They didn't need to extend, because virtually everyone using RSS was using their reader.
In a way you could say they "extended" the readers, by providing a better one than existing ones. Better enough, that "nobody" cared to make a competitor, until it was clear it was going to die.
So yeah, it's close enough to embrace, extend, extinguish to me.
The Microsoft extinction was of every product except theirs. The purpose of EEE was to eliminate the competition and capture all the market, and it's kind of hard to do that when you eliminate yourself.
Not to mention, that we can not really say they extended the readers, because the extensions didn't make them incompatible and so prevented people from moving, like the EEE did.
I'm glad people are losing some misplaced trust in Google, but let's not blindingly apply labels to this.
I didn't say it was a suitable replacement. It's hardly an uncommon notion that they're trying to push people to Google+. Most of the behavioral defenses of killing Reader have to do with the fact that "social" won. (I disagree. Different use-cases)
They didn't need to extend, because virtually everyone using RSS was using their reader.
In a way you could say they "extended" the readers, by providing a better one than existing ones. Better enough, that "nobody" cared to make a competitor, until it was clear it was going to die.
So yeah, it's close enough to embrace, extend, extinguish to me.