True. But if I build a tool that depends on a half-arsed service my tools keeps on tooling. Its about predictability. I'll soon find out that I can get a better service elsewhere, in the meantime my investment is not a complete write off.
Killing Reader was massive strategic blunder, which in fairness to Google was probably not obvious to see at the time. But then to repeat that with Maps API,Google+, Sketchup and Wave (perhaps wave was first) just cemented Google's untrustworthy reputation.
That's irrelevant. Its about trust, commitment and sticking it out. Google's penchant of throwing shit against a wall to see what sticks seems to prevent them from applying themselves to increase the stickiness of their shit.
You simply cannot trust Google to do right by me, the user. That's it.
You apply the consistency, you degree what you want. People decide to use Linux and still expect to be told what they want. Decide what you want and make it so, Linux is fundamentally a user-centric system and for it to work best it needs a creative guiding force in the middle: you, the user.