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I completely agree. When did RSS go out of style anyway? The other day I wanted to subscribe to an author's posts on Medium, but I couldn't find a RSS feed any

I completely agree. When did RSS go out of style anyway? The other day I wanted to subscribe to an author's posts on Medium, but I couldn't find a RSS feed anywhere, so I never did. Seems like a loss for the author to me, seeing as gaining influence and credibility is probably the goal of many who write posts. It would also seem as if Medium doesn't want to add RSS as it would take control away in terms of recommending content to people, etc. |

Vinnl 9y ago
Medium has had RSS for quite a while, it just didn't link them in a page's metadata. I believe they do now. For example: https://medium.com/feed/flockademic https://medium.com/feed/flockademic (publication) https://medium.com/feed/@flockademic https://medium.com/feed/@flockademic (user) The latter also includes responses to stories though, which can be noisy.
- benjaminjackman 9y ago
  Oh wow thanks I didn’t realize there was a comment free version, that’s very handy. I worry though if rss is a secret feature that will get the axe someday since I was never able to find any reference to rss on the sites themselves and only came across the noisy @ version by chance from some other random comment on the internet someplace.
lovelearning 9y ago
They provide feeds, but don't show a link anywhere on the UI (which is strange). [1]: https://help.medium.com/hc/en-us/articles/214874118-RSS-feeds https://help.medium.com/hc/en-us/articles/214874118-RSS-feed...
- gboudrias 9y ago
  Not that strange, every site on which I've looked for it has RSS/atom feeds where relevant, but hide them (eg this, github, etc). Interestingly enough, Firefox has a "feeds" section when looking at page info, which will show RSS feeds included in the meta tags (which they all seem to be). So really, I've never stopped using RSS, not sure how to go "back" to it. I understand the whole thing with Twitter killing it but as a dev I use RSS as todo lists and that still works wonders.
  - thinkloop 9y ago
    > I use RSS as todo lists and that still works wonders How as todo lists?
    - gboudrias 9y ago
      Mostly versions of projects too small to notify you by email (but still important enough to keep up to date). Edit: To elaborate, gitlab and github have RSS feeds of tags, which devs use as releases. New tag = new release = another item in my RSS feed. Which means there's something for me to do.
grayrest 9y ago
> When did RSS go out of style anyway? It went away when Google killed Reader. Reader had more or less killed off the independent RSS reader market. When it got shuttered, alternatives weren't well developed and people shifted more or less entirely onto Twitter. The Twitter shift had been happening already but the shutdown kind of forced the issue.
- tgraham 9y ago
  Feedly is fantastic. Coupled with Reeder on iOS it more than replaces.
  - wyclif 9y ago
    I'm curious about your comment. Why don't you use Feedly by itself? Why/how do you combine Feedly with Reeder?
    - geerlingguy 9y ago
      Reeder works with multiple backend providers, Feedly being one of them. I do the same, have had a great experience.
      - tgraham 9y ago
        Reeder's app feels less heavy than the feedly equivalent. That said, it's what you feel familiar with! I can parse 200-300 posts in a 20-30 min commute and i think the ux helps focus my attention.
    - itsame 9y ago
      Feedly's mobile app has pretty bad UX (or at least that's been my experience every time I try installing it on Android). For example, in the article list view, there's a single basically-identical swipe left/right gesture to... * mark single article as read * mark single article as unread * mark all articles on page as read * mark all articles on page as unread The difference between marking a single article and marking all articles seems to be based on how far you've swiped, but if (for example) you don't release your swipe and keep moving your finger further after it's marked all as read, it suddenly does the opposite and marks all articles as unread. The direction of the swipe (left or right) doesn't seem to control whether you're marking read/unread -- it's (in my experience) been completely arbitrary what it decides to do, regardless of swipe direction. It's ridiculous how painful it is, and it's basically been this way for as long as I can remember. The app has really poor bulk management of articles, so I just turn to other apps. Currently I'm using News+, which has superior bulk management capabilities... but it hasn't been updated in forever (and is buggy in other ways).
some_account 9y ago
You can't show ads in it. I even asked a few sites to set it up a few years ago but they wouldn't. They wanted the income from the ads to run the site.
twelve40 9y ago
It went out of style for the mainstream because they haven't (yet) figured out how to lace it with ads.
- mosselman 9y ago
  That is a keen observation. I guess rss is a technology from simpler and more explorative times of the internet instead of the current oppressive and commercialized phase we are going through now.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    Eh, the surveillance was weaker, but I'm not sure about the commercialization. RSS is from 99/00, the era of Punch The Monkey flash banner ads and dozens of popups and popunders. From what I can tell, RSS was the equivalent of today's OpenGraph. It was a tool for a company (Netscape) to slurp content into its portal. It's just that AOL then blundered when they bought Netscape and removed support for RSS, which then became a de-facto standard format. In fact, as RSS popularity wanes, a feed reader that can reader OG tags is probably a good idea.
- Symmetry 9y ago
  Many websites which rely on paid adds put only the title and first paragraph in the RSS feed with a link to the article. But that notification is pretty convenient, so I'm still willing to use those sites' RSS feeds.
- scarface74 9y ago
  John Gruber (daringfireball.com) charges around $7000 a week for one sponsored RSS article on Sunday and a follow up post thanking the sponsor on Friday. It can be done for small publishers in a tasteful way.
iforgotpassword 9y ago
That's the actual problem. I don't get why everyone is putting such a strong emphasis on the google reader shutdown. It's the fact that everyone stopped providing RSS feeds. Probably because you can't put 500 tracking pixels and ads and scripts in them, so they hope by shutting them down people will visit the page directly more frequently. Which might actually work out in general.
- eXpl0it3r 9y ago
  I have not experienced this. In my experience only niche, self-built websites offer no RSS feed. Plus there are other ways to make your RSS feed "useless" by only providing a title and the opening sentence, that way people will have to visit your site for the full content.

Vinnl 9y ago

Medium has had RSS for quite a while, it just didn't link them in a page's metadata. I believe they do now. For example: https://medium.com/feed/flockademic https://medium.com/feed/flockademic (publication) https://medium.com/feed/@flockademic https://medium.com/feed/@flockademic (user) The latter also includes responses to stories though, which can be noisy.

benjaminjackman 9y ago
Oh wow thanks I didn’t realize there was a comment free version, that’s very handy. I worry though if rss is a secret feature that will get the axe someday since I was never able to find any reference to rss on the sites themselves and only came across the noisy @ version by chance from some other random comment on the internet someplace.

lovelearning 9y ago

They provide feeds, but don't show a link anywhere on the UI (which is strange). [1]: https://help.medium.com/hc/en-us/articles/214874118-RSS-feeds https://help.medium.com/hc/en-us/articles/214874118-RSS-feed...

gboudrias 9y ago
Not that strange, every site on which I've looked for it has RSS/atom feeds where relevant, but hide them (eg this, github, etc). Interestingly enough, Firefox has a "feeds" section when looking at page info, which will show RSS feeds included in the meta tags (which they all seem to be). So really, I've never stopped using RSS, not sure how to go "back" to it. I understand the whole thing with Twitter killing it but as a dev I use RSS as todo lists and that still works wonders.
- thinkloop 9y ago
  > I use RSS as todo lists and that still works wonders How as todo lists?
  - gboudrias 9y ago
    Mostly versions of projects too small to notify you by email (but still important enough to keep up to date). Edit: To elaborate, gitlab and github have RSS feeds of tags, which devs use as releases. New tag = new release = another item in my RSS feed. Which means there's something for me to do.

grayrest 9y ago

> When did RSS go out of style anyway? It went away when Google killed Reader. Reader had more or less killed off the independent RSS reader market. When it got shuttered, alternatives weren't well developed and people shifted more or less entirely onto Twitter. The Twitter shift had been happening already but the shutdown kind of forced the issue.

tgraham 9y ago
Feedly is fantastic. Coupled with Reeder on iOS it more than replaces.
- wyclif 9y ago
  I'm curious about your comment. Why don't you use Feedly by itself? Why/how do you combine Feedly with Reeder?
  - geerlingguy 9y ago
    Reeder works with multiple backend providers, Feedly being one of them. I do the same, have had a great experience.
    - tgraham 9y ago
      Reeder's app feels less heavy than the feedly equivalent. That said, it's what you feel familiar with! I can parse 200-300 posts in a 20-30 min commute and i think the ux helps focus my attention.
  - itsame 9y ago
    Feedly's mobile app has pretty bad UX (or at least that's been my experience every time I try installing it on Android). For example, in the article list view, there's a single basically-identical swipe left/right gesture to... * mark single article as read * mark single article as unread * mark all articles on page as read * mark all articles on page as unread The difference between marking a single article and marking all articles seems to be based on how far you've swiped, but if (for example) you don't release your swipe and keep moving your finger further after it's marked all as read, it suddenly does the opposite and marks all articles as unread. The direction of the swipe (left or right) doesn't seem to control whether you're marking read/unread -- it's (in my experience) been completely arbitrary what it decides to do, regardless of swipe direction. It's ridiculous how painful it is, and it's basically been this way for as long as I can remember. The app has really poor bulk management of articles, so I just turn to other apps. Currently I'm using News+, which has superior bulk management capabilities... but it hasn't been updated in forever (and is buggy in other ways).

some_account 9y ago

You can't show ads in it. I even asked a few sites to set it up a few years ago but they wouldn't. They wanted the income from the ads to run the site.

twelve40 9y ago

It went out of style for the mainstream because they haven't (yet) figured out how to lace it with ads.

mosselman 9y ago
That is a keen observation. I guess rss is a technology from simpler and more explorative times of the internet instead of the current oppressive and commercialized phase we are going through now.
- icebraining 9y ago
  Eh, the surveillance was weaker, but I'm not sure about the commercialization. RSS is from 99/00, the era of Punch The Monkey flash banner ads and dozens of popups and popunders. From what I can tell, RSS was the equivalent of today's OpenGraph. It was a tool for a company (Netscape) to slurp content into its portal. It's just that AOL then blundered when they bought Netscape and removed support for RSS, which then became a de-facto standard format. In fact, as RSS popularity wanes, a feed reader that can reader OG tags is probably a good idea.
Symmetry 9y ago
Many websites which rely on paid adds put only the title and first paragraph in the RSS feed with a link to the article. But that notification is pretty convenient, so I'm still willing to use those sites' RSS feeds.
scarface74 9y ago
John Gruber (daringfireball.com) charges around $7000 a week for one sponsored RSS article on Sunday and a follow up post thanking the sponsor on Friday. It can be done for small publishers in a tasteful way.

iforgotpassword 9y ago

That's the actual problem. I don't get why everyone is putting such a strong emphasis on the google reader shutdown. It's the fact that everyone stopped providing RSS feeds. Probably because you can't put 500 tracking pixels and ads and scripts in them, so they hope by shutting them down people will visit the page directly more frequently. Which might actually work out in general.

eXpl0it3r 9y ago
I have not experienced this. In my experience only niche, self-built websites offer no RSS feed. Plus there are other ways to make your RSS feed "useless" by only providing a title and the opening sentence, that way people will have to visit your site for the full content.