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Marco Arment the creator of Instapaper, has an excellent and provocative piece on why Google is closing down all of its RSS appendages (they just closed also the RSS feeds in Google Alerts) and the logic behind this strategy.

He writes: "Officially, Google killed Reader because “over the years usage has declined”.1 I believe that statement, especially if API clients weren’t considered “usage”, but I don’t believe that’s the entire reason.

The most common assumption I’ve seen others cite is that “Google couldn’t figure out how to monetize Reader,” or other variants about direct profitability. I don’t believe this, either. Google Reader’s operational costs likely paled in comparison to many of their other projects that don’t bring in major revenue, and I’ve heard from multiple sources that it effectively had a staff of zero for years. It was just running, quietly serving a vital role for a lot of people."

"The bigger problem is that they’ve abandoned interoperability. RSS, semantic markup, microformats, and open APIs all enable interoperability, but the big players don’t want that — they want to lock you in, shut out competitors, and make a service so proprietary that even if you could get your data out, it would be either useless (no alternatives to import into) or cripplingly lonely (empty social networks).

Google resisted this trend admirably for a long time and was very geek- and standards-friendly, but not since Facebook got huge enough to effectively redefine the internet and refocus Google’s plans to be all-Google+, all the time.4"

Provides better perspective on RSS, Google, FB and Twitter and your future relationship with RSS.

Must-read article. 9/10

Full article: http://www.marco.org/2013/07/03/lockdown

(Image credit - RSS logo - Shutterstock)

Love you Marco!!!  Agreed  and couldn't have asked for more. Internet to me was the ultimate democratization tool , a leveler, a ground playing field that challenged all institutions that had unnecessary walls around them - say educational institutions , you loved them, but they were for a fortunate few. Internet platforms  ( including google) were formed for the love of internet, they have milked it enough and why not ? but now these guys are trying to become to old school walled gardens, I just hope that in doing so , they don't lose the charm that defines them.