4 ms·

> RSS is increasing popularly again. Is this true? Every time RSS comes up we have this same discussion A: “RSS is dead” B: “well, I’m still using it and it

> RSS is increasing popularly again. Is this true? Every time RSS comes up we have this same discussion A: “RSS is dead” B: “well, I’m still using it and it’s great. Clearly it’s not dead!” But A and B are having two different conversations. For broad public consumption the only success RSS had was podcasts, and Spotify is actively trying to capture that open ecosystem and make it their cash cow. Kids aren’t sitting around sharing the RSS feeds they like, it’s YouTube, TikTok, Discord; all proprietary walled gardens of content. So yes, the technology isn’t dead, and the world is big enough there’s even a self-sustaining (probably) community of RSS users, but it still hasn’t quite lived up to it’s promise. Streambus is exciting because the cost of hosting content keeps dropping, maybe we can reproduce the podcast model with video now. But as always the network effect and discoverability are big hurdles to overcome. Podcasts succeeded not just because of RSS, they succeeded because Apple supported them in the iTunes Store (which is _still_ the most important place to get reviewed as a podcast) solving the discoverability problem.

throwawayswede 5y ago
Depends on your definition of dead. Public recognition of what thing X they're using or relying on is not necessary for something to be "alive" or "dead", otherwise you'd have to say that TCP/IP is dead because I bet less than 10% of internet users know what that is and even less know how it works. People using podcasts still rely on RSS. Spotify's and Apple's attempt to circumvent an open-standard doesn't seem to be working as podcastindex.org already has double the amount of podcasts registered. E-commerce product feeds still (mostly) use RSS. Everyone still uses RSS, they just don't know it.
- Jorengarenar 5y ago
  > otherwise you'd have to say that TCP/IP is dead because I bet less than 10% of internet users know what that is and even less know how it works. Barely any user knows about TCP/IP, but everybody uses it daily. Using the Internet basically means using this protocol stack. The same cannot be said about RSS
  - throwawayswede 5y ago
    Listening to podcasts means using feeds.
    - Jorengarenar 5y ago
      I know it may come out as shocking, but majority of Internet users also don't listen to podcasts. And listening to podcasts doesn't mean using feeds. I personally have listened to some from YouTube; Spotify also offers them.
      - throwawayswede 5y ago
        The point is that it's not dead.
        Jorengarenar 5y ago
        I'm not arguing that. I'm arguing the use of false equivalence.
        throwawayswede 5y ago
        You haven't provided any evidence for that.
        Jorengarenar 5y ago
        You stated that "RSS is dead because barely anybody knows about it" is the same as saying "TCP/IP is dead because barely anybody knows about it". This is false. You cannot use the Internet without TCP/IP, be it consciously or not. RSS on the other hand isn't widespread enough to be used by ordinary person without knowing about it. And even if there are cases where RSS is used in background as TCP/IP is, then it doesn't change the fact it's in background. Average Joe still won't know how to subscribe to blog's RSS feed. Podcasts are basically the only place where feeds still thrive (alas it's also changing). RSS may not be dead, but unfortunately it's a niche which to average consumer is as good as dead.
Isthatablackgsd 5y ago
As throwawayswede said, people are still using this technology and to my opinion, that is still active. There are a lot of things that are using RSS, it is not oblivious to us which why people believe it is dead. Yes, RSS specification haven't made any improvement since 2010ish. However, the community are still using this technology. It honestly blew my mind that it is still around when I decided to go back to RSS few months ago. The community have developed various tools to make RSS amazing to use. There is RSS-Bridge (souped up RSS on steroid), RSSHub, RSS.app, Feedburner, FetchRSS, etc. RSS readers and it tools are still active and making improvement.
- shermix011 5y ago
  The main issue is with the funding model of open ecosystem. Once open models have a viable business model they'll all flourish. As consumers start realizing the dark side of closed systems and thus the need of open models it'll drive companies to go open and engineer models to cater them.

throwawayswede 5y ago

Depends on your definition of dead. Public recognition of what thing X they're using or relying on is not necessary for something to be "alive" or "dead", otherwise you'd have to say that TCP/IP is dead because I bet less than 10% of internet users know what that is and even less know how it works. People using podcasts still rely on RSS. Spotify's and Apple's attempt to circumvent an open-standard doesn't seem to be working as podcastindex.org already has double the amount of podcasts registered. E-commerce product feeds still (mostly) use RSS. Everyone still uses RSS, they just don't know it.

Jorengarenar 5y ago
> otherwise you'd have to say that TCP/IP is dead because I bet less than 10% of internet users know what that is and even less know how it works. Barely any user knows about TCP/IP, but everybody uses it daily. Using the Internet basically means using this protocol stack. The same cannot be said about RSS
- throwawayswede 5y ago
  Listening to podcasts means using feeds.
  - Jorengarenar 5y ago
    I know it may come out as shocking, but majority of Internet users also don't listen to podcasts. And listening to podcasts doesn't mean using feeds. I personally have listened to some from YouTube; Spotify also offers them.
    - throwawayswede 5y ago
      The point is that it's not dead.
      - Jorengarenar 5y ago
        I'm not arguing that. I'm arguing the use of false equivalence.
        throwawayswede 5y ago
        You haven't provided any evidence for that.
        Jorengarenar 5y ago
        You stated that "RSS is dead because barely anybody knows about it" is the same as saying "TCP/IP is dead because barely anybody knows about it". This is false. You cannot use the Internet without TCP/IP, be it consciously or not. RSS on the other hand isn't widespread enough to be used by ordinary person without knowing about it. And even if there are cases where RSS is used in background as TCP/IP is, then it doesn't change the fact it's in background. Average Joe still won't know how to subscribe to blog's RSS feed. Podcasts are basically the only place where feeds still thrive (alas it's also changing). RSS may not be dead, but unfortunately it's a niche which to average consumer is as good as dead.

Isthatablackgsd 5y ago

As throwawayswede said, people are still using this technology and to my opinion, that is still active. There are a lot of things that are using RSS, it is not oblivious to us which why people believe it is dead. Yes, RSS specification haven't made any improvement since 2010ish. However, the community are still using this technology. It honestly blew my mind that it is still around when I decided to go back to RSS few months ago. The community have developed various tools to make RSS amazing to use. There is RSS-Bridge (souped up RSS on steroid), RSSHub, RSS.app, Feedburner, FetchRSS, etc. RSS readers and it tools are still active and making improvement.

shermix011 5y ago
The main issue is with the funding model of open ecosystem. Once open models have a viable business model they'll all flourish. As consumers start realizing the dark side of closed systems and thus the need of open models it'll drive companies to go open and engineer models to cater them.