Hacker News Reader

Comment by saurik | Hacker News Reader

I never used Google Reader and never cared much for RSS, and yet as a developer I have been bit by tons of services Google has discontinued, from login mechanisms to web APIs. The shut down tons of things, including things that make them money (Google Checkout). I know end users sad about Picasa, as they had organized all of their photos into that app, and have seen end users concerned about the continual discontinuation of messaging apps.

Where is this storyline / narrative that this is always about Google Reader coming from? It is downright nonsensical at this point, and is clearly false.

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Agreed, Inbox is the latest one (being shutdown in March) that has me hugely disappointed. I’m a paying customer too with multiple G Suite accounts for my company.

Everything in Picasa was migrated into Google Photos, including all the albums.

Picasa was a desktop app that didn’t require you to load all photos to google. So you could manage large libraries.

Photos is not the same although has many similar features.

And it is just a question of time until photos get discontinued as well...

Photos requires you allow them to use your data to run their image ML on, so it's not going anywhere it isnt quite what it appears. This was precisely the motivation for shuttering the desktop app.

Seemlessly too.

At the time you posted this comment, there was already at least one other hacker news reader complaining about Google Reader in this thread. Check any other thread about Google killing a thing, on this site or any other, and it's always there.

Well, there was and there will be for foreseeable future, because Google Reader was damn useful and is a poster child of Google's habit of hyping up useful products and then canning them.

Why havent anyone attempted to take over? Is it only possible for google?

There are a dozen services and a hundred run-your-own servers.

People lose detail in older memories; Google Reader did a pretty good job and had few awful problems, so it is remembered fondly. The death notice was a big shock to people who relied on it heavily, so it is remembered vividly.

I set up a Tiny RSS server and have been reasonably content.

Thanks

I ran my own Tiny RSS server for a while but found it was just enough hassle when updates would occasionally break minor things. I switched to paying NewsBlur $2/mo to deal with the backend and am much happier.

Feedly is one of my favorite examples of "small company in the right place at the right time." They had an RSS reader website that was, in most respects, exactly like Google Reader. They also supported easily importing Google Reader subscriptions.

The day Google Reader announced it was going away, me and everyone else found Feedly and said "hey, this is basically the same thing and I can switch easily" and bam, they grew like crazy.

Literally a half million users showed up on Feedly in 2 days. http://blog.feedly.com/priorities-keeping-the-site-up-and-ad...

The claim was that this reputation only exists with "nerds" who are "angry because of Google Reader". Just one counter example suffices to refute that. Personally, I think even that is a waste of time because the claim doesn't even pass the smell test. The only useful function it serves is to demonstrate double standards; if someone said "only nerds work for Google" their comment would be dead in 5 minutes.

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