[chunkyks]

I switched to feedly. No biggie, in retrospect.

But, that was the first Google product where it really hit home, to me, how even if a product is fantastic and useful, Google will kill it without a second thought.

It fundamentally changed my attitude toward Google and made me far more deliberate about what services I choose to rely on, especially from the big G.

Obligatory link to https://killedbygoogle.com/

[dmix]

I'm curious if Clayton Christensen's would add some exceptions to his follow up book to "The Innovator's Dilemma" [1] ("The Innovators Solution") where the solution to BigCo failing to innovate is because they can never comprehend/tolerate any business which might cannibalize their core business even in the slightest (like a niche RSS reader taking away views from Google News and Google SERPs) is to do "intrapeanuership". Which is where your side plays are isolated/insulated from the downward pressure of established powerful internal teams controlling the current pet business model.

I doubt Reader was ever going to be a serious business but maybe there should be a much more explicit execption for the side products your customers love that also don't fit perfectly into the parent companies main business/product dev strategy.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator's_Dilemma?wprov=...

[teaearlgraycold]

At Google too many people have the power to launch products to keep all of the products around forever.

[daveslash]

This. I also switched to Feedly, no biggie. But it made me take a hard look at what else I was dependent on Google for. About 5 years ago I excised Google from my life as much as I good, including sunsetting my gmail account.

I still use my Android phone, and use maps for navigation and browse youtube online, but I use as little 'account' features as is necessary. If I wanted to switch to iPhone tomorrow, there'd be next to zero migration headaches.

[Breza]

I also moved to Feedly, but the shuttering of Reader meant that many websites stopped posting RSS links, and some big sites stopped supporting it altogether.