There are alternatives to google reader - Still bad news

I wrote this as a response to : http://standardsandfreedom.net/index.php/2013/03/16/opml/

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Let us ignore the minor issue that the alternatives are not very good and that self-hosting is not a realistic solution for two thirds of the internet users…

The issue is google’s choice. Ever since google reader was feature-crippled a couple of years ago. It seemed that goog want us to move to their walled garden with no anonymity of g+. At this time it seems that they are getting rid of RSS precisely because it is an open standard. Since that date there were other anti-RSS moves from big G, like the removal of ad sense for feeds. The objective with these shut downs does not seem to be to cut costs. There are currently services at google that have less impressive usage numbers than google reader.

While the effect on the people that do not want to lose RSS feeds will be minor – we will move on to an alternative – . This will still motivate more people to give them up for walled gardens, because when they hear “just use an alternative”, they also consider twitter, facebook and G+ an alternative. The real issue is the signal google is sending. That they do not care about open standards and that they are not above getting rid of them.

Is feedburner next?