I really wish people would stop pretending as if there was some direct correlation between the killing of Reader and the launch of every new product.

Personally, I'd much rather see them working on this than on Reader.

While I agree it's off topic for this article, I think it's legitimate to assume a correlation.

The justification behind shutting down Reader was the low number of people using it when compared to other Google projects, and the need to direct resources to other, more strategically important ones. As Larry Page eloquently put it, more wood behind fewer arrows.

So if Reader was sacrificed to the overarching Google strategy, it's at least interesting, and perhaps relevant, to weigh its loss against new projects that spring up, like this one.

Judging from the Techcrunch leak at the start of the month(http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/04/google-is-building-a-same-d...) this product belongs to the new Advertising & Commerce unit which was formed when the Maps and Commerce unit was broken up this month. A product maintained by Google's dedicated monetization unit probably has a better chance of being somewhat stable.

Right...if this "wood putting" strategy involves putting more wood behind fewer arrows, why do the number of arrows seem to be increasing, while favorite old reliable arrows are getting the shaft?

I feel like people forget that Google is a business.

Google has always retired products and always explored new avenues. I don't see the difference

I think people have come to see Google almost as a government for the Internet in that they expect them to invest in the infrastructure simply for the greater good.

I think the rule of thumb is that any old product which doesn't firmly belong to one of the 5 units (Search/Knowledge, Chrome/Android/Google Apps, Identity/Google+, Advertising/Commerce and Youtube/Video) created after Page's 2011 company reorg is at danger of being shuttered. As long as a product belongs somewhere it has a better chance of staying alive, and one way to measure that is when the last update to it was.

Except that a service like this has very little lockin. You might invest hours into setting up something like Google Reader the way you want. This is just a logistics service. If Google provides this service for only six months and disappears, the userbase doesn't lose anything except the service.

I think your argument is still valid for something like Keep. I just don't think it is relevant here.

Even if killed, it's not like if you order a roll of toilet paper, the loss of the service will somehow hurt you. The lock-in effect with e-commerce is far less.

I think you've made an incorrect assumption - OP did not make the "direct correlation" as you imply, nor do I see anyone else on HN doing this either. If you don't like people talking about Google Reader, fine - just don't comment on their comments. Or write a GM script to hide all comments with "Google reader" in them. Problem solved.

Didn't mean it to come across like that - just curious as to what their strategy is and how they argue it.

My comment is somewhat OT though so I'll kill it

Your comment was fine and, in light of recent events, quite appropriate. If you hadn't said it, someone else would have. Why? Because it's clearly and obviously something on all of our minds right now.