[samatman]

Google decided that the way to launch a new social network was to piss off the nucleus of it, namely, the users of its existing social apps. By canceling Reader, and going on a long, obnoxious push to unify gmail and YouTube accounts, two things literally no one wanted.

If they'd been clever enough to make Google+ an extension of those things, it might have gone somewhere.

[marssaxman]

They additionally alienated many potential early adopters with the "real names" policy...

[cesarb]

That "real names" policy is the reason I have always been careful to never open YouTube while logged into any Google account: the understanding I gathered from the noise back then was that, if you ever logged into YouTube or Google+, and then Google for some reason decided that your name was not your real name, you could permanently lose access to more important things like Google Talk or Gmail.

[samatman]

Ah that fiasco! I'd memory-holed it. That was the final mistake, killing Reader was the first. I haven't forgiven them for it and I never will.

[BlueTemplar]

The sad thing is that Reader was already a successful social network on top of a RSS reader. But not successful enough for Google I guess...

[reaperman]

I'll never forgive Google for killing Reader. I truly believe the internet would be very different today if Reader had stuck around.