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The driver was financial. Google cited (03/2013) a user decline [0]. You don't need a conspiracy or more reasons to shutter the service.

> "While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined."

[0] https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/03/a-second-spring-of-c...

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They also killed iGoogle in the same year, and that's what I used as my daily RSS feed. From Wikipedia: due to "the unforeseen evolution of web and mobile apps and the erosion of the need for the site", whatever that means.

While not exactly as strong as a conspiracy theory, I think they were well aware of what they were doing, and RSS was in the "best if absent" feature category.

Same scenario for me. FWIW I switched to using http://www.ighome.com/ which more or less replaces the functionality (not affiliated in any way, just a user).

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