If you don't understand the consequences of your argument, people will regularly complain that your argument makes no sense.
They spent large amounts of money preparing and operating Google Reader. There is no other way they could possibly prove to you that they took it more seriously, short of throwing MORE good money after bad.
They watched the growth curves, they added features (reader.google.com/play for one), they integrated with other products (Buzz), they waited for new products to be released and integrated with them as well (Google+).
At some point, they decided to leave the market.
Or they should have shut it down sooner? Before they added those features, before they integrated with other products, before the other products were released and before they integrated with them?
Taking it seriously = more time, more money.
Shutting down sooner = less time, less money.
It's apparently OBVIOUS to you exactly how much money they should have spent on it, how they should have prioritized their new features and integrations, and the precise date at which they should have shut down.
And it's so obvious to other people, that they get ultra pissed about it, and abandon all other Google products out of spite.
Do you find that being a dick generally makes you more persuasive? Because it isn't working for me here.
Google Reader was well known within Google as an orphan project for a long time. Years before they shut it I was chatting with some Googler and Reader game up. He mentioned how impressive it was that it was still alive given how starved for resources it had been. I think he said that it was just one guy. And here's Reader's creator in 2011 acknowledging it was understaffed: http://massless.org/?p=174
So yes, they should have shut it down way sooner rather than starving it. That was irresponsible both internally (because it's a management failure) and externally (because they were harming a market that they weren't serious about).
I'm sorry I thought you started it, when you claimed that I was too stupid to understand you.
> He mentioned how impressive it was that it was still alive given how starved for resources it had been.
Everyone's pet-project is understaffed. That's how passionate people will always describe their favorite projects.
If you divide man-hours by revenue, you'll note that Google Reader was getting pretty close to infinite resources.
> rather than starving it.
Most, if not all, RSS aggregators don't DREAM of having the software tooling, crawling and storage resources, DevOps, and visibility that Google Reader had.
I say again, I wish I had your crystal ball for the correct amount of resources, and the correct amount of time to spend on a project.
They spent large amounts of money preparing and operating Google Reader. There is no other way they could possibly prove to you that they took it more seriously, short of throwing MORE good money after bad.
They watched the growth curves, they added features (reader.google.com/play for one), they integrated with other products (Buzz), they waited for new products to be released and integrated with them as well (Google+).
At some point, they decided to leave the market.
Or they should have shut it down sooner? Before they added those features, before they integrated with other products, before the other products were released and before they integrated with them?
Taking it seriously = more time, more money.
Shutting down sooner = less time, less money.
It's apparently OBVIOUS to you exactly how much money they should have spent on it, how they should have prioritized their new features and integrations, and the precise date at which they should have shut down.
And it's so obvious to other people, that they get ultra pissed about it, and abandon all other Google products out of spite.
I wish I had your crystal ball.