[vermillion]

You're totally right. But I would argue that its search engine is considered a standard by many. And now with a 90% market share it's reversing its policies.

Also, lest never forget Google Reader: "Embrace, extend, extinguish: How Google crushed and abandoned the RSS industry" http://www.zdnet.com/embrace-extend-extinguish-how-google-cr...

[icebraining]

I would argue that its search engine is considered a standard by many.

Only by people who don't understand the meaning of "standard" in this context. Otherwise, it makes no sense to say "Google is embracing and extending Google Search".

Also, lest never forget Google Reader: "Embrace, extend, extinguish: How Google crushed and abandoned the RSS industry"

Another person who doesn't understand what EEE means, despite spelling it out. Yes, Google crowded out the RSS ecosystem, and eventually killed. Yes, I do agree that Google was a destructive influence for RSS. No, it wasn't an example of a company following the EEE strategy.

The whole point of the EEE strategy is that you extinguish the competition, not your own products. It's a plan to dominate a market by making your proprietary format the new de-facto standard (extending the original), which kills every other option.

If Google had followed the EEE strategy, it wouldn't have killed Reader. Instead, you'd still be using it, except now it would only support GoogleRSS feeds (made popular by leveraging feedburner), which would be a binary, undocumented format that nobody else would be able to parse.

[vermillion]

90% market share implies a position similar to IE6 some years ago, a de facto standard.

With respect to RSS, Google launched a free product, poured millions into it. If you're not Google you can't compete with that. It was devastating. It destroyed everything. And with only their product standing, Google said, "you know what? I'll kill RSS dead, you have some months to transfer to my closed proprietary format/social network, Google+, the new standard". So it's in fact the EEE strategy.

[icebraining]

Are you claiming that they poured millions into Reader for eight years as part of a plan to gain a few users to a service that didn't even exist at the time?

[pfortuny]

Well if one of your products is in competition with the 'star' one (Plus), then the last E in EEE is perfectly logical. Notice that Page's push for plus happened after the development and offering of Reader. So, they EE'd RSS and then they had to E it.

[icebraining]

EEE is a strategy. Unless there's any evidence that Reader was created eight years ago just so that it could swallow the RSS market and be killed to stop competing with a product that was years away from existing, it's not EEE. It's just a normal business decision to not compete with itself.