[parhurs]

Reading these comments makes me think of a crazy conspiracy theory: Google killed Reader to promote search.

[wodenokoto]

The common theory is they did it to boosts Google plus. They wanted you to follow blogs interest on G+ rather than more directly via Reader/RSS.

[caminante]

The driver was financial. Google cited (03/2013) a user decline [0]. You don't need a conspiracy or more reasons to shutter the service.

> "While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined."

[0] https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/03/a-second-spring-of-c...

[trendia]

However, that would imply Google had some sort of coordination between teams...

[arca_vorago]

I think you may be on to something here. I bet it was a data based decision...

[someguydave]

Yeah I wonder if Google realized that people were reading long form content (much of it hosted off Google) without ads. Thus their own audience was being shunted off-site without revenue.

That interpretation only makes sense if you think Google would rather have more good little click monkeys than organizing good content...

[jasonvorhe]

Reader didn't have enough active users to keep it running.