This is more of a consequentialist argument, but Reading List didn't have the same ripple effects as Reader did.
I think that, to be fair to Google, they could not have predicted the popularity of Reader, and the resultant growth in responsibility along with it.
Hands up, who would give a shit if Reading List got axed tomorrow?
There is a cognitive dissonance, as you bring up, because Reader is in a sense a service the same way Reading List is.
Apple made Reading List, because such services were popular to the extent that Apple wanted to give people a native solution. That's hardly much different from what Google did, except we impute a less noble incentive on their part - user adoption, ad impressions. Or perhaps it's that we are left to impute their incentive to dicontinue it - G+ redirection.
I think that, to be fair to Google, they could not have predicted the popularity of Reader, and the resultant growth in responsibility along with it.
Hands up, who would give a shit if Reading List got axed tomorrow?
There is a cognitive dissonance, as you bring up, because Reader is in a sense a service the same way Reading List is.
Apple made Reading List, because such services were popular to the extent that Apple wanted to give people a native solution. That's hardly much different from what Google did, except we impute a less noble incentive on their part - user adoption, ad impressions. Or perhaps it's that we are left to impute their incentive to dicontinue it - G+ redirection.