Comment by dylangs1030 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dylangs1030 | Hacker News Reader

This is a really good example of how to write a shutter letter. But it's not appropriate to criticize companies that shutter free services (i.e. Google) for not doing every single checkmark on this list (especially if they only miss one of them[1]).

Google has a lot of free products. Notably, Google's shut down of Reader comes under a lot of flak for how it was delivered to the public. But 37signals sold Breeze for $10. Google Reader was free. And yet, Google did everything 37signals did here except recommend alternatives. They even gave a longer sunset.

37Signals had customers - Google only had users. There is a world of difference in the utility and obligations in the company-user relationship there. Google could shutter any product it wants without telling anyone. It would be bad press, but doing anything more is a kindness and respect for users in imitation of how companies should treat customers. You didn't earn that kind of respect or attention from Google, they gave blog posts and announcements and free data and sunsets because they care. In most cases you would only get that kind of attention because companies don't want to burn paying customers from using their other products.

This in no way criticizes 37signals. It's a great discontinuation announcement. But stop deifying them and demonizing Google when Google actually went above and beyond in letting you know. Those comments aren't productive, they're just angry.

[1]: http://googlereader.blogspot.com/2013/03/powering-down-googl...

It's not shutting down Google Reader, but rather a pattern of behavior where products built on open standards are replaced by walled gardens. Google+ hasn't taken off either, but Google is doubling down on it rather than shutting it off.

In my opinion, this is not because they expect Google+ to be a true competitor to Facebook.

The addition of information in Google+ user profiles allows them to compete with Facebook advertising in a key arena -- targeting ads based on self-volunteered user information which is more valuable and trustworthy rather than trying to derive this information based on browsing\searching patterns.

Google+ serves to enhance Google's ad products more than it does to provide value to customers.

Having said that, Hangouts (which most people consider a part of Google+) is a succesful product.

I would question the notion that self-volunteered information is more accurate. It's easy to "like" or "follow" something. It's quite another to buy it or make search queries that seem to lead to a purchasing decision. Which data is better for advertising?

Well, in my experience people don't "like" or "follow" things they wouldn't mind seeing frequent (borderline annoying) updates for as a direct consequence. So while the act of liking and following might not lead to a direct sale, it's a reasonable argument to suggest that the people who do that are a good, receptive audience for a targeted ad campaign.

Ad targeting might not only be more effective, but it could also save money by not spending money futilely throwing a product in the face of users who are just not interested.

It's essentially not just a way to opt-in to advertising, it's a way to opt-out of all the other things you might not want. Whether this works 100% of the time is another debate entirely.

If it doesn't work for you, it doesn't mean it won't work for anybody else.

Google+ has taken off. It's just not a booming social network for friends like Facebook is. In that regard, Twitter hasn't taken off either.

I'm not trying to build a strawman here, but people judge Plus and Twitter by the wrong metric. Facebook is not the only model of how to run a social network. Google+ is a website for professional connections with selectivity based on who will see what, precisely because there are so many different types of relationships available. Facebook is literally just for friends (and should be). They're doubling down on it because users are using it, it's showing itself to be a better product. And - it's gaining traction without Google having to resort to the sort of advertising that Microsoft is doing with Bing. It's much more organic.

But I digress - my comment here was specifically in response to the many comments I've read disparaging Google for its handling of Reader. I agree with you that Google has a tendency to merge products into semi-androgyny. But I also think this is a good thing. Google is slowly limiting its product selection while maximizing effort into each product. There may be some kinks to work out, but I believe that the basic philosophy of quality over quantity is there.

And, honestly, products like Reader and Feedburner are so multifarious and down the pipeline that without a solid base of paying customers Google could never hope to improve them substantially. In fact, they haven't really been improved substantially.

I believe that while Google could improve the way they're doing it, it will be a net win for them to consolidate services into more feature-rich products they can devote exponentially more attention to.

I noticed that pretty much the people who criticize Google for shutting down products are the same people who criticize Google for having too many products.

Not at all. I loved when Google had more products than anyone could keep track of. Not every company needs to be Apple.

≥Not every company needs to be Apple.

Yes, someone has to develop real technology and various open source tools. I am glad Google is around.

I don't disagree with your distinction between Google+ and FB, but I disagree with the conclusion that its taking off. There's no doubt that Google+ is trying to occupy a different space than facebook, but I see no proof (I think any of the 'active users' stats Google touts around are more or less fraudulent) that they're doing any better than their two biggest competitors on either side of the spectrum: LinkedIn and Twitter.

it's showing itself to be a better product

How? Because in my mind the #1 feature of a social network, regardless of domain, are the social interactions it enables -- and right now Google+ is losing to the likes of Branch and Quora in that department.

>(I think any of the 'active users' stats Google touts around are more or less fraudulent)

Fair enough.Do you also think the same for the numbers released by Facebook or twitter or instagram too?

With Reader, Google didn't replace it with anything. It wasn't replaced by a walled garden. There's no garden at all.

What open-source system did Google+ replace? OpenSocial? That thing never took off. Google tried for years but nothing happened.

Now you want Google to shut off Google+? Have you read what happens when Google shuts down products?

Google just can't win.

Reader used to be a fantastic way to share great content with your friends. When the sharing was replaced with +1 it indicated the Google wanted the sharing to happen on Google+ [1]. Which means content creators have to get on G+ to syndicate, despite every CMS having RSS output already.

[1] http://gigaom.com/2013/03/13/chris-wetherll-google-reader/

I know it's anecdotal, but I read way more Google+ related content than Facebook.

I say this as someone who doesn't have an account with either service. The quality content with Google+ is there, Facebook is clearly just useless tripe.

I think what makes this shutdown different from Reader is that 37signals did this as soon as they realized it wasn't a profitable venture.

I can't actually say how it went down at Google, but I suspect they knew they weren't going to be making money with Reader very quickly, yet still allowed it to become the dominant RSS player.

The 37signals shutdown seems practical, the Google one reeks of greed.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com