The article suggest that it was neither. That rather it was an engineering decision: the product did not have staffing to be properly maintained, and rather than staff it up, it was easier to turn it down.
And the original comment is weird anyway. Google had billions of views with and without google reader.
The normal person doesn't use a RSS Reader at all. Even in my nerdy / tech group not everyone uses one.
Feedly apparently hast 15 million users across the world.
If I am a higher-up executive in Google, I'm not going to much care what the numbers on RSS look like now, it takes less half a brain to understand that Google Reader has at least a CHANCE at chewing into the bottom line hard if it takes off -- even if those chances are slim. I'd kill it quickly as possible. If I can do so early, with little fanfare, even better.