Google Reader has simply become a focal point for the closures of so many beloved products and services, because it's so comparatively ubiquitous that an abundance of nerds and literati are all sharing the same frustration simultaneously.
Though I'm also skeptical about trusting new Google products, I think the real lesson is being skeptical in general. If a product isn't part of a company's core business, and/or the business model is unsustainable or user-hostile, go in with eyes open, and ensure you have an exit strategy.
Even if Google doesn't go back from killing Reader, they've seen the response that this particular shutdown has caused. It would be suicide for them to do it again (especially in this manner), so I reckon they'll be more cautious next time. Then again, fool me once...
The first is that RSS's well-established failure to go mainstream meant that it was both a minor and clearly contained "threat" to advertising revenue. The second was that the people who did rely on it heavily are among the best sources of free publicity around. These are the people who take it upon themselves to deal with the fire hose head on, to filter for the best, and to promote their discoveries as widely as they can. And given that Google's entrance into the feed-synching sphere had driven every one else out, their departure left no clear replacement. Essentially, Google waded into the most vocal room in the world, replaced the infrastructure with their own, then shut the whole thing down without any apparent remorse or regret. And that left a lot of very noisy people in the lurch.
Basically, keeping Reader going was the cost of keeping the blogsphere happy. Having hit these people where it hurts, they can now expect to suffer a steady stream of sentiment saying "Google isn't trustworthy". For a business that is unusually dependent on a public perception of trustworthiness, this seems especially undesirable.
If a good substitute for Reader appears in the coming months, the problem may be a passing one. But if it doesn't, the lack will be keenly felt. And as long as bloggers, reporters, and other high-volume traffickers are feeling that pain, Google can expect to lose the benefit of the doubt anytime trust comes up. And even if a good replacement does emerge, Google loses the benefit of having potential critics dependent on (and enamored of) something that they - and they alone - were providing.
[1] Google already built a product similar to Keep, it was called "Notebook" and it was shut down after five years.
[2] If you really believe Google and think that declining traffic is a legitimate reason for closing Reader, then surely Google+ should have been on the chopping block much earlier than Reader.
The Economist does a much better job than I could of explaining why we should be worried about Google's willingness to close products as beloved as Reader: http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/03/utilitie...
[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/mar/22/google-keep...
[2] http://www.buzzfeed.com/jwherrman/google-reader-still-sends-...
2. Google+ won't be killed, because it's a social layer that's built into Google. It isn't a singular product, but is baked into everything Google is doing now that involves social. Sure, at this point in time, it appears that the service is fairly low - but where was Twitter 20 months after launch? I might be playing a "Google card" here, but it's still a relatively new social network, compared to its competition.
I only wish that if they were going to launch further products, they'd tag them "beta," like they did in the past. That way, if they shut them down, it would at least make sense from a "well, it was a trial" standpoint.
(This is, incidentally, the sort of strategy Republicans have w/r/t public services: they want people to think public services suck, so they start defunding or corrupting the relevant offices. Then the services become worse. This becomes a justification for more defunding or just shutting the things down.)
Did you see this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5374625 ?
And there has been this assumption with Google that they would keep their APIs available. Especially for something a innocuous as an RSS API. But that doesn't seem to be the case.
The press is declaring Google Reader a sign of things to come, but for the average user this has little effect. If we assume Google wasn't lying, and the users were dropping off, it makes sense for them to cut off a product that wasn't being actively developed in the first place. I'm a Reader fan, and I hate that it shut down, but that's beside the point - Google is trying to build new, better products, not let old ones fester without support or development.
This doesn't even tackle the fact that Keep isn't a true Evernote competitor. It's more of a supplement/addition to Evernote. For once, a Gizmodo article is relevant here: http://gizmodo.com/5991723/6-obvious-evernote-features-googl...