Comment by hungryhobbit
2 days ago
Please, Google was terrible about using the tech the had long before Sundar, back when Brin was in charge.
Google Reader is a simple example: Googl had by far the most popular RSS reader, and they just threw it away. A single intern could have kept the whole thing running, and Google has literal billions, but they couldn't see the value in it.
I mean, it's not like being able to see what a good portion of America is reading every day could have any value for an AI company, right?
Google has always been terrible about turning tech into (viable, maintained) products.
Is there an equivalent to Godwin's law wrt threads about Google and Google Reader?
See also: any programming thread and Rust.
I'm convinced my last groan will be reading a thread about Google paper clipping the world, and someone will be moaning about Google Reader.
“A more elegant weapon of a civilised age.”
Lol, it seems obvious in retrospect, there really, really, needs to be.
Therefore we now have “Vinkel’s Law”
It's far from the only example https://killedbygoogle.com/
I never get the moaning about killing Reader. It was never about popularity or user experience.
Reader had to be killed because it [was seen as] a suboptimal ad monetization engine. Page views were superior.
Was Google going to support minimizing ads in any way?
Right. Reader was not a case of apathy and failure to see the product’s value.
It was Google clearly seeing the product’s value, and killing it because that value was detrimental to their ads business.
How is this relevant? At best it’s tangentially related and low effort
Took a while but I got to the google reader post. Self host tt-rss, it's much better
Can you not vibe code it back into existence yet?
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