Over the years, Google has killed off a lot of products, with the “Killed by Google” site listing 280 of them as of now. Most were pretty small ones you’ve never heard of, but some were rather substantial.
I was a big fan of Google+, and I’m still upset that they canceled Stadia. While those two had a bigger impact on me personally, I think Google’s biggest loss was Google Reader, because their treatment of that product has helped create some of the problems that the internet is facing today.
Google Reader?
You may not be familiar with what Google Reader was, which is part of the problem. In short, it was a popular RSS reader that helped people consume content on the internet. I’m still a big fan of RSS, but it’s unlikely to ever really make a comeback.
Before Google Reader came along, there were a lot of RSS-focused tools available. Many people I knew used them, and things were great. Google Reader was launched in 2005 and essentially swept up that market. Most people, myself included, moved our subscriptions to Google Reader because it was a great tool and it was free. Some of the other tools charged for their usage, so when users like me left, most of them went out of business.
Then, in 2013, Google killed off Google Reader. Most of the other products were long dead, and now users had to figure out what to do next. In most cases, the answer was “nothing” and they moved on to just using social media and allowing algorithms to dictate their content, which was by far the easiest path.
This is similar to when Walmart comes into a small town, wipes out the existing businesses, then closes up shop and leaves a big mess behind. That’s what Google did here.
A better internet
I believe that the internet would be a better place today if Google Reader had never existed. I’m not foolish enough to believe that RSS would be dominating today, but it would certainly be seeing much wider usage.
RSS is a fantastic way to avoid filters and algorithms and to really control your inputs, and I encourage you to give it a shot with something like Feedly (a solid replacement for Google Reader). It’ll be interesting to see how things like this shift in the coming years, but this is a move you can make right now to help improve your internet experience.
I had this same feeling until I found feedly.com.
Feedly is fantastic, as are a few others. My point was that the internet as a whole is worse now, because so many of my friends that used to use RSS tools, then moved to Google Reader, simply moved away from it when it shut down. Without Google Reader having come and gone, I think more would be using RSS today, which is good for everyone.
I love Feedly. Super easy to use and definitely makes consumption of the internet more palatable, particularly for work focused topics.