Creator of RSS says he won’t miss Google Reader

When Google announced that it plans on shutting down Google Reader, many users were outraged. Many people took to blogs and Twitter to voice their opinions, and many users started petitions to change Google’s mind. Everyone hopes that with enough people showing their disapproval towards Google’s decisions, Google may change its decision. One person (probably many actually), has stated that he doesn’t understand what the big deal is.

Dave Winer, the creator of the first version of RSS, stated on his blog that he won’t miss Google Reader. He stated, ‘Never used the damn thing. Didn’t trust the idea of a big company like Google’s interests being so aligned with mine that I could trust them to get all my news.” He continues to say that he didn’t like Google’s “Mailbox” approach when it came to RSS feeds, and that he likes the “river of news approach”.
Winer believes that Google Reader shutting down is a good thing for RSS. He believed that Google was in the business of controlling the news, especially with services like Google Now. Google Now brings you the latest updates on stories you have recently searched for and/or read. He said that it’s bad because one, it’s snooping on your information and searches, and two, it’s deciding what news “you don’t see”.

While Winer does have some interesting points, the point of RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds is to frequently publish updated works from subscriptions, which Google Reader had done exceedingly well. Unlike what Winer said, I believe that Google Readers did have a choice of deciding what type of news stories came to them, and Google in no way tried to omit any of that information out of its Reader service.

[via ZDNet]