RIP Google Reader • Hacker News Board

Re: RIP Google Reader

#61

Post by basch » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 3:58 PM UTC

cletus wrote: post #11

Whatever was said at the time, I’m convinced Google Reader was collateral damage from the Bay of Pigs Google Plus effort. It had social features (which I honestly never used) and anything social had to be G+. Still, I honestly don’t understand why this is the hill people want to die on, what they feel most betrayed about. Like I haven’t seen some people this upset since Firefly was canceled.

Unpopular retrospective opinion, but given how stagnant Reader was before its death, the boon of Reader Replacements to arrive on the scene after its demise was worth its disappearance. The race to be the replacement made a metric ton of competing products better.

Re: RIP Google Reader

#62

Post by outime » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 3:59 PM UTC

dbrereton wrote: post #58

As someone who was born too late for Google Reader, I genuinely don't understand why people bring it up every 5 minutes. There are 1000 feed reader apps that exist right now, some of which have the branding of "it's just like Google Reader", so what am I missing here?

Nostalgia and attacking Google (or almost any big corporation) is usually very welcomed here.

Re: RIP Google Reader

#63

Post by kleer001 » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 4:00 PM UTC

dbrereton wrote: post #58

As someone who was born too late for Google Reader, I genuinely don't understand why people bring it up every 5 minutes. There are 1000 feed reader apps that exist right now, some of which have the branding of "it's just like Google Reader", so what am I missing here?

Read the full comments and you should get it.

> There are 1000 feed reader apps that exist right now,

Sure, but Reader was basically the first.

If you've never lost something you've loved it's impossible to understand.

Re: RIP Google Reader

#64

Post by addicted » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 4:01 PM UTC

vanderZwan wrote: post #37

ndr wrote: post #29

I recently started to consume content via RSS again. It turns out, most of the blogs I care about have a working RSS feed. I'm using newsblur (no affiliation) and it's working quite well, I no longer need to poll the websites, or wait for posts to appear here or on Twitter. The nicest side effect is that checking newsblur before HN/Twitter limited my mindless scrolling, although this comment proves it didn't eliminat…

Newsblur also lets you subscribe to YT channels, which is much nicer experience than YT's own way of handling subscriptions

{RSS Reader} also lets you subscribe to {Feed based Service} which is a much nicer experience than {Feed Based Service}'s own way of handling subscriptions.

-----

I've found that the above statement works for a very large set of values for {Feed Based Service}.

One really great example was when I setup Redmine (open source Jira alternative) for my company's project management needs. Instead of having it email me notifications, having them in the Reader was amazing.

Re: RIP Google Reader

#65

Post by SquareWheel » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 4:03 PM UTC

Reason077 wrote: post #53

SquareWheel wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AMP doesn't cause any issues for RSS readers. People are still using Inoreader, Feedly, etc just fine today. > Now that AMP is gone Why do you say that?

> "Why do you say that?" Recently it was reported that Google will no longer give search-result priority to AMP pages. Which means any incentive for publishers to support them is gone.

That seems pretty speculative. We've known AMP would be losing its priority in the carousel for almost a year now, but I haven't seen any reduction in its usage.

Re: RIP Google Reader

#66

Post by blakesterz » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 4:03 PM UTC

conesus wrote: post #35

It was in the summer of 2008, three years after Google launched Reader and had at least 5 million users, when I decided to write my own RSS reader. There were just so many features I wanted that I knew Google would never build and for some strange reason I thought I could make money with my own opinionated take on a news reader. Then at 4pm on March 13th, 2013, I got an email from Nilay at The Verge asking if I'd hea…

I've been with you since! Newsblur is still the way I keep up with the things I find important. I actually discovered HN on the suggested feeds thing on Newsblur!

Re: RIP Google Reader

#67

Post by baxter001 » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 4:05 PM UTC

When I'm bored and looking for distraction, I'll often get as far as reader.goog in the address bar before I remember :(

Re: RIP Google Reader

#68

Post by yreg » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 4:06 PM UTC

cletus wrote: post #11

Whatever was said at the time, I’m convinced Google Reader was collateral damage from the Bay of Pigs Google Plus effort. It had social features (which I honestly never used) and anything social had to be G+. Still, I honestly don’t understand why this is the hill people want to die on, what they feel most betrayed about. Like I haven’t seen some people this upset since Firefly was canceled.

I too don't get this. I also used Google Reader back then. When iPhone was novel and WiFi spots were rare, so people had to preload a part of the web to get through the day.

When they killed it I switched to NetNewsWire and didn't miss the previous product.

What was so special about Google Reader?

Re: RIP Google Reader

#69

Post by bluedays » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 4:07 PM UTC

dbrereton wrote: post #58

As someone who was born too late for Google Reader, I genuinely don't understand why people bring it up every 5 minutes. There are 1000 feed reader apps that exist right now, some of which have the branding of "it's just like Google Reader", so what am I missing here?

Because before Google Reader was cancelled Google was known for not cancelling anything. Now they get rid of things left and right. It was basically the beginning of the end.

Re: RIP Google Reader

#70

Post by deepsun » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 4:07 PM UTC

dbrereton wrote: post #58

As someone who was born too late for Google Reader, I genuinely don't understand why people bring it up every 5 minutes. There are 1000 feed reader apps that exist right now, some of which have the branding of "it's just like Google Reader", so what am I missing here?

It was just a very good, no-bs type of service. With good-looking performant UI (it was before "material" UI conquered almost all other google services). Not that I'm against Material, I do my websites on it, but I have to admit previous google design was more intuitive.