As someone who lived through the Google Reader era, there was no way in hell that I would trust Google with my money on a service like Stadia. It's the kind of situation where you only get burned once by a company.
Stadia was dead on arrival for me. I live in a 3rd world country so they didn't ever bothered trying to sell the hardware over here. The internet also probably wouldn't be able to handle the needed downstream of a high quality gameplay footage, and even if it could it would have a ridiculous lag without servers in the region. Even if they managed to solve all of those problems, they were literally asking me to buy games that not only I wouldn't own but couldn't install or mod in my own way and trust that enough people would do the same so they wouldn't cancel the entire thing and run with the money? It's too much to ask.
Heck, is the promised refund actual money back into the bank account or "gift cards" to spend on Google services? Wouldn't surprise me if it's the latter.
I don't think Google was ever all that much successfull with products that only attend certain small regions. For Stadia to have a better chance, it would need at least be coupled with a service similar to Steam or Epic Games, where bought games are ran on client machines and that could be operated worldwide. A simple game store would make the service much more reliable.
I think the biggest problem of Google now is how much they try to *control* their users. Google+ was really annoying to use because they kept making demands like real name and surname, not giving proper API so people could automatize posts with little effort, etc. They literally killed Google Reader just so people would stop using feeds and use their proprietary stuff instead. Stadia demanded the user not just to relinquish the ownership of the game but also the machine where it ran and how it was installed, so you couldn't modify games or manipulate saves. They also demanded people to use Chrome even though they could make it run on any web browser. It's all about control, control, control.
I'm at a point where I don't even use Google Chrome. I know they will fuck it up somehow by being too "controlley". Oh wait, they're already trying to get rid of Ad Blockers, aren't they? That will surely work and in no way make people just use other browsers like Firefox, I'm sure... /s
About the 2FA thing, Authy is a Google Authenticator alternative program that allows you to keep several devices, including computers, with the ability to generate those codes. Might be what you need to both use 2FA and not worry about having the phone always with you.
Although, sites that uses 2FA usually don't ask for the phone code very often. They use it more to authenticate the device you're using. If it's your home computer, you only use the code once every month or so.
2FA feels like a chore before you actually uses it. I know because I resisted it for a few years. Now I complain when a service doesn't have it. :P
It's not the same thing. When G+ killed Google Reader's "sharebro" social network, Google Reader still was the best feed reader of the market by a long shot. Just like now, there was nowhere to run. Heck, I kept using it, just like anyone complaining. I kept recommending it because it was GReader or a fucking magazine-layout shitty app.
But now they are definetely killing it, and it will affect the users in a different way. They are trashing away the app so there's no way a user can simply adapt. Before you could say "well, at least I can keep reading the feeds". Now you got nothing.
About influencers, well, there are lots of people with a good chunk of influence using GReader. They might make a dent on how people perceive Google's app reliability. Even a small one could end up in some financial loss. If it would be significant to them, only time will tell.
By the way, have you noticed that the Google+ still didn't catch up? What if it's Google Reader users fault? Think about it.
I remember when I used Mozilla Thunderbird. It had the perfect interface to deal with all my feeds AND my mails. I went to Google Reader when I also went to Gmail, when I wanted to access all my stuff from the cloud instead of my computer.
I think now it would be the best time to get Thunderbird back on it's feet. Add the ability to sync with a Google-Reader-like API, like the one that Feedly wants to do, and it would be the best reader for Windows, in my humble opinion.
Stadia was dead on arrival for me. I live in a 3rd world country so they didn't ever bothered trying to sell the hardware over here. The internet also probably wouldn't be able to handle the needed downstream of a high quality gameplay footage, and even if it could it would have a ridiculous lag without servers in the region. Even if they managed to solve all of those problems, they were literally asking me to buy games that not only I wouldn't own but couldn't install or mod in my own way and trust that enough people would do the same so they wouldn't cancel the entire thing and run with the money? It's too much to ask.
Heck, is the promised refund actual money back into the bank account or "gift cards" to spend on Google services? Wouldn't surprise me if it's the latter.
I don't think Google was ever all that much successfull with products that only attend certain small regions. For Stadia to have a better chance, it would need at least be coupled with a service similar to Steam or Epic Games, where bought games are ran on client machines and that could be operated worldwide. A simple game store would make the service much more reliable.
I think the biggest problem of Google now is how much they try to *control* their users. Google+ was really annoying to use because they kept making demands like real name and surname, not giving proper API so people could automatize posts with little effort, etc. They literally killed Google Reader just so people would stop using feeds and use their proprietary stuff instead. Stadia demanded the user not just to relinquish the ownership of the game but also the machine where it ran and how it was installed, so you couldn't modify games or manipulate saves. They also demanded people to use Chrome even though they could make it run on any web browser. It's all about control, control, control.
I'm at a point where I don't even use Google Chrome. I know they will fuck it up somehow by being too "controlley". Oh wait, they're already trying to get rid of Ad Blockers, aren't they? That will surely work and in no way make people just use other browsers like Firefox, I'm sure... /s