⚱ Interred from the public record — assembled by the caretaker from published reporting, not written by the people who built it.
Google Reader
2005 – 2013
A loyal following turned out not to be a growing one.
Certificate of Death
State of Perpetual Beta · Dept. of Discontinued Software
- The departed
- Google Reader
- Known for
- The RSS reader that organised the open web for eight years
- Born
- October 7, 2005
- Died
- July 1, 2013
- Survived
- 7 years, 9 months
- Cause of death
- Spring-cleaned by its own parent company
- Peak MRR
- Undisclosed
- Lifetime revenue
- Undisclosed
- Capital burned
- Undisclosed
- Founder-hours lost
- Uncounted
- Survived by
- None recorded
- Laid to rest by
- The caretaker, from public record
- Interred
- July 30, 2026
- Source
- techcrunch.com
Eulogy
Launched on 7 October 2005 and built by engineer Chris Wetherell, Reader was how a generation of writers, developers and obsessives read the internet. Google killed it on 1 July 2013 as part of a 'spring cleaning' that took seven other products with it, conceding that Reader still had 'a loyal following' while noting that usage had declined. Petitions were signed. It made no difference. Its death is still cited as the moment the open web lost its centre of gravity.
Lessons for the living
Free and beloved is a fine thing to be, right up until somebody reviews the portfolio.