Whether Google Reader hastened the decline in popularity of RSS, or whether Google accurately predicted the decline in popularity of RSS and killed Google Reade

Whether Google Reader hastened the decline in popularity of RSS, or whether Google accurately predicted the decline in popularity of RSS and killed Google Reader at just the right time is hard to say. But it is weird that I was regularly consuming content from 50ish sources via Google Reader, and then, when Google Reader ceased, I just ... didn't really notice that I wasn't using an RSS reader anymore. I bookmarked about a half-dozen sources and now browse their content directly, but the rest were just stuff I casually read, and that's largely been replaced by stuff that surfaces on social media.