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> (RSS is, like, objectively the best way to follow multiple webcomics. I don't understand why it's not more popular.) The core feature of RSS is that it takes
by Kalium 8y ago
> (RSS is, like, objectively the best way to follow multiple webcomics. I don't understand why it's not more popular.)
The core feature of RSS is that it takes content and moves it from a site the publisher controls and into one the reader controls. This is immensely valuable to readers! It's perhaps less valuable to publishers, however.
Many publishers invest significantly in adding value to and gaining value from their websites. Advertisements, links to other sites, merchandise sales, etc. Almost all of those vanish when you feed only the core content to readers through RSS.
With all that in mind, publishers have ample reason to not invest in RSS. The economics of it are not kind to them.
- walterbell 8y agoIf the "economic" publishers all agree to be monetized and harvested by Facebook and Google, this could be a self-correcting dynamic. The only people left using RSS will be the classic web of independent readers and writers, who are still free to donate directly to each other with only a payment processor as middleparty.
- bryanrasmussen 8y agoIf the "economic" publishers all agree to be monetized and harvested by Facebook and Google they would be mice sitting in the cat's paws.
- Kalium 8y agoIndeed! At the same time, it's worth considering that those publishers are often much worse off when they escape the cat's malicious paws. More than one newspaper has learned this to their considerable sorrow.