Where does the countdown start? At nearly 8 years, which is the lifespan of Google Reader? How many other free services on the web lasted that long [1]?

I'm an avid Reader user. I'm terribly sad to see it go, but I appreciate the value I've gotten out of it while it existed.

Plenty of web services -- maybe most -- die after a while. Maybe the company offering it goes under, maybe nobody uses it, or maybe it's just not accomplishing the goals the company set out for it (ahem, Reader). In any case, 8 years _has_ to be higher than the average lifespan [1]. So I assert that even if you assume every new Google service will be killed in 8 years, you're still better off choosing them (from a longevity perspective).

[1] I would absolutely _love_ to see some data about average web service lifespans. I suspect that it is actually quite low. I also suspect that Google has a much better track record than the industry (again, on average).