Google Reader shut down announced ten years ago today • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Reader shut down announced ten years ago today

#161

Post by jimnotgym » Mon, Mar 13, 2023, 10:38 AM UTC

izacus wrote: post #146

raizer88 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood why Google doesn't hire B teams to do the maintenance work, or outsource it. It's normal that if you hire only top players that no one wants to be stuck doing tickets.

Why would Google (or any company) _pay_ for outsourced teams to maintain a declining unprofitable product? Would __your__ company ever do that?

It depends on how you measure profit.

Does gmail make a profit? Does search make a profit? Neither of them are paid services, but they allow a huge advertising business to be built on top. Reader could have been the same

Re: Google Reader shut down announced ten years ago today

#162

Post by kdkwsndne » Mon, Mar 13, 2023, 10:40 AM UTC

saurik wrote: post #130

synu wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always thought it was something like a comparison between ballistae with fewer shots and larger arrows (javelin size, really) doing more damage, and a storm of smaller regular arrows. Maybe I was being too generous with my interpretation.

I just remembered remembered that I had read something about the history of this phrase, and I found it: an answer on Quora from five years ago. https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-origin-of-the-phrase-putti... > The background seems an oft-used phrase in Sun Microsystems by the former CEO, "all the wood behind a single arrow" which means focus on a single product and be the best in it. > When deer hunting .. "Real men…

So actual nonsense

Re: Google Reader shut down announced ten years ago today

#163

Post by codethief » Mon, Mar 13, 2023, 10:41 AM UTC

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #75

kmarc wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the same. After Reader, I was a bit grumpy but, well, found other alternatives. After Inbox tho... I went through the 5 stages of grief and started degooglifying my life. Made an okay setup with neomutt (and TripIt*) which I can trust would stay around longer than any Google ad-focused product. (* I mainly liked Inbox for its travel organizer)

Inbox remains for me the best product they killed. It was in every way superior to Gmail and offered something I haven’t seen since.

What was it that made it so good? I had already degooglified my online life when it got released, so I never tried it out.

Re: Google Reader shut down announced ten years ago today

#164

Post by jamifsud » Mon, Mar 13, 2023, 10:44 AM UTC

I remember when they shut it down and I haven't found one that I've loved like Reader. Reader was beloved to the level of apps like Notion and Figma and nothing has come along to replace it in a way that works for today's content content landscape. A lot has changed in ten years, content has exploded in volume and decreased in average quality and every app started to feel as noisy as my social feeds.

Our users at Upnext (https://www.getupnext.com) are saying the same, so we're moving into the space with our next major release. Upnext 2.0 will allow you to follow anything on the web (Newsletters, sites, podcasts, YouTube channels, etc). If you're interested in trying out the beta you can sign up here: https://upnexthq.typeform.com/to/MYfd4pcK

In the meantime, I'd love to hear what folks are using today and why they miss Google Reader.

Re: Google Reader shut down announced ten years ago today

#165

Post by aniforprez » Mon, Mar 13, 2023, 10:50 AM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #152

aniforprez wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your whole story boils down to you not properly reading an email that even says "Important Information". I don't understand how that part isn't your fault. They even tell you that your account will be suspended in the email. How do you not have a special filter to route emails from critical service providers? And I don't agree that GCP is "the only one that will suspend you for things like this". AWS can and has susp…

> Your whole story boils down to you not properly reading an email that even says "Important Information". Because 99% of emails labeled "Important Information for your Account" get discarded by spam filters including the one in your brain. In most cases it's nothing more than just another bad spam/CEO scam/phishing attempt. Clear communication is important - a proper subject line would be "Your GCE account #XYZ is g…

Again, how is it that an email, that came from your cloud service provider, titled "Important Information Regarding Your Google Account" was ignored because of the "spam filter in your brain"? Again, this really sounds like an excuse for not reading important emails from your provider. It doesn't even seem to have been marked as spam by Gmail and is from Google Payments which should already have sent off alarm bells. I'm not saying that responding to their mail would 100% have led to your account staying on cause GCP is generally pretty shit but this part of your article is basically handing all responsibility of poorly handling important communication off to someone else

I suggest once you move to AWS you filter and route all emails from these "special" senders to a separate tag that always notifies you on incoming emails so you don't miss them

Re: Google Reader shut down announced ten years ago today

#166

Post by smusamashah » Mon, Mar 13, 2023, 10:52 AM UTC

latexr wrote: post #150

smusamashah wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Google cared about RSS, they would have had RSS support in Chrome. They don't have it to this date. When Chrome launched other browsers had RSS support of some sort.

> They don't have it to this date. Are you sure? I distinctively remember them announcing it and being promptly mocked by people asking when was the date they were going to kill it. Did they abandon the desktop version before a stable release? https://techdows.com/2022/08/chrome-desktop-rss-follow-sites...

Just try opening any RSS link from a site that has it. It will open as plain xml.

Re: Google Reader shut down announced ten years ago today

#167

Post by shapefrog » Mon, Mar 13, 2023, 10:53 AM UTC

lrem wrote: post #105

pirsquare wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember Stadia? Google doesn't give a fuck about their users or customers. I would rather trust my money with Bernie Madoff than Google. I'm a 4 yrs customer with Google Cloud and they shutdown all my servers last friday. 3 days now and they still haven't gave me a resolution. Context: https://www.onvoard.com/blog/our-production-servers-was-susp...

Huh? I thought Stadia users were treated well, with refunds on everything they bought?

> Remember Stadia?

Yeah I paid for some hardware, paid for some software, used it all for a couple of years and then they gave me all my money back.

It was, as far as customer experiences go - excellent.

Re: Google Reader shut down announced ten years ago today

#168

Post by amelius » Mon, Mar 13, 2023, 10:54 AM UTC

rhaway84773 wrote: post #142

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #10

I feel like killing Reader was the point at which I switched from viewing Google mostly positively to more skeptically. Which doesn't seem terribly rational, really; it wasn't the first product to be axed, it was perfectly possible to replace... Maybe it was just the first product axing that really affected me? The moment Google went from "provider of great free stuff" to "sometimes provider of free stuff, sometimes…

It was the reason they killed it for me. Google Reader was successful and growing. It wasn’t killed on its own merits. It was killed because Google decided Facebook was an existential threat to them so they had to do everything they could to make Google+ work, including killing otherwise successful and popular products like Reader because, killing it may lead to a slight increase in G+ adoption.

If it still existed it would have been killed by advertisements anyway.

Re: Google Reader shut down announced ten years ago today

#169

Post by leokennis » Mon, Mar 13, 2023, 10:54 AM UTC

I can recommend https://feedbin.com/ as a great replacement. It's $50 a year, but in return you get a service that is rock solid with an owner who is luckily very good in >> not << implementing features: no feature creep, no breaking changes, dead simple interface, no BS.

Re: Google Reader shut down announced ten years ago today

#170

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Mar 13, 2023, 10:56 AM UTC

oigursh wrote: post #143

jemmyw wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand you completely. For me also it was a turning point, but the real nail in the coffin was when they shut down Inbox. That was when it went from a new Google product being interesting and getting in there early to every Google product being eyed with distrust and reluctance.

the whole org was using inbox, snoozed emails with a really streamlined interface was sublime. Everyone was mad.

[deleted]