If everyone goes to eBay and Amazon instead of Google to buy things, no one will buy ads from Google.

If Google can provide a compelling alternative to eBay and Amazon, they reduce the risk that people stop shopping on Google and that people stop buying ads on Google.

This looks like Google focusing on their bottom line.

The thought with Express might go like this: "By pushing the envelope on buying things online, more people will buy thing online than offline, expanding the e-commerce universe. This would translate into higher advertising fees. Then profit."

In other words, they believe that expanding e-commerce will be more profitable than helping two dozen power users consume mostly as free content easier.

And why didn't they just do that? They gave no explanation whatsoever. Google Reader has/had millions of users, surely Google could've capitalized on that.

I'm also willing to bet that if there was a decline in Google Reader users, it had something to do with the web app being neglected for so long and Google having taken away several useful features in the last couple of years.

Anyways, “usage was declining” was their argument for pulling the plug, but not an explanation of why they never tried to capitalize on the service.