[grey-area]

Yeah, Reader was closed just eight years after it launched. I didn't even had time to import all my feeds.

The issue is how easily these services can be closed, not how long they last, in fact if they last longer it's worse for the users involved if they are suddenly shut down. Now free services for life doesn't seem like such a good deal, because the terms are that they owe you nothing and life may equal 2 months, 1 year or 10, it's impossible to know.

I didn't use Reader or participate in the Reader drama and feel it's a bit over-egged, but there is certainly a reputational cost to closing mainstream services or modifying them without consulting those who use them as Apple, FB, MS, Google, Twitter et al do regularly. This doesn't really apply if you have 10 users, but if you have 10 million and an ecosystem it can become important.

Building on top of these platforms like FB or G+ is in my opinion very risk for other businesses, so depending on something like helpouts is a huge risk for the people who might use it to actually sell/provide services and build a reputation, but very little short-term risk for Google.

[vvvVVVvvv]

>Building on top of these platforms [...]

Relying on an other business (platform, as a customer, [...]) for more than 25% (33, 50 your call)of your revenue is risky no matter the industry.

Relying a 100% is stupid.

[grey-area]

Relying... 100% is stupid.

And yet this is what FaceBook, Twitter, Google, Apple and many other web and OS corporations are encouraging people to do - build on top of their platform (be that FB apps, Twitter API, iOS/Android apps or web apps relying on a single-signon). They all want to own the platform which everyone builds and consumes on, and turn everyone else into sharecroppers.

With this particular service, it might be really great for connecting people to provide each other services, but as it also relies on Google+ (which, for example, people have been arbitrarily shut out of), and is provided by Google of Reader infame, is it worth an investment of time or resources? Perhaps as an adjunct to other services, but I'd be wary of depending on it in any meaningful way, as you say.

That may sound like common sense, but see the examples given above of platforms which try to push both consumers and developers into reliance on one tech company for essential parts of their online identity (professional and personal).