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I don’t understand why many sites with news updates / blogs don’t offer an RSS feed. Are they expecting me to keep visiting the site over and over to see if the

by dabinat 2mo ago

I don’t understand why many sites with news updates / blogs don’t offer an RSS feed. Are they expecting me to keep visiting the site over and over to see if there is new content? They’re guaranteeing I’ll never visit their site again. Perhaps they’re expecting people to subscribe to social media accounts or via email, but those both cost money to reach users. RSS is free.

basilikum 2mo ago
RSS is a free way to reach almost no one.
- fsflover 2mo ago
  RSS is a free way to reach content genuinely created for users, not for profit.
tombert 2mo ago
I've used it on every blog I've ever built (https://blog.tombert.com/index.xml https://blog.tombert.com/index.xml) because it's super easy to set up, but I really don't know anyone who uses RSS in any serious capacity. That said, stuff like BBC actually does maintain an RSS feed: https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/rss.xml https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/rss.xml
mococa 2mo ago
Ironically HN don’t have feed…
- orzi 2mo ago
  Not true. https://news.ycombinator.com/rss https://news.ycombinator.com/rss
- tripleee 2mo ago
  hnrss.org
mathieudombrock 2mo ago
It seems to me like the common pattern these days is to ask for notification permissions instead.
wildzzz 2mo ago
Because you can't serve ads as nicely over RSS
- zdunn 2mo ago
  Aren't the ads already on the webpage? If the RSS contains snippets of the pages and I have to navigate to the page to view the article, then I see your ads. Also, can't the ads be a part of the feed just as nicely as the articles? What's stopping publishers from inserting ads as items in the feed?
  - fragmede 2mo ago
    Can't get the same metrics off the ads in an RSS feed. Companies, like people, are cheap so they don't want to spend money on advertising that doesn't work. RSS feed ads don't report back the same way browser advertising does.
    - zdunn 2mo ago
      That's only a problem for the engorged advertising industry that's been built up in the past couple decades. Putting ads in an RSS feed is no different than non-algorithmic ads on a webpage or classified sections in newspapers, which worked fine for everybody until targeted advertising was introduced. Secondly, that just leads back to my first point. The ads (even targeted ads) are already on the final content. I just can't view this as a failing of RSS. It wasn't intended to help publishers advertise, it was intended to help end users track the sites they wanted to track. I understand these are some of the reasons Google and other publishers disincentivized the usage of RSS but RSS works great for its intended purpose. I want more technology like RSS, not tech that helps publishers exploit us
ikiris 2mo ago
Because RSS is a way to give your bait content away for free without getting your ad revenue for it. Its a complete misfeature from the perspective of a site.
johanyc 2mo ago
I think simply because they are not aware of RSS

by dabinat 2mo ago

basilikum 2mo ago

RSS is a free way to reach almost no one.

fsflover 2mo ago
RSS is a free way to reach content genuinely created for users, not for profit.

tombert 2mo ago

I've used it on every blog I've ever built (https://blog.tombert.com/index.xml https://blog.tombert.com/index.xml) because it's super easy to set up, but I really don't know anyone who uses RSS in any serious capacity. That said, stuff like BBC actually does maintain an RSS feed: https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/rss.xml https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/rss.xml

mococa 2mo ago

Ironically HN don’t have feed…

orzi 2mo ago
Not true. https://news.ycombinator.com/rss https://news.ycombinator.com/rss
tripleee 2mo ago
hnrss.org

mathieudombrock 2mo ago

It seems to me like the common pattern these days is to ask for notification permissions instead.

wildzzz 2mo ago

Because you can't serve ads as nicely over RSS

zdunn 2mo ago
Aren't the ads already on the webpage? If the RSS contains snippets of the pages and I have to navigate to the page to view the article, then I see your ads. Also, can't the ads be a part of the feed just as nicely as the articles? What's stopping publishers from inserting ads as items in the feed?
- fragmede 2mo ago
  Can't get the same metrics off the ads in an RSS feed. Companies, like people, are cheap so they don't want to spend money on advertising that doesn't work. RSS feed ads don't report back the same way browser advertising does.
  - zdunn 2mo ago
    That's only a problem for the engorged advertising industry that's been built up in the past couple decades. Putting ads in an RSS feed is no different than non-algorithmic ads on a webpage or classified sections in newspapers, which worked fine for everybody until targeted advertising was introduced. Secondly, that just leads back to my first point. The ads (even targeted ads) are already on the final content. I just can't view this as a failing of RSS. It wasn't intended to help publishers advertise, it was intended to help end users track the sites they wanted to track. I understand these are some of the reasons Google and other publishers disincentivized the usage of RSS but RSS works great for its intended purpose. I want more technology like RSS, not tech that helps publishers exploit us

ikiris 2mo ago

Because RSS is a way to give your bait content away for free without getting your ad revenue for it. Its a complete misfeature from the perspective of a site.

johanyc 2mo ago

I think simply because they are not aware of RSS