CURSE YOU GOOGLE!!!

Hello CTB Family,

Your friendly neighborhood self-appointed Bishop here. Today I am pissed.

My morning is a strict routine.

• I get up at 5:30am.
• I brew coffee.  Always 6 cups.  4 1/2 scoops of Zekes grounds.  Always.
• While the coffee brews I answer email.
• Email and the brewing of coffee typically finish at the same time.  When they are done, I get a bowl of cereal.
• Then the fun begins.  I sit, drink coffee, eat cereal and open Google Reader through which I subscribe to over 125 blogs.
• Around 6:30 the kids start trickling down stairs.  That signals me that it is time for  a refill of coffee.
• Around 7:00am I finish my coffee and my Google Reader Feeds.  I then make the kids breakfast and wake up my wife.
• At 7:30am I make the kid’s lunches, often I listen to a podcast while I do so (CTB was recently added to my itunes subscriptions!).

 

Now I like my routine.  It makes me happy.  It starts my day off right.  It has remained unchanged for almost seven years.  It, like breathing, is so natural I don’t even think about it.   Therefore when someone dicks with my routine I get grumpy.

This morning Google decided to dick with my routine.  I rolled out of bed.  I brewed my coffee.  I answered my email.  I made my cereal.  The birds were chirping.  Everything was good.  It was sunny, bright, happy.

But then this message decided to rain shit all over my wonderful routine:

 

Fuck you Google.

Fuck you for providing me with an amazing service that allowed me to simply follow hundreds of thinkers and writers, a service that has made me a better leader, a service that has been a critical component of my life, and then rip that service from my life.

Fuck you for calling the death of something I love “Spring Cleaning.”

Fuck you for thinking so little of me as a customer that you would do away with something I depend on because you “need to focus.”  What this tells me is that my needs are not a priority for you, that I am not your ideal user, that you don’t care about me.

And most importantly, fuck you for breaking my trust.  For years people have joked with me about how you are too powerful, too big, and how I am too dependent upon you.  I have replied with a “but Google is a benevolent king who has our best interests at heart.”  I trusted you.  I defended you.  So this morning I find myself not just looking for a new reader but also exploring new email possibilities, thinking about getting use to Bing, and considering switching off of chrome.  You think this is going to drive me to Google+?  No.  This has made me worry what you are going to turn off next that I depend on.

Google, “Spring Cleaning” may make business sense to you.  I too have read Jim Collins and understand the idea of a Hedgehog concept.  In your offices, when you sat on your fancy couches and sipped your fine coffees, this probably seemed like a good idea.  But you have neglected Godin the Great and have forgotten that the world operates in Tribes.  Yes, getting ride of Google Reader may give you more time to focus on your other products…but when your other products improve I won’t be there to see them because you just lost me from your circles.

CTB Family – if any of you could recommend a good replacement replacement reader i would greatly appreciate it.

Sincerely,

The Bishop of CTB