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For me, it wasn't so much Google Reader itself, it was a free feed sync source. So I could subscribe to a feed in Google Reader, then use a 3rd party app (like

by selykg 6y ago

For me, it wasn't so much Google Reader itself, it was a free feed sync source. So I could subscribe to a feed in Google Reader, then use a 3rd party app (like Reeder or any number of others) to view the feeds I was subscribed to, and it would provide all the tracking and syncing so to speak. It fills the gap of services like Feedbin, Feedly, and others. Except it was "free" and now I have to pay $50/yr for Feedbin. While this isn't a big deal, I don't track that many feeds so it's kind of unpleasant to pay $50/yr for the 10 feeds I track.

benhurmarcel 6y ago
Feedly has a free tier that's more than sufficient for such light use.
- selykg 6y ago
  Problem with Feedly, in my experience, has been the rate they provide updates to feeds. I may track these 10 or so feeds which is low, but I do want timely updates to those feeds in my RSS app. Seeing delays of multiple hours is a lot less useful to me in several cases. I realize I am sounding a bit whiny here. I just didn't have these problems with Google Reader and it sucks that the free option that worked well disappeared. At the end of the day though, $50/yr isn't a big deal, it's just a combination of everything becoming a damn subscription and how I'm sort of tired of subscriptions. Subscription fatigue is real for me.
pwdisswordfish0 6y ago
> So I could subscribe to a feed in Google Reader, then use a 3rd party app (like Reeder or any number of others) to view the feeds I was subscribed to, and it would provide all the tracking and syncing so to speak. Can you explain what this means? What's involved here? How does it differ from dumping all your RSS feeds into an ordinary RSS reader?
- selykg 6y ago
  Think of Google Reader as a 3rd party sync API, and a variety of tools use this API. lets use Twitter as an example. Google Reader is Twitter with their API Reeder (or your RSS reader with support for the API) is like Tweetbot. This isn't a great example, because read status of feed items and all that is handled by Google Reader. But it's close.

by selykg 6y ago

benhurmarcel 6y ago

Feedly has a free tier that's more than sufficient for such light use.

selykg 6y ago
Problem with Feedly, in my experience, has been the rate they provide updates to feeds. I may track these 10 or so feeds which is low, but I do want timely updates to those feeds in my RSS app. Seeing delays of multiple hours is a lot less useful to me in several cases. I realize I am sounding a bit whiny here. I just didn't have these problems with Google Reader and it sucks that the free option that worked well disappeared. At the end of the day though, $50/yr isn't a big deal, it's just a combination of everything becoming a damn subscription and how I'm sort of tired of subscriptions. Subscription fatigue is real for me.

pwdisswordfish0 6y ago

> So I could subscribe to a feed in Google Reader, then use a 3rd party app (like Reeder or any number of others) to view the feeds I was subscribed to, and it would provide all the tracking and syncing so to speak. Can you explain what this means? What's involved here? How does it differ from dumping all your RSS feeds into an ordinary RSS reader?

selykg 6y ago
Think of Google Reader as a 3rd party sync API, and a variety of tools use this API. lets use Twitter as an example. Google Reader is Twitter with their API Reeder (or your RSS reader with support for the API) is like Tweetbot. This isn't a great example, because read status of feed items and all that is handled by Google Reader. But it's close.