4 ms·

Yeah. I think what really killed RSS was a change in people's behavior. Twitter, Reddit, and other social media sites gained traction as link sharing communitie

by pvorb 4y ago

Yeah. I think what really killed RSS was a change in people's behavior. Twitter, Reddit, and other social media sites gained traction as link sharing communities and RSS became less relevant after that. Instead of subscribing to an RSS feed, you could just follow your favorite sites on Twitter, for example.

igetspam 4y ago
Did RSS die??? (I get HN headlines via RSS)
- JohnFen 4y ago
  Not for me. It's still the primary way that I stay up to date on the web.
  - dmix 4y ago
    A market dying might not mean what you think it means then.
- pvorb 4y ago
  My usage went downhill, but long after the death of Google Reader. RSS didn't really die, but it never went into mainstream either.
scarface74 4y ago
How is RSS even dead today? I can’t think of a useful site that doesn’t still have an RSS feed - including Reddit.
- dmix 4y ago
  That's like saying "how is IRC dead today" when Slack/Discord/WhatsApp/Zoom/etc exists or Yahoo style portals when Google exists (yes Yahoo is still a real business) or "how are horses a dead transportation" when cars exist in 1930s America because horses can still walk on roads (aka takes a minimal investment to support). Sure they still work and will continue to work but let's be honest it's a super niche technology and it didn't survive/flourish because it was flawed and fundamentally nerdy option people stopped caring about. Supporting RSS takes the bare minimum of effort. Yet even in 2013 (aka a decade ago) RSS was declining in usage before Reader was killed. I support open platforms but RSS had a super noise-to-signal UX and I personally don't miss it. Google didn't kill RSS, they killed the best RSS product at the time and accelerated a dying protocol that would still be only used by HN's demographic and little else.
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    > I support open platforms but RSS had a super noise-to-signal UX and I personally don't miss it The problem is that nothing arose that adequately replaces it.
    - dmix 4y ago
      So make one. There's apparently a lively niche market on HN looking for one (allegedly).
  - scarface74 4y ago
    Why do I care if it’s a “niche” technology as far as other people subscribing if it is still supported by publishers? I can’t think of a single site that I go to and say “I sure wish this site supported RSS” and doesn’t? Using NetNewsWire and subscribing to subreddits with NNW on one half of my iPad and the Reddit app on the other half is still a great experience for instance. I click on the date on NNW and the post opens in the Reddit app. HN also has an RSS feed.
    - johannes1234321 4y ago
      > Why do I care if it’s a “niche” technology as far as other people subscribing if it is still supported by publishers? If it is a niche technology it will fall out from requirements docs and from CMS implementations. One can already see that many news sites only provide headlines, not even teasers in the feed and different site generator based blogs (using Hugo and such) forget to create feeds as well. My feed reader still provides value to me, but I regularly stumble over sites providing interesting content irregularly but no feed. (For irregularly posting blogs it is especially important as manually checking is annoying)
      - scarface74 4y ago
        They don’t have the entire article because they can’t display ads. DaringFireball and a few other blogs get around this by having native ads as an RSS entry.
- vpilcx 4y ago
  I think it's 'dead' in comparison to the way it used to be used. I was actually just looking for RSS feeds for some of the top news sites, and a lot of them have specialized RSS feeds for a certain category but not for the entire site. (I had to eventually settle for Newsweek) I genuinely don't know, so this is an honest question. Nowadays, outside of podcast feeds, what's the incentive for media outlets to provide RSS feeds? Isn't it just a fringe assortment of techies still using it? (To be clear, I'm part of that fringe.)
  - scarface74 4y ago
    Having specialized feeds prevents the whole “sipping from the firehose”.
dmix 4y ago
It's much easier to whine about Google than accept trends in consumer behaviour. Programmers get nostalgic about their pet technologies that even the majority of tech-denographic (and often themselves) don't even use when given the option. I don't blame them but they aren't always honest about their favourite niche tech simply being niche technology.
lozenge 4y ago
Attention was shifting from basement blogs and projects to professionally made content for the web. Which would only have one paragraph or a title on the RSS feed and the rest was on the site with ads.

by pvorb 4y ago

igetspam 4y ago

Did RSS die??? (I get HN headlines via RSS)

JohnFen 4y ago
Not for me. It's still the primary way that I stay up to date on the web.
- dmix 4y ago
  A market dying might not mean what you think it means then.
pvorb 4y ago
My usage went downhill, but long after the death of Google Reader. RSS didn't really die, but it never went into mainstream either.

scarface74 4y ago

How is RSS even dead today? I can’t think of a useful site that doesn’t still have an RSS feed - including Reddit.

dmix 4y ago
That's like saying "how is IRC dead today" when Slack/Discord/WhatsApp/Zoom/etc exists or Yahoo style portals when Google exists (yes Yahoo is still a real business) or "how are horses a dead transportation" when cars exist in 1930s America because horses can still walk on roads (aka takes a minimal investment to support). Sure they still work and will continue to work but let's be honest it's a super niche technology and it didn't survive/flourish because it was flawed and fundamentally nerdy option people stopped caring about. Supporting RSS takes the bare minimum of effort. Yet even in 2013 (aka a decade ago) RSS was declining in usage before Reader was killed. I support open platforms but RSS had a super noise-to-signal UX and I personally don't miss it. Google didn't kill RSS, they killed the best RSS product at the time and accelerated a dying protocol that would still be only used by HN's demographic and little else.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  > I support open platforms but RSS had a super noise-to-signal UX and I personally don't miss it The problem is that nothing arose that adequately replaces it.
  - dmix 4y ago
    So make one. There's apparently a lively niche market on HN looking for one (allegedly).
- scarface74 4y ago
  Why do I care if it’s a “niche” technology as far as other people subscribing if it is still supported by publishers? I can’t think of a single site that I go to and say “I sure wish this site supported RSS” and doesn’t? Using NetNewsWire and subscribing to subreddits with NNW on one half of my iPad and the Reddit app on the other half is still a great experience for instance. I click on the date on NNW and the post opens in the Reddit app. HN also has an RSS feed.
  - johannes1234321 4y ago
    > Why do I care if it’s a “niche” technology as far as other people subscribing if it is still supported by publishers? If it is a niche technology it will fall out from requirements docs and from CMS implementations. One can already see that many news sites only provide headlines, not even teasers in the feed and different site generator based blogs (using Hugo and such) forget to create feeds as well. My feed reader still provides value to me, but I regularly stumble over sites providing interesting content irregularly but no feed. (For irregularly posting blogs it is especially important as manually checking is annoying)
    - scarface74 4y ago
      They don’t have the entire article because they can’t display ads. DaringFireball and a few other blogs get around this by having native ads as an RSS entry.
vpilcx 4y ago
I think it's 'dead' in comparison to the way it used to be used. I was actually just looking for RSS feeds for some of the top news sites, and a lot of them have specialized RSS feeds for a certain category but not for the entire site. (I had to eventually settle for Newsweek) I genuinely don't know, so this is an honest question. Nowadays, outside of podcast feeds, what's the incentive for media outlets to provide RSS feeds? Isn't it just a fringe assortment of techies still using it? (To be clear, I'm part of that fringe.)
- scarface74 4y ago
  Having specialized feeds prevents the whole “sipping from the firehose”.

dmix 4y ago

It's much easier to whine about Google than accept trends in consumer behaviour. Programmers get nostalgic about their pet technologies that even the majority of tech-denographic (and often themselves) don't even use when given the option. I don't blame them but they aren't always honest about their favourite niche tech simply being niche technology.

lozenge 4y ago

Attention was shifting from basement blogs and projects to professionally made content for the web. Which would only have one paragraph or a title on the RSS feed and the rest was on the site with ads.