Is anyone actually designing apps for for consumers anymore?
Got up this morning and after paying the bills (always a grump-inducing activity, and I still have to mail the rent check, too), I click on my beloved Newsgator and finally notice that I’m being kicked off at the end of August – because I’m not an enterprise user. My options at this point for RSS readers seem to be going back to Bloglines, which I abandoned almost three years ago after months of it not working, and Google Reader, which I was singularly unimpressed with when I tried it.
Sigh.
I mean, I’ve already imported my crap into Google – it’s not like I had much choice in the matter – and I realize that Web 2.0 companies need to make money just like everyone else, but it’s a little wearying that every single web app I use and like is eventually either made enterprise-only or dies or is sold to Google, at which point it’s Google-ized. The first time I remember it happening was with Writely, now Google Docs, but in the intervening years it’s happened again and again, at least a dozen times. At this point I’m just wondering when Twitter is going to go enterprise-only, and what Google-owned microblogging service will be recommended to us poor schlubs who aren’t enterprises, just normal people.
(And before someone from Google comes over and perkily evangelizes Reader – I’m sure it’s better than it was. But I hate change, I’m stuck in an airless, humid, stuffy apartment and can’t open the windows lest the dumbass cat I live with decides to jump from the second floor, I just finished the temper-inducing endeavor of paying my bills, and – because it’s worth repeating – I hate change.)
On another note, WordPress. Please. Could you send me my fucking comment notifications. Jesus.