In a Wednesday blog post, Internet search giant Google announced that its Google Reader product will be shuttered on July 1; with Urs Hölzle - the company's SVP of technical infrastructure - elaborating that fall in the usage of the product was the key the reason behind the move to discontinue it.

In its blog post about the decision to shut down Google Reader, Google said: "While the product has a loyal following, over the years, usage has declined. So, on July 1, 2013, we will retire Google Reader."

For over one year, concerns have been voiced by developers about the continuation of Google Reader, chiefly because it is not a syncing service. Nonetheless, Google Reader was being used by a number of RSS clients, even despite the fact that the APIs of the product are undocumented and unsupported.

Google's decision to shut down its Google Reader product clearly underscores that one of the issues with the present-day Internet is that it is essentially a user-driven Internet; and the participants hardly have any say in it because they are merely the users.

All the relentless attempts of the users to optimize their online presences, as well as their tools and their experiences, are futile in the ultimate analysis, because they remain at the mercy of the bigwig firms which control the platforms they operate on!