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A comment on The year of the RSS reader (really). Parent comment

Re:The year of the RSS reader (really) by skybrian on Friday December 23, 2022 @01:14PM (#34108900)
It was successful enough that a much smaller business than Google would have tried to keep it going, probably as a subscription service. But for Google it was a rounding error, and the code base needed a rewrite.

It seems hard to argue that it would have become more successful, given that its successors are pretty good but they’re small businesses.

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Re:The year of the RSS reader (really) by ghaff on Friday December 23, 2022 @01:24PM (#34109031)
Right. And the problem with rounding error businesses at large companies is that:

1. They're a distraction and

2. It's probably very career limiting to work on them.

Someone at IBM told me years ago that if something wasn't going to be a billion dollar business they weren't interested. And Google walked away years ago for organizing the world's knowledge if advertising wasn't attached.

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Re:The year of the RSS reader (really) by fanso99 on Friday December 23, 2022 @02:14PM (#34109565)
There is an argument to be made that these… micro services were a part of a bigger offering from Google. Maybe by itself Reader wasn’t a billion dollar business, but together with other niche features Reader attracted an influential and wealthy audience.
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