4 ms·

This is like blaming the stock market going up or down on the president. Conde Nast may have simply been the last one holding the "hot potato". In the face of s

This is like blaming the stock market going up or down on the president. Conde Nast may have simply been the last one holding the "hot potato". In the face of social media platforms sucking the userbase away from blogs and traditional websites, can you really blame them? Does Chrome even have a way to follow RSS feeds, or do you need to install a shady plugin?

gs17 3y ago
There's web-based readers that work in Chrome. After Google Reader died, I moved to Feedly which seems to still work alright.
- CountHackulus 3y ago
  There's also TheOldReader which is the same UI as Google Reader and works great.
  - njroute22 3y ago
    I use InoReader - excellent and works quite nicely (even the free version).
sybercecurity 3y ago
Partially, but can't go back in time and prove otherwise. When Conde Nast started buying up specialty like Bicycling, Outdoors, and Wired they transformed them into generic "lifestyle" magazines (10-15 years ago). I remember flipping through Bicycling and seeing 3 car advertisements before getting to the first that had anything to do with cycling and all the columns and editorials contained product pitches for personal care products("What I'm obsessed with this week!"). Would these magazines have survived without Conde Nast? I don't know. I know I stopped buying/reading/visiting websites of all of them soon after because I got bored seeing the same things regardless of the title. I guess the counterpoint would be any niche publication that is still doing well in today's publishing environment.
- rsingel 3y ago
  Conde Nast has never bought specialty mags, and doesn't own Outdoors or Bicycling. It bought Wired mag (but not the online site) in like 1998. The closest Conde Nast has now to a specialist site is Ars Technica, which it bought almost 20 years ago
  - whynotminot 3y ago
    And Ars is still great!
    - teh_infallible 3y ago
      Ars used to have interesting articles about novel intersections between technology and the law. Now it’s like a Sharper Image catalogue.
    - Ghos3t 3y ago
      Press X for doubt
    - ledauphin 3y ago
      it really isn't. but to be fair, it got a lot worse many years after the acquisition (2008), so it's hard to be certain whose fault it was.
    - dlivingston 3y ago
      I read Ars multiple times a week. It's not Pulitzer-winning stuff, but certainly more thoughtful than The Verge. Can someone help me understand why it's being panned as losing quality?
      - rsingel 3y ago
        It has monthly page view quotas for writers, which changes what gets covered. It laid off or lost most of its best tech policy writers, including Joe Mullin, Cyrus Farivar, David Kravets, and Timothy B Lee.
  - 3y ago
itsoktocry 3y ago
Exactly. We always tend to blame the purchaser, but why not the seller? If their business was good and they cared about the product, why sell? And if the business was bad, can't blame they buyer, either.
- Loughla 3y ago
  To your second question: ethics, it turns out, aren't as powerful as a mountain of cash to ski down like Scrooge McDuck.

gs17 3y ago

There's web-based readers that work in Chrome. After Google Reader died, I moved to Feedly which seems to still work alright.

CountHackulus 3y ago
There's also TheOldReader which is the same UI as Google Reader and works great.
- njroute22 3y ago
  I use InoReader - excellent and works quite nicely (even the free version).

sybercecurity 3y ago

Partially, but can't go back in time and prove otherwise. When Conde Nast started buying up specialty like Bicycling, Outdoors, and Wired they transformed them into generic "lifestyle" magazines (10-15 years ago). I remember flipping through Bicycling and seeing 3 car advertisements before getting to the first that had anything to do with cycling and all the columns and editorials contained product pitches for personal care products("What I'm obsessed with this week!"). Would these magazines have survived without Conde Nast? I don't know. I know I stopped buying/reading/visiting websites of all of them soon after because I got bored seeing the same things regardless of the title. I guess the counterpoint would be any niche publication that is still doing well in today's publishing environment.

rsingel 3y ago
Conde Nast has never bought specialty mags, and doesn't own Outdoors or Bicycling. It bought Wired mag (but not the online site) in like 1998. The closest Conde Nast has now to a specialist site is Ars Technica, which it bought almost 20 years ago
- whynotminot 3y ago
  And Ars is still great!
  - teh_infallible 3y ago
    Ars used to have interesting articles about novel intersections between technology and the law. Now it’s like a Sharper Image catalogue.
  - Ghos3t 3y ago
    Press X for doubt
  - ledauphin 3y ago
    it really isn't. but to be fair, it got a lot worse many years after the acquisition (2008), so it's hard to be certain whose fault it was.
  - dlivingston 3y ago
    I read Ars multiple times a week. It's not Pulitzer-winning stuff, but certainly more thoughtful than The Verge. Can someone help me understand why it's being panned as losing quality?
    - rsingel 3y ago
      It has monthly page view quotas for writers, which changes what gets covered. It laid off or lost most of its best tech policy writers, including Joe Mullin, Cyrus Farivar, David Kravets, and Timothy B Lee.
- 3y ago

itsoktocry 3y ago

Exactly. We always tend to blame the purchaser, but why not the seller? If their business was good and they cared about the product, why sell? And if the business was bad, can't blame they buyer, either.

Loughla 3y ago
To your second question: ethics, it turns out, aren't as powerful as a mountain of cash to ski down like Scrooge McDuck.