1. "does not work" is wildly subjective. Google Reader was tremendously awesome. It "worked" for a lot of people.
2. Even when something doesn't work, they don't just shut it; they shut down one project, and start two competing ones with slightly overlapping feature sets. And now you get to choose which one you want to eventually migrate away from when they inevitably shut it down, as well, in favor of another set of competing internal projects.
I think they shut things down when it doesn't work for Google, and that really doesn't give me an incentive to use any Google product. I'm still on gmail, and I'm betting that they won't dare shut that down - can you imagine? - but I absolutely will not invest any time or money into anything else they offer.
1. "does not work" is wildly subjective. Google Reader was tremendously awesome. It "worked" for a lot of people.
2. Even when something doesn't work, they don't just shut it; they shut down one project, and start two competing ones with slightly overlapping feature sets. And now you get to choose which one you want to eventually migrate away from when they inevitably shut it down, as well, in favor of another set of competing internal projects.
I think they shut things down when it doesn't work for Google, and that really doesn't give me an incentive to use any Google product. I'm still on gmail, and I'm betting that they won't dare shut that down - can you imagine? - but I absolutely will not invest any time or money into anything else they offer.