One usually visits a graveyard or cemetery to pay your respects, but also to remember the good times before you lost something special. That's me visiting the Google graveyard of dead products and services. When it's time to lay some flowers at the headstone of Google Reader, all I can remember is that the web used to be a much better place.
It gave people a calmer, smarter way to consume the web
When Google Reader, a web feed reader for RSS and Atom, was first released in 2005 the web was a much smaller place than it is today. In fact, you might remember a whole slew of articles in 2011 proclaiming that Facebook was then as big as the entire internet in 2004. Which is nuts when you consider that today Facebook has around 3.5Bn users compared to 800m in 2011.
The sheer size of websites and internet services today makes the web a noisy place, but it already felt unmanageable when Reader made its debut. Instantly, this tool let you filter out the noise of browsing the web. It let you collect and curate feeds from websites you care about, and every day you could simply read the headlines that mattered to you.
It turned the entire internet into your personal reading list
Since mainstream RSS use is almost (but not quite) dead today, it might be easy to forget that when Reader was in its heyday any website worth its salt had an RSS feed. This meant you unify all of your information in one place. There was no doomscrolling (infinite scrolling hadn't even been invented yet) and you never missed anything you didn't want to.
I owe Google Reader a lot, because its best years coincide with my university studies. I did a bachelors, honors bachelors, and masters degree during Reader's tenure, and it was infinitely useful. Whether you were just keeping up with pop culture or trying to follow serious topics for work or school, anyone could set up Reader in no time.
It inspired healthier online habits we didn’t appreciate at the time
Google Reader pushed you towards intentional reading, not getting caught online for hours being led by the nose from one slop article to the next. Because Reader was based on a subscription model, you were in complete control of how and when you read your content. For me, Reader was something I spent an hour or two on every morning for work. It didn't eat into my productivity the way the modern web does, and millions of people found it useful.
Google abandoned it just as social algorithms took over
In 2013, when Google announced the shutdown, it caused quite an uproar. It was widely reported by outlets like CNN and Google's reasons for shutting it down was, officially, declining usage.
I'm not sure if I buy that story completely, and I don't think the people complaining about this move were just a vocal minority. Personally, I think that by 2013 it was clear the future of disseminating content on the web was going to be driven by social media. Social media, in turn, run on algorithmic feeds that decide for you what should reach your eyeballs.
Google had already thrown its hat in the ring with Google+ in 2011, its social media platform meant to rival the likes of Facebook. Honestly, I think, regardless of how popular it may or may not have been at that point, it could be seen as internal competition that would keep people from embracing Google+. Whether intentional or not, Reader was probably a necessary sacrifice to give Google+ the best chance possible.
Sadly, Google+ didn't go anywhere in the end, so, in retrospect, it was a pointless sacrifice, but at least I understand why the bigger picture no longer had room for Google Reader in it.
The Web never truly replaced what it offered
How did you find this article? We know from our numbers that it's probably not by typing search terms into a search engine like Google or Bing. It's most likely that you saw it in your feed on Facebook, or even more likely on a mobile feed like Google Discover .
Google Discover is the closest thing Google currently has to Google Reader. However, the big difference here is that you have little to no control over what appears in that feed. The algorithms that drive it are a mystery to all but Google's engineers, and it relies on data collected from you everywhere you go on the web.
Did Google really have to kill Reader? No. Will we ever go back to a web where you're in the driver's seat and not just strapped into a machine that shovels algorithmic slop down your throat to make the profitable foie gras of attention-based advertising? I hope so, but realistically the answer is exactly what you might expect.
