I was going to write about the Google Reader shutdown but Brent Simmons beat me to the argument I was going to make. In Why I love RSS and You Do Too he sums up why we should all care about Google Reader’s demise:

Even if you don’t use an RSS reader, you still use RSS. If you subscribe to any podcasts, you use RSS. Flipboard and Twitter are RSS readers, even if it’s not obvious and they do other things besides. Lots of apps on the various app stores use RSS in at least some way. […] And those people you follow on Twitter who post interesting links? They often get those links from their RSS reader. One way or another, directly or indirectly, you use RSS. Without RSS all we’d have is pictures of cats and breakfast.

Killing Google Reader doesn’t kill RSS, for sure, but it’s such a big part of the ecosystem that we should be concerned about the health of the platform. From the perspective of a guy with a blog this is pretty depressing news. RSS subscribers are extremely difficult to grow, but they are, by far, the best kind of readers. I’ve written about this before, but to reiterate: they’re loyal, they read almost everything, and they share your stuff. It’s the best way to build an audience. Hunter Walk makes this point succinctly:

Google Reader impact also undercounted if you strictly look at # users bec many power-curators/sharers use it as a discovery system

— Hunter Walk (@hunterwalk) March 14, 2013

But Scott Stein has perhaps the best TL;DR version of the whole debacle:

Google Reader is to Twitter as a well-labeled filing cabinet is to a bag of insane cats.

— Scott Stein (@jetscott) March 14, 2013

So, what now? For a bit of nostalgia, Buzzfeed has a great history of Google Reader. It’s a fascinating story, worth reading. And then, Om Malik has an interview with the original creator of Google Reader. Once you’re done grieving and ready to move on, Lifehacker has a very comprehensive post on the alternatives.