[notatoad]

Perhaps google learns a tough lesson. Or perhaps bloggers who think they are "influencers" are going to learn a tough lesson about how much impact their influence really has.

Google knows what they're doing. They haven't forgotten the outrage that happened after they stripped the social features out of reader and replaced it with the +1 button. They knew all those people and more would be pissed. And they decided it didn't matter.

[alenonimo]

It's not the same thing. When G+ killed Google Reader's "sharebro" social network, Google Reader still was the best feed reader of the market by a long shot. Just like now, there was nowhere to run. Heck, I kept using it, just like anyone complaining. I kept recommending it because it was GReader or a fucking magazine-layout shitty app.

But now they are definetely killing it, and it will affect the users in a different way. They are trashing away the app so there's no way a user can simply adapt. Before you could say "well, at least I can keep reading the feeds". Now you got nothing.

About influencers, well, there are lots of people with a good chunk of influence using GReader. They might make a dent on how people perceive Google's app reliability. Even a small one could end up in some financial loss. If it would be significant to them, only time will tell.

By the way, have you noticed that the Google+ still didn't catch up? What if it's Google Reader users fault? Think about it.

[crander]

No, they hoped it wouldn't mater. Unless they've perfected the ability to predict the future they and everyone else won't know for quite some time.

[saraid216]

How will we tell whether or not it matters?