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Google is about to learn a tough lesson

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Re: Google is about to learn a tough lesson

#121

Post by stephenr »

danilocampos wrote: post #100
xaa wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Search, which provides the majority of Google's revenue, is precarious because there are very low costs for someone to switch to another service. To combat this problem, Google started providing all these associated services -- Finance, Reader, Blogger, etc, etc -- so that people would begin to use their Google ID as a significant component of their online identity. These services were never supposed to be profitable…

They built Gmail. People need it desperately. So far, no one distrusts it or has any reason to. That's their identity moat.

People don't need gmail. They need email. You know, that thing that existed for years before gmail.

To say people don't distrust google/gmail shows your naïveté and/or your rose coloured google glasses.

Search and the collaborative part of google docs (ie multiple concurrent editors on a document) is the only thing where it's hard to find a true competitor that you can self host, not to mention hosted solutions.

Re: Google is about to learn a tough lesson

#122

Post by edsm »

As a user of Google Reader, I'm kind of glad it's going away. Why? Because now good quality web-based RSS feed readers will finally arise. Sure, there are some out there now, but with Google's monopoly on the product nobody really cared about them and they weren't very good or reliable. Now that will be forced to change.

To me this is like if in 2002 Microsoft had decided to stop making Internet Explorer and force everyone to use a different browser - quality browsers would have been developed and adopted a lot faster.

Re: Google is about to learn a tough lesson

#123

Post by OGinparadise »

yuhong wrote: post #39
giblfiz wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wait... your saying that because they are discontinuing a product? I'm not suggesting that google is/isn't evil these days, but I would suggest that there is absolutely no moral aspect to discontinuing a feed reader.

Yea, looking at OGinparadise's comment history, OGinparadise is the one who posted that Expedia has lowest prices, despite it's problems (I basically just ignore him now): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4965868

I used search twice and couldn't find I said that, point me to that comment. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4965868 Not that there is anything wrong on that, it could have been an opinion on anecdotal evidence. No one expects someone to check prices for 4-5 years first.

Re: Google is about to learn a tough lesson

#124

Post by yesbabyyes »

abraham wrote: post #101
kanzure wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Groups isn't even on the extended products list in the Gmail header bar, though Reader is! You have to click "Even more" to get to Groups. They have been really destroying Groups for a while now. The new ui is terrible, the new url format is also bad. They got rid of instructions for emailing for subscriptions, and someone reported to me earlier today that emailing list+subscribe@googlegroups.com doesn't even work…

list+subscribe@googlegroups.com still works. I used it last week.

To an onlooker, it seems that it could both have worked last week, and not work today.

Re: Google is about to learn a tough lesson

#125

Post by znowi »

OGinparadise wrote: post #9

Google officially lost the "we're not Facebook /Microsoft /Apple [other "evil empire"] company." They have played that game for way too long and many people fell for it. Since Larry Page took over, Google has lost it's soul; now it's just a greedy, money grubbing machine. Nothing is sacred anymore, no matter how much they repeat http://www.google.com/about/company/philosophy/

> Google has lost it's soul; now it's just a greedy, money grubbing machine.

Yes, it is. However, not because of the Reader. It happened years ago, you just didn't notice :)

Re: Google is about to learn a tough lesson

#126

Post by danilocampos »

stephenr wrote: post #121
danilocampos wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They built Gmail. People need it desperately. So far, no one distrusts it or has any reason to. That's their identity moat.

People don't need gmail. They need email. You know, that thing that existed for years before gmail. To say people don't distrust google/gmail shows your naïveté and/or your rose coloured google glasses. Search and the collaborative part of google docs (ie multiple concurrent editors on a document) is the only thing where it's hard to find a true competitor that you can self host, not to mention hosted solutions.

>People don't need gmail. They need email. You know, that thing that existed for years before gmail. To say people don't distrust google/gmail shows your naïveté and/or your rose coloured google glasses.

Aren't you a charmer.

I'm about as far from a Google fanboy as exists. Trust in this conversation has been about existing tomorrow or not. No one doubts Gmail is going to exist tomorrow.

And while you're right about the very obvious assertion that email existed before Gmail, that misses the point. There's a switching cost involved in changing your email. You have to inform all your contacts, update all of your accounts, learn a new web interface.

It's a damn good moat.

Re: Google is about to learn a tough lesson

#127

Post by OGinparadise »

panacea wrote: post #64
giblfiz wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wait... your saying that because they are discontinuing a product? I'm not suggesting that google is/isn't evil these days, but I would suggest that there is absolutely no moral aspect to discontinuing a feed reader.

"discontinuing a product" I guess you need to unpack what that product was. It was loss-leading free product that killed the ecosystem that proceeded it. That whole 'embrace, extend, extinguish' thing is what many people are decrying as a tad 'evil'.

Google did that to websites too: first they penalized a slew of sites such as local search, travel, finance, shopping comparison for having "shallow content," and then they introduced the Google versions of said sites, on top of everyone else on search results.

Re: Google is about to learn a tough lesson

#128

Post by hayksaakian »

fraqed wrote: post #68
ceol wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly my situation. I set it up, used it for about a week a long time ago, and never logged into it again. I think the coolest feature of it was its massive database of RSS feeds. I liked being able to flip through tons of categories and add them. However, it wasn't enough to keep me coming back, and that's probably why Google is discontinuing it. I wish there was some way to export all those feeds, though.

Google Takeout allows you to get all your data from various Google services https://www.google.com/takeout/ What surprises me most is that Microsoft, which has a severe case of Google envy hasn't created a web based RSS service of it's own. They should make an offer to buy Reader and Feedburner too, since Google seems to have little interest in supporting these products.

Google isn't handing over the reader code any time soon. There's too much overlap with their search algos.

Re: Google is about to learn a tough lesson

#129

Post by vonuebelgarten »

jdost wrote: post #19
llambda wrote: post #3

> Google made a big mistake cancelling Google Reader that will have severe ripple effects to its empire. Oh come on: enough already. Obviously there was a /vocal/ user base which is very loudly now upset that the product is being sunset. Guess what, Google didn't see it as a large enough set of people to make it worth monetizing. Such is life. Move on. It's certainly not the end of Google if that's what this article…

It is more a combination of the small and vocal user base and the message it sends to them about Google being open to cutting any product that has a usage they don't think is significant. Those people who see Google cut a product that they have adopted into a regular usage will probably add an asterisk to any recommendation for adopting a new Google product. There is no certainty that the lifespan of that Google is d…

> cutting any product that has a usage they don't think is significant.

Curiously, some products that are moribund for more time still alive (e.g. Orkut).

Re: Google is about to learn a tough lesson

#130

Post by jQueryIsAwesome »

sbmassey wrote: post #90
jQueryIsAwesome wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Yep. And it never figured out how to handle high-vol and low-vol blogs together in any meaningful way". What I always thought but was never able to articulate so well (hi again fellow twitter user).

How would you expect it to handle high and low volume blogs together "meaningfully"? I guess I'm not really sure what the problem is: it's pretty easy to put all your high volume stuff into a single category so you can mark everything read at once, if that is the issue.

I know the problem, not the solution, but maybe calculating the popularity among the people I follow on twitter (or the ones following the ones I follow in case that dataset is not big enough) to show me a lot less articles for frequent-publisher.
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