> Google Reader didn't bring Google more money, even indirectly.
Was there a way to pay for it? Further, even if a feature doesn't bring money, does it cost sufficient money to maintain to merit removing? Why not just open source it and let the community maintain it?
> Removing the headphone jack leads to less cables and less open holes in the device.
The stated excuse for this was to allow the system to be thinner. By "less cables," do you mean inside the device or outside it? For inside it, I don't know, for outside it, it has lead to all kinds of drama, such as for professional musicians who have expensive equipment that used the classic jack.
Further, it's clear to me Apple was not confident it was a good idea by the fact they included the lightning jack->headphone adaptor for free. Regarding "less open holes", don't they have waterproofing technology already? One of the big arguments I've seen that makes more sense is that by forcing audio through bluetooth or through the lightning port, they are able to push DRM. Unsure what I think about that.
This also doesn't explain why other places, like Google, are following suit, much to the dismay of their customers.
> Slack's IRC gateway wasn't very good, and nobody used it, plus its existence allows easy circumvention of some paid tier features, like logging.
I use it extensively, and a quick persual of twitter (and this comment section) shows I am not alone. Further, if "nobody used it", then why would "circumvention of some paid tier features" matter, if nobody is doing circumvention?
Now I have to make the decision whether to have a tab open, which from past experience will suck up about a gig of ram and be generally sluggish, or to use their native app, which from what I understand is basically an app wrapper around Electron and is even more sluggish than the non-app.