What does this have to do with anything? Google is a business like any other. Google is not dropping Reader because they are secretly closed and nefarious, they are dropping it because no one uses it (again, relatively speaking). If people actually used RSS then they'd feel compelled to keep it, whether priced or not, because it would be make business sense to keep it around. I guarantee you that if RSS had Facebook's user count, they'd be banging that RSS drum like crazy.

But it doesn't, and Google is not a charity. Whether you believe them to be "open" or not (meaningless statement), being "open" certainly does not commit you to supporting arbitrary protocols indefinitely for the good of the world, especially ones that most people don't use. RSS had its shot, it just can't compete in today's web.

And we'll see for just how long you can still buy the Mac Pro.

You can stop your argument right at the start. Google Reader has more activity than Google Plus: http://www.buzzfeed.com/jwherrman/google-reader-still-sends-...

Every conclusion derived from here is then flawed.

Where is google+ mentioned in my argument? Its not. However, for sake of argument, if g+ proves to not get enough users eventually either, I'm sure they'll shut it down too and try something new. Just like they did with wave.

It isn't in your argument, but is the elephant in the room. If low usage was really the cause for GReader sunset, G+ should have been chopped too. It wasn't, hence it isn't.

I'd be curious to see meaningful engagement numbers of Reader and G+.

Anecdotally, most folks I know use Reader every day at both home and office, but "use" G+ only to the extent that it's plugged into other Google services.

Anecdote: I post links to my blog entries to G+ in case Google gives it undue weight in search ranking. A few people click +1, and it's in the search results of the few thousand people who have my G+ account in a circle.

But that's it. Anyone I find interesting enough to follow ends up in Feedly.

Look I like Google and I understand they have to run a business but I have a hard time believing that shuttering Reader has nothing to do with driving people to G+.

I guess you are not understanding my position. I neither like nor don't like Google, and I'm not "defending" their position from an altruistic standpoint. Maybe their plan is to help G+ through shutting down Reader, I don't know. My point is that if they did that, it wouldn't be a testament for or against their openness, because Reader merited being shut down either way, for the simple fact that it is a failed technology.

If you strongly want "open" to beat "closed social", then maybe RSS dying might be a step in a positive direction, since its had its shot, and proved to just not be useful for people. Now, I personally feel RSS neither hurts nor helps "closed social" in any way, so I think its inconsequential.

Well you may have a point about RSS being a failed technology, at least for the masses, who seem to prefer bells and whistles.

I am not following the logic you believe Google would use to think shuttering Reader would push people to Google+. How does pissing off people who use Reader push them to use another service by the company that just pissed them off? Especially when Google+ doesn't really do what the Reader did?

Nothing into that link says anything about shutting down Reader to drive people to Google+.

It does have a former employee saying Google+ is more of a focus for Google than Reader, but that isn't remotely the same and everyone knew that for quite a while.

From the article:

After all, before Google Reader’s sharing features were converted to corresponding Google+ ones, users of the soon-to-be-killed service used to share like crazy. Shih postulates, with plenty of logic, that this activity dropped as Google pushed Reader users to sharing on Google+ instead.

That is in reference to the changing from internal sharing to Google+ sharing in October 2011, not shutting down Google Reader. I understand that Google prefers their users to use Google+ over Reader, but I still don't see how shutting down Reader = more Google+ users, even from Google's perspective. If anything, they are removing a service that could have driven Google+ sharing.

> You can still buy a Mac Pro.

Even more importantly, if you already purchased a Mac Pro, you can still use it. Indefinitely, until it breaks beyond repair.

Not exactly. Apple stops shipping OSX updates for older Mac Pros, so eventually, you lose software support. I have a Mac Pro that no longer works with Mountain Lion. Is it missing some kind of hardware needed to run Mountain Lion? No. Is there any reason it shouldn't be able to run it? No.

As a result, I could not get upgrades for some software that required Mountain Lion to use. That, combined with the lack of upgrades, forced me to replace my Mac Pro with a custom built Linux box. It now sits idle in the corner.

Okay, so it's not black and white. Sure, my android phone from 3 years ago can't run most newer apps. But it can still run the things I had on the phone at the time. I guess what I was getting at was that Apple (or Google) doesn't come and take the device away from you once the product line has been EOL'd.

I don't see how "open" = maintaining a service that was never open source.

It's "open" in the sense of it was built on open protocols, rather than proprietary ones. Replacing those open protocols with proprietary ones makes you less open.

Google moving from Reader (RSS/Atom) to Current (unspecified protocols) is less open.

Google moving Calendar from CalDAV to their proprietary Calendar API is less open.

Google potentially moving Talk from XMPP to an unspecified proprietary protocol is less open.

Etc.

I think he means Google could've have open sourced Reader if they wanted to.

I presume the underpinnings of Reader (search, caching, etc.) are so tied to Google tech that open sourcing it would either be impossible or lead to a neutered version that was useless.

The Mac Pro is no longer sold in Europe.