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I think that, at least for young people, it is not as popular as it was for us older people. Things like the death of Google Reader and web browsers making it

I think that, at least for young people, it is not as popular as it was for us older people. Things like the death of Google Reader and web browsers making it harder or even disabling subscriptions to websites via RSS were a huge deal. Allegedly all of that was because RSS lost momentum. People like me had to resort to use things like Feedly, but frankly it is not the same. I for one dream about the resurgence of RSS and making the web again a little less corporation-in-the-middle.

peanut_worm 5y ago
Death of web browsers?
geerlingguy 5y ago
I know many people in my cohort (30+ techies) who still use RSS religiously (myself included). I have never seen someone under about 20 using RSS (and probably 90% of that age group has never heard of it). They all live in chat apps and algorithmic feeds :( I couldn't imagine my RSS reader displaying stories that it thinks I'd like (and not all, in chronological order). There's a reason I curate my feeds—I want to see the content in each of them!
- SilverRed 5y ago
  I'm a little over 20 and I have used RSS and did not continue. I just don't see why I would want RSS over something like hacker news or visiting my local news website directly. Subscribing to blogs directly creates a huge firehose of mostly boring content while sites like HN sort content vaguely by how interesting it is. As well as the fact that most of the time, the actual content of the article is less interesting than the discussion it starts in the comments. I imagine most people checking reddit or HN are not there to read a long post but instead looking to discuss various opinions in the comments which RSS does not support.
  - e3bc54b2 5y ago
    Blogs and websites that generate lots of content are akin to News. You don't subscribe to them, and have HN to let you know of something important happens. RSS is for the long tail of blogs that don't post very frequently, but when they do, its worth your while. The ideal entry in my RSS feed is one that has new addition once per week or less. This way, I can follow a very wide array of people without getting overwhelmed, nor having to miss if their post don't make it to HN front.
    - karatinversion 5y ago
      I guess the reinvented solution for this use case is email newsletters, that substack and the like have popularized recently. Most people have an email client, no matter how grudgingly.
      - e3bc54b2 5y ago
        Email... defeats half the purpose of RSS. With RSS, you control what you want to receive and when. Its a pull mechanism. With email, it becomes push and then it gets abused. Remember when smartphone notifications were actual notifications with useful alert/content? Nowadays they are just another advertisement delivery channel. That's why RSS is still important, and why RSS feeds should not be delivered via Email.
      - hopesthoughts 5y ago
        Guess what? Substack supports RSS. Every substack has a feed.
    - rhn_mk1 5y ago
      > RSS is for the long tail of blogs that don't post very frequently, but when they do, its worth your while. How do you find those?
      - e3bc54b2 5y ago
        Its organic discovery. Some I come across in HN discussions. Some I find while googling stuff. Since my interests aren't mainstream, most of the blogs I come across this way are interesting to me and I subscribe. These days there are few awesome lists or the like for curated, sorted and tagged personal blogs too. Its a great time to start with RSS.
  - extra88 5y ago
    HN’s front page has an RSS feed, that’s how I get to it for titles that catch my interest. 98% of the time I go to the comments first, more often than not I never go to the actual article (this one, for example).
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    > Subscribing to blogs directly creates a huge firehose of mostly boring content It's possible that you're reading the wrong blogs.
- fomine3 5y ago
  Possibly some under 20 use Podcasts? That's usually based on RSS.
- teitoklien 5y ago
  > I have never seen someone under 20 using RSS Im under 19 , i use rss daily for a lot of things from reading blogs to sending alerts about new updates in services me and my friends host.
komali2 5y ago
Eh, but despite Slack and Discord, IRC still exists. I wish more people would join us outside the walled gardens, but I also don't think these tools will die so long as there's people like us that are passionate about staying outside the walled gardens.
- SilverRed 5y ago
  IRC is dead in the sense that it is in a late stage of decline that can not be reversed anymore. The death of freenode was a huge hit as well. It seems like there were efforts to fix IRC with IRCv3 but I don't recall any major support from clients and servers and it was too little too late. I just checked wikipedia and it is coming up on a decade since v3 was started and yet no major network supports it. And v3 was only the bare minimum required to modernize IRC and misses so many other important features people demand like inline images/files and a mobile friendly protocol. Of course it will never be dead in the sense that literally no one uses it. Almost nothing ever dies that way.

peanut_worm 5y ago

Death of web browsers?

geerlingguy 5y ago

I know many people in my cohort (30+ techies) who still use RSS religiously (myself included). I have never seen someone under about 20 using RSS (and probably 90% of that age group has never heard of it). They all live in chat apps and algorithmic feeds :( I couldn't imagine my RSS reader displaying stories that it thinks I'd like (and not all, in chronological order). There's a reason I curate my feeds—I want to see the content in each of them!

SilverRed 5y ago
I'm a little over 20 and I have used RSS and did not continue. I just don't see why I would want RSS over something like hacker news or visiting my local news website directly. Subscribing to blogs directly creates a huge firehose of mostly boring content while sites like HN sort content vaguely by how interesting it is. As well as the fact that most of the time, the actual content of the article is less interesting than the discussion it starts in the comments. I imagine most people checking reddit or HN are not there to read a long post but instead looking to discuss various opinions in the comments which RSS does not support.
- e3bc54b2 5y ago
  Blogs and websites that generate lots of content are akin to News. You don't subscribe to them, and have HN to let you know of something important happens. RSS is for the long tail of blogs that don't post very frequently, but when they do, its worth your while. The ideal entry in my RSS feed is one that has new addition once per week or less. This way, I can follow a very wide array of people without getting overwhelmed, nor having to miss if their post don't make it to HN front.
  - karatinversion 5y ago
    I guess the reinvented solution for this use case is email newsletters, that substack and the like have popularized recently. Most people have an email client, no matter how grudgingly.
    - e3bc54b2 5y ago
      Email... defeats half the purpose of RSS. With RSS, you control what you want to receive and when. Its a pull mechanism. With email, it becomes push and then it gets abused. Remember when smartphone notifications were actual notifications with useful alert/content? Nowadays they are just another advertisement delivery channel. That's why RSS is still important, and why RSS feeds should not be delivered via Email.
    - hopesthoughts 5y ago
      Guess what? Substack supports RSS. Every substack has a feed.
  - rhn_mk1 5y ago
    > RSS is for the long tail of blogs that don't post very frequently, but when they do, its worth your while. How do you find those?
    - e3bc54b2 5y ago
      Its organic discovery. Some I come across in HN discussions. Some I find while googling stuff. Since my interests aren't mainstream, most of the blogs I come across this way are interesting to me and I subscribe. These days there are few awesome lists or the like for curated, sorted and tagged personal blogs too. Its a great time to start with RSS.
- extra88 5y ago
  HN’s front page has an RSS feed, that’s how I get to it for titles that catch my interest. 98% of the time I go to the comments first, more often than not I never go to the actual article (this one, for example).
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  > Subscribing to blogs directly creates a huge firehose of mostly boring content It's possible that you're reading the wrong blogs.
fomine3 5y ago
Possibly some under 20 use Podcasts? That's usually based on RSS.
teitoklien 5y ago
> I have never seen someone under 20 using RSS Im under 19 , i use rss daily for a lot of things from reading blogs to sending alerts about new updates in services me and my friends host.

komali2 5y ago

Eh, but despite Slack and Discord, IRC still exists. I wish more people would join us outside the walled gardens, but I also don't think these tools will die so long as there's people like us that are passionate about staying outside the walled gardens.

SilverRed 5y ago
IRC is dead in the sense that it is in a late stage of decline that can not be reversed anymore. The death of freenode was a huge hit as well. It seems like there were efforts to fix IRC with IRCv3 but I don't recall any major support from clients and servers and it was too little too late. I just checked wikipedia and it is coming up on a decade since v3 was started and yet no major network supports it. And v3 was only the bare minimum required to modernize IRC and misses so many other important features people demand like inline images/files and a mobile friendly protocol. Of course it will never be dead in the sense that literally no one uses it. Almost nothing ever dies that way.