RIP Google Reader • Hacker News Board

Re: RIP Google Reader

#201

Post by sagolikasoppor » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 5:47 PM UTC

simonw wrote: post #191

Something I find really interesting about the closure of Google Reader is that it affected a relatively tiny proportion of people - the vast majority of humans have never heard of RSS and would have no idea what the product was even for. But... those ten million users are incredibly influential. Today they are in positions where they make cloud computing purchasing decisions on behalf of huge organizations. And they…

I am one of those guys that make sure my company will never chose anything google hosted partly because of this reason.

Re: RIP Google Reader

#202

Post by brundolf » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 5:49 PM UTC

aasasd wrote: post #104

So basically, one can begin slapping together a competitor as soon as Google rolls out a service—because the service is likely to go the way of the Reader in a few years.

Sounds like I better get started on my Stadia clone ;)

Re: RIP Google Reader

#203

Post by jdauriemma » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 5:51 PM UTC

sogen wrote: post #133

Fraidycat [0] is a very good substitute, plus, it's more streamlined. [0]: https://fraidyc.at

Fraidycat is great; I can't wait until they release a mobile client

Re: RIP Google Reader

#204

Post by nanoservices » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 5:51 PM UTC

volongoto wrote: post #200

crucialfelix wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Keep is next. It is neat and simple, though I haven't been using it lately.

I use Keep, but there are already millions of apps that does what Keep is doing. I don't think there will be a huge vacuum.

I actually really like Microsoft ToDo. Your setup can be as simple as you want or as complex as you need it to be!

Re: RIP Google Reader

#205

Post by batpangolin » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 5:51 PM UTC

simonw wrote: post #191

Something I find really interesting about the closure of Google Reader is that it affected a relatively tiny proportion of people - the vast majority of humans have never heard of RSS and would have no idea what the product was even for. But... those ten million users are incredibly influential. Today they are in positions where they make cloud computing purchasing decisions on behalf of huge organizations. And they…

This sounds more like a fantasy based on questionable ideas of karma or natural justice than an actual business consideration for Google.

Re: RIP Google Reader

#206

Post by airstrike » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 5:57 PM UTC

tomcooks wrote: post #169

kypro wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this exactly what Reddit is? I wasn't a Google Reader user, but I'd be interesting in understanding what I was missing.

Reddit is hardly a place for people who don't like talking about themselves~

In fact we've probably reached the peak opposite of that with people posting about themselves on /r/nextfuckinglevel

Re: RIP Google Reader

#207

Post by webscout » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 5:57 PM UTC

Not an RSS reader by design, but I'm with https://upstract.com — Made by the original Popurls inventor.

Re: RIP Google Reader

#208

Post by ChuckMcM » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 5:57 PM UTC

aasasd wrote: post #104

So basically, one can begin slapping together a competitor as soon as Google rolls out a service—because the service is likely to go the way of the Reader in a few years.

I think that is a reasonable take, it my more accurately say to both founders and investors that time / money invested in doing something Google is already doing is not a "bad bet"[1]

[1] Caveat search engines? Who knows when that house of cards will finally collapse.

Re: RIP Google Reader

#209

Post by brundolf » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 6:01 PM UTC

quadrifoliate wrote: post #184

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?

I think one thing that you're missing that hasn't been mentioned is content caching. If your favorite website went away, you could still read and search all of the articles in the cached feed. I don't think there was an expiry time on it (other long-term users, feel free to correct me). These days there is no equivalent. If someone you follow decides to take down their website, you have to hope that someone archived…

Seems like it wouldn't be hard to integrate an RSS reader with Wayback Machine for something similar

Re: RIP Google Reader

#210

Post by Applejinx » Thu, Mar 25, 2021, 6:01 PM UTC

"when there were more than five websites and we could log off without missing anything."

In my experience, when you get fed up and quit things like Facebook and Twitter (also, pruning other things like YouTube channels that try too hard for 'engagement'), you magically return to a time when you can log off without missing anything.

It's nice.

I get that it's scary, but it seems worth mentioning that it is possible. I'm not at all sure that I'm suffering for the decision. If I was, that would imply that there's a give-and-take and that being wired to that addictive armature had a chance of giving you meaningful attention. I no longer believe there's significance in attaining the attention of folks who are there because they're glued to the machine. It's the activity of twitter-scrolling or what have you, that they're pursuing, not you. If they're deeply enough sunk into it, they've got nothing left for any real connection with anybody.

Seems like Google Reader was a bit like 'real connections with people', at a manageable pace.