rather than a human. If you'd prefer a physics example, admittedly popularity is not truth, but you Might be able to add valuable data to search engine results by a careful examination of exactly who subscribes to Shetl-Optimized vs Backreaction vs Not Even Wrong vs all of them, and how long people subscribe, and other blogs they read... Its the relationship between my set of feeds and your set of feeds that "should be" useful, not just the feeds themselves. Something no one has discussed yet is the whole topic might just be a big F you to the NSA. I'm sure they'd love a subscriber list of "from the bunker" or "zerohedge" and GOOG has to either give it or give up on the product so they have nothing to give. Can't give up on search results, too much money, but reader might have been expendable.
jdotjdot 13y ago
Maybe they should have tried pay for access? I would have paid. Would have been a bit like taking its usership hostage, but it remains the only rss reader that fit my needs perfectly.
mgkimsal 13y ago
I bet it was monetizable. Would it have been profitable? I bet yes, it could even have been profitable. Would it have been insanely profitable, or have the profit scale exponentially based on use? Probably not. Had they say $50/year, loads of people would have paid it without a second thought. A $20m revenue stream overnight is probably not enough for the G though.
- stinkytaco 13y ago
  Collecting money is does not equal pure profit. Money has its own overhead and headaches associated with it. One being that you can't just ignore the service as they had been for the past year. People who pay expect uptime, new features, etc. That's to say nothing of the administrative overhead. I feel that a company like Google must have considered that option in their decision making process and felt there was a good reason to dismiss it.
  - mgkimsal 13y ago
    I made the distinction between monetizable (yes, they can charge money for it) and profitable (they can have money left over after all the administrative overhead and upkeep). Yes, I've no doubt those were taken in to consideration. I just get the feeling that Google doesn't want to bother dealing with things unless there's extremely large profits to be had, vs just profits. And that's kind of sad, in a way (assuming it's true, but it seems to be).
mgkimsal 13y ago
> I'll cry when its gone, but I don't think anyone should feel entitled to a free service. But... it's not 'free' so much as 'doesn't cost cash'. There's plenty of cost in adopting a tool like that, an integrating it in to your life. And... it's not like Google was getting 0 in return - the usage data they could have collected (and probably were to some degree) was quite high, and they pretty much exist to collect usage behaviour and use algorithms to make money from that data. But they chose not to. Instead of continuing to foster the notion of people writing content on their own blogs, and simply giving people a tool to search it (ala google search), taking away that tool and pushing people to write that content directly in g+ gives them a number of advantages over any other search service that wants to even consider trying to come close to comprehensive search. this is AOL walled garden 3.0.

epistasis 13y ago

>If Reader was ultimately unmonetizable, I'll cry when its gone, but I don't think anyone should feel entitled to a free service. I don't think that it was not monetizable, any less than GMail is. Perhaps there were high, hidden costs in maintaining such a large feed database that would mean that a comparable revenue stream from Reader would not pay for itself nearly as much as GMail does. I think that in the end it's just that Google did not care about the Reader users. They didn't need them, there wasn't enough of a stink when they said they were going to get rid of Reader, either internally or externally.

bryanbuckley 13y ago
>I think that in the end it's just that Google did not care about the Reader users. What % of Google employees do you think are also Reader users? edit: I assume it is something like 90%. Which is why I'm pretty impressed that this change went through.
- tempestn 13y ago
  I highly doubt it's even close to 90%. If it were, I think you're right that it's much less likely it would have been shut down. There are many very technical people out there that just don't find RSS fits with their workflow. Personally, I have a list of blogs I like to read in a couple bookmarks folders, and when I feel like reading them, I'll go to the bookmarks and see what's up. I don't really care if I miss posts, so I have no real need for a system that will catalog them all for me. I have tried a couple times to get into it, but just found it wasn't for me. (As a means of consuming media. I do use RSS for automating various processes, as well as the occasional RSS-to-email when I really need notifications for something (like rare classifieds posts I'm searching for).) Anyway, my point is, I'm pretty technical - I run a web based company and embrace plenty of modern technologies - and I never got into RSS. I'm fairly certain the majority of Google employees don't make regular use of an RSS reader either. (Although I imagine a significant minority do as well.)
  - medde 13y ago
    or maybe they don't want their employer knowing everything they read?
- fyrabanks 13y ago
  You think low-level employees can stop a change like that? I talked to a Googler who used Reader; he's very upset about it, obviously, but said they internally communicated the reasons they were shutting down the service and they made sense.
epsylon 13y ago
Google shut down Reader because they think that we should be using Google+ instead.
- Pxtl 13y ago
  Currents, more likely. Either way, they should've had a synced web version of currents before killing reader.
cma 13y ago
"Perhaps there were high, hidden costs in maintaining such a large feed database that would mean that a comparable revenue stream from Reader would not pay for itself nearly as much as GMail does." For search, they already scrape the entire web, including RSS feeds.
- VLM 13y ago
  The large database cost is noticing that people who follow JGCs feed also tend to follow the feeds from the Chris's, furthermore they're apparently real human beings and have been reading for awhile, therefore when optimizing search engine results I'd put something linked to by JGC much higher than something linked by rgfbebgep240895i who is probably a SEO spammer rather than a human. If you'd prefer a physics example, admittedly popularity is not truth, but you Might be able to add valuable data to search engine results by a careful examination of exactly who subscribes to Shetl-Optimized vs Backreaction vs Not Even Wrong vs all of them, and how long people subscribe, and other blogs they read... Its the relationship between my set of feeds and your set of feeds that "should be" useful, not just the feeds themselves. Something no one has discussed yet is the whole topic might just be a big F you to the NSA. I'm sure they'd love a subscriber list of "from the bunker" or "zerohedge" and GOOG has to either give it or give up on the product so they have nothing to give. Can't give up on search results, too much money, but reader might have been expendable.

jdotjdot 13y ago

Maybe they should have tried pay for access? I would have paid. Would have been a bit like taking its usership hostage, but it remains the only rss reader that fit my needs perfectly.

mgkimsal 13y ago

I bet it was monetizable. Would it have been profitable? I bet yes, it could even have been profitable. Would it have been insanely profitable, or have the profit scale exponentially based on use? Probably not. Had they say $50/year, loads of people would have paid it without a second thought. A $20m revenue stream overnight is probably not enough for the G though.

stinkytaco 13y ago
Collecting money is does not equal pure profit. Money has its own overhead and headaches associated with it. One being that you can't just ignore the service as they had been for the past year. People who pay expect uptime, new features, etc. That's to say nothing of the administrative overhead. I feel that a company like Google must have considered that option in their decision making process and felt there was a good reason to dismiss it.
- mgkimsal 13y ago
  I made the distinction between monetizable (yes, they can charge money for it) and profitable (they can have money left over after all the administrative overhead and upkeep). Yes, I've no doubt those were taken in to consideration. I just get the feeling that Google doesn't want to bother dealing with things unless there's extremely large profits to be had, vs just profits. And that's kind of sad, in a way (assuming it's true, but it seems to be).

mgkimsal 13y ago

> I'll cry when its gone, but I don't think anyone should feel entitled to a free service. But... it's not 'free' so much as 'doesn't cost cash'. There's plenty of cost in adopting a tool like that, an integrating it in to your life. And... it's not like Google was getting 0 in return - the usage data they could have collected (and probably were to some degree) was quite high, and they pretty much exist to collect usage behaviour and use algorithms to make money from that data. But they chose not to. Instead of continuing to foster the notion of people writing content on their own blogs, and simply giving people a tool to search it (ala google search), taking away that tool and pushing people to write that content directly in g+ gives them a number of advantages over any other search service that wants to even consider trying to come close to comprehensive search. this is AOL walled garden 3.0.