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Ask HN: Is RSS dead?

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Re: Ask HN: Is RSS dead?

#31

Post by muppetman »

I'd say it's on the decline, yes.

I have quite a few websites in my RSS Reader (I love TinyTinyRSS) and over the last 2-3 years I've seen probably ~10 sites get "makeovers" and every time, the RSS feed I was using for those sites has gone away/broken. Each time I've emailed them to ask "Oh hey are you going to bring back RSS" and of the ~4 that replied, 1 bought it back ~3 months later, the other 3 said "Nope, no one uses it" and the others didn't even reply.

So yes, it's on a steep decline I'd say. I love the "But Podcasts use it" argument! There's what, ~100 major podcast sites people use? Yes, RSS is the backend workhorse that makes it work, but the podcast(content) producers aren't using RSS, they'll be uploading their content to a website. RSS is just the backend magic that makes the podcast clients work.

RSS at most sites seems to suffer bitrot. Sometimes the RSS URL is still http when the site has moved to https etc etc.

It's sad to see the decline of it, because an RSS Reader really is a beautiful thing. But yes, RSS as a way to exposing content to people is dying and used by only a very few hardcore "oldschool" people these days I'd suggest.

Re: Ask HN: Is RSS dead?

#32

Post by scarface74 »

wenbin wrote: post #7

No. Podcast is booming. And podcasts are distributed via rss. Every podcast player is basically a rss client.

Unless you are using a not-podcast player like Spotify or whatever Google has that hosts podcasts themselves instead of just using RSS and letting the player download from the content providers server.

Re: Ask HN: Is RSS dead?

#33

Post by scarface74 »

diablo1 wrote: post #2

It's only dead insofar as most blogs don't have a decent RSS feed to begin with. I've scoured the web looking for high quality RSS feeds that are updated regularly, and have even shared an OPML file with close friends who happen to really like RSS too. The amount of effort was astonishing gathering those RSS feeds, but it was worth it.

I can’t think of a single blog that doesn’t have an RSS feed or major site for that matter.

Re: Ask HN: Is RSS dead?

#34

Post by jbob2000 »

jasode wrote: post #19

By asking the question using the word "dead"[0] which has such offensive connotations, it will spur some to say "it's not dead" -- which isn't really going to be productive for what I think you're really asking. First, in one sense (but doesn't really answer your question) ... the old protocols like RSS (feeds), NNTP (news), IRC (chat), etc are never going to be "dead" because somebody somewhere will always be provid…

How is using the word “dead” offensive?

Re: Ask HN: Is RSS dead?

#36

Post by hs86 »

I am currently using Feedly with their recent "Leo" feature and it is really interesting how well it works.

It requires some setup and imho is a bit expensive (Pro+ plan required) but this announcement should give a good overview of its capabilities: https://blog.feedly.com/leo/

Innovation in the RSS space is still happening and therefore I wouldn't call it 'dead'.

Re: Ask HN: Is RSS dead?

#38

Post by eropple »

jbob2000 wrote: post #34
jasode wrote: post #19

By asking the question using the word "dead"[0] which has such offensive connotations, it will spur some to say "it's not dead" -- which isn't really going to be productive for what I think you're really asking. First, in one sense (but doesn't really answer your question) ... the old protocols like RSS (feeds), NNTP (news), IRC (chat), etc are never going to be "dead" because somebody somewhere will always be provid…

How is using the word “dead” offensive?

"Unproductive for discussion", then. Calling RSS "dead" will offend people who are partial to it, because there are fanboys everywhere, and that's not going to lead to a particularly useful discussion.
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