Everyone else has a "walled garden" why must Google be different? and why should they - arguably the least “walled” of said gardens - suffer the "openness" brunt?
The fact that they are not investing in RSS tools doesn't mean they're against them, it's just not in their interest anymore, and so I come to the conclusion that this is yet another Google Reader lament, and I thought we've already had our fill of these on the HN front page.
It’s the same discussion all over again, If you've not found a Reader replacement by now, or at least had your eyes on a couple of replacement candidates then you're just being stubborn.
Google lets you export your feeds and that is why they are not "evil", not because they refuse to indefinitely maintain a service that isn't of interest to them.
Also the crux or that post is an opt in feature that you have to install as a browser extension, if you don't like it then avoid the extension, but then how is it any different than Facebook's 'like' buttons or any of the other social widgets that are cluttering the web?!