Stop Whining About Google Reader

I think he is vastly underestimating the amount of work required to make a true Google Reader replacement. Reader was a lot more than just an RSS reader, and much more than just the front-end bits. Reading this post makes me wonder if he ever even used it or had much direct interaction with the underlying feed API and all that it offers (historical feed data, etc).<p>Re-read this blog post with every mention of "Google Reader" replaced with "Google Search" to get an idea of how ridiculous a notion it is that we should just shut up and make our own in a couple of months. Granted, the scale isn't <i>quite</i> the same. Google Reader is not as difficult to replace as Google Search would be, but it is far more difficult than he thinks.<p>Having said all of this, it is absolutely Google's call if it wants to keep Reader going or not, they don't owe me anything when it comes to Reader or any of their other services that I don't pay for, but OTOH shutting down Reader does mean I'm going to think twice (or four times) about adopting any future Google service. They've now established quite a pattern of killing off things I've grown to depend on, and they are free to do that, but I'm free to avoid their services for fear of being burned again.

&#62; A real hacker would not whine about missing code. Hackers see missing code as an opportunity to build. Hackers like to build.<p>Fuck you and fuck your "no true Scotsman" bullshit. Who appointed you to be king of hackers?

I'm not concerned about finding another RSS reader, or about the impact on "RSS as a standard." Mostly, I'm concerned that blogs I enjoy which are "at the margin" of traffic profitability will be killed when at least some of their subscription base stop following them on Reader, and then never start following anywhere else.<p>Ask any company who makes money from an email list what would happen if everyone suddenly became unsubscribed and they had to just sit and hope they would all subscribe again. Listen for the wails :)

&#62; they're attached to their Twitter feed but dontcha-know-it's-just-not-the-same thing as Google Reader<p>I need to have a Twitter account to follow someone's feed. But I don't need to open account anywhere to subscribe to an RSS feed. The blog owner doesn't know who the subscribers to his RSS feed are. RSS anonymous and private. That is the difference. Twitter is like centralized VCS. RSS is like distributed VCS.<p>Ironically, this is also the reason why Google shutdown GR - they want everyone to "follow" others on Google+. So that all your posts are hidden in some megacorp's servers, creating a "lock-in" situation.

Broad generalizations, harsh judgements about people with nothing to back them up, wise guy pretensions, a professor talking the cynical tough talk. I prefer Maddox but he didn't write about Google Reader. He does write about getting banned from Apple Stores.

Just because there will be replacements for most of Google Reader's functionality, that doesn't make sunsetting GR with 3 months notice any less of a dick move.<p><i>"There have been far too many HN articles on how evil Google is for canceling a free service, how this product cancellation is a symbol, how Google should never have given anything to anyone if they were going to cancel it later."</i><p>If a large company starts giving away a service that one would normally expect to pay for, and if it puts its marketing muscle into getting everyone to use the service instead of alternatives, it has responsibility towards those users for quite some time to come, having killed the market for others.<p>Now dozens of developers of RSS clients have to scramble to replace the GR backend that everyone is using. For example, Aaronbretthorst sent out an email today about the client he's working on:<p>"To be honest, I never intended to announce my project this week. I started working on Viafeeds on February 11th, and expected that I'd have at least six months to get it working and well-polished before Google shut down Reader. Unfortunately, things didn't work out the way I expected, and I've been forced to accelerate my timetable. This is due, in no small part, to the fact that I was an avid Reader user, and want to make sure that I have a product at least as good to use on my iPhone, iPad and desktop before it shuts down on July 1st."

The author appears to be playing along as if this is not satire, but I am pretty sure it is.<p>Here is my case for calling it satire:<p>It starts off with caricatures...<p><pre><code> every single one of these people do indeed have Twitter profiles, and they are entrepreneurs also, and they're thinking about their next pivot, and they certainly have an opinion on NodeJS versus Clojure even though they've never gone past the tutorial on either platform [...] </code></pre> Stating the obvious<p><pre><code> the only thing in between a hacker who misses Reader and a working Reader implementation past-June is... nothing </code></pre> Hyperbole...<p><pre><code> Reader's cancellation will have absolutely no impact on RSS. Reader isn't RSS. It isn't anything but a consumer, one of many, of the RSS standard. whoever is in possession of your RSS feeds probably knows you more intimately than Target, which supposedly knows when a woman is pregnant before her father. It's an intimate relationship, based on trust. </code></pre> But I didn't really become convinced it was satire until this line...<p><pre><code> Entitlement without effort is like representation without taxation. </code></pre> So, am I the only one who sees this as satire? A subtle poke at Hacker News for taking itself too seriously? Or am I the guy who mistakenly laughs "Ha! Yea that would be crazy, right?" even though the other guy was totally serious?

I like how a company that is actually competing in this space, with an existing, operating product, has posted a blog article[1] essentially asking for their new, fresh from Google Reader, users to help prioritizing the missing features and this <i>hacker</i> says just build your own, as if it's a couple of hours or something.<p>Instead of writing this, he should have made a Google Reader clone and got rich this weekend.<p>[1] <a href="http://blog.feedly.com/" rel="nofollow">http://blog.feedly.com/</a>

The point of a programmer is to save time by writing as little code as possible. You contribute to an existing project that's OSS, not roll your own bug-ridden p-o-s in the framework / language-of-the-year. You shouldn't be presumptive about 'hacker's and about Reader's users, especially when you're not heavily acquainted with the product yourself and its usefulness as a learning / info-gathering aid. Next time, don't write an article about a subject you don't know enough about, when you can just go hack yourself.

No!! First Wave, now this. It's a question of trust &#38; honest transparency. Why should anyone trust Google ever again?

Seriously, guys. Your favorite RSS reader has been deprecated. Not only is this <i>not</i> the end of the world, it is something that one-million-percent does not matter. Let it go!<p>Worst case scenario: you try a different RSS reader, and it works okay. You are in no danger of missing that all-important news article or blog post that all your friends are reading.<p>I take it back. Worst case scenario: RSS itself implodes, is obliterated from the face of the earth, and now you have to visit news websites and (manually!) click the refresh button to ensure that you're not missing that life-or-death article or blog post.<p>Wait, hang on -- I take it back. Here's the really-truly worst case scenario: instead of sitting impatiently with your lips wrapped around the proverbial firehose, desperately afraid that your content-thirst can never be sated without Google's help, you go out and <i>actually create some content of your own</i>.<p>(Or just buy a fucking newspaper. Jeez.)