This is not conscious consumerism. This is a childish temper tantrum.
Chrome has better developer tools. If your job is being a web dev and you purposely make your job harder because you're mad at Google for shutting down Reader, you're not being rational.
I've never found Firebug to be lacking; what do the Chrome developer tools have that make it impossible to stop using Chrome?
In my experience Chrome is a PITA for web development due to its weirdly aggressive caching. I thought people were just making it up a few months back, but I experienced it recently and it's infuriating.
It's hard to nail down the difference between Chrome Dev Tools and Firebug with just one thing. For me it's not one killer feature it's a quality of life issue. It's all the little things that, IMHO, Chrome Dev Tools does right.
I have no problem using Firebug or even the Firefox Inspector when needed to actually find a Firefox specific problem but for working day in and day out, I prefer the experience of the Chrome Dev Tools.
I'll still happily use Chromium for web development, as and where necessary. Just not signed in to Google for sync, etc. etc.
I do wonder though ... would you have described the formation of the FSF as a childish temper tantrum? I remember the days when to use Linux as a development OS was painful ... it worked out well in the end though :)
Your analogy doesn't work at all. The FSF is about a goal. It is a noble goal, and it has clearly shaped the software world for the better.
I ran Linux and did lots of development under it in the 90s. I quite enjoyed it and preferred it to Windows development at the time. I use Linux every day for work.
That doesn't mean I don't boot up Windows to play BioShock Infinite, even though I disagree with a lot of things Microsoft does.
I don't entirely agree with the GP's phrasing, but it's worth pointing out that the FSF doesn't paint all a company's software with the same brush. They're happy to rail against non-free software while accepting contributions to GNU projects from the same developers.
FSF is an ideal. The ideal that all software is open source so that it's more secure and has all the other benefits of open source. What you're doing is being childish. "Boo hoo, big bad Google killed a product I liked, so I'm going to make some bullshit arguments to stop using ALL their products."
I don't use all of Google's products, but I use a subset because they get the job done well. If you think killing off reader was a bad idea, why not build your own and see how the cost/benefit ratio pays off. What problem are you even solving by doing this? You're just throwing a childish fit.
That is one way to look at it. The other is: Google is creating a walled garden on Google Plus, and pushing it with all its might. Walled gardens are contrary to the ideal of an open web.
In that vein, boycotting Google is as much idealistic as boycotting closed software.
I don't think it was a bad idea, I think it was a very good idea from their perspective. I think that what they're trying to do is a bad idea for everyone, which is why I've changed platform.
Chrome has better developer tools. If your job is being a web dev and you purposely make your job harder because you're mad at Google for shutting down Reader, you're not being rational.