[joelrunyon]

This is sort of interesting double-speak on Google's part.

1. Kills RSS - forces people to receive updates from people / blogs / companies you want to follow in email.

2. Wow, that inbox is looking pretty messy - we should help clean it up!

3. We made a nifty little app to help keep your inbox clean (and filter out those annoying companies you used to subscribe to via RSS).

4. Our customers like their inboxes clean - so if you're a company and you want to talk to your customer - you better pay for a spot.

RSS + Email were dumb pipes. Google's doing everything in it's power to control those pipes either y eliminating them (RSS) or using their near-monopoly to shift people to a new standard (gmail/inbox). Now, this is all smart on their part, but not necessarily great down the road for consumer or companies.

[Karunamon]

Really? You actually think email became a mess just because Reader was shut down? It's not like there are about elventy hojillion competitors in that space to choose from!

This smells like the "new coke" argument to me.