Earlier quoted context omitted.
Replaced by social media.
As long as social media has RSS feeds, then we're good!
Keep dreaming.
“We removed the RSS feed since this technology became obsolete”
111–120 of 249 posts
Re: “We removed the RSS feed since this technology became obsolete”
#112How is social media an alternative to RSS? There’s no guarantee users will actually see what you post.
I think the big problem with RSS is that non-technical users didn’t use it. I see this as a marketing failure - browser support was never great and it was too hidden / non-obvious as a feature.
Re: “We removed the RSS feed since this technology became obsolete”
#113The general upside of Wordpress powering all-the-things is that usually means there is an RSS feed if you poke around hard enough.
I haven't noticed a WordPress blog where the RSS feed wasn't properly advertised. Does it depend on the theme to include the appropriate link tag? Or maybe it is just sampling bias where I don't notice that WordPress sites are actually wordpress if they don't advertise the feed.
It is up to the theme to output a visual link to the RSS feed, but unless disabled, WordPress itself will always output a `` tag with an RSS feed.
Re: “We removed the RSS feed since this technology became obsolete”
#114I hate to say it but they are largely correct. The technology isn't obsolete but it is very unknown outside of podcasting, but even these day most people just get their podcasts relayed through a big service that may not even let you subscribe via URL.
I run an RSS-centered service and approximately 0 of my non-tech friends know what RSS is. They get their news from the YouTube, Facebook, Instagram... homepages where the algorithm picks some stuff that they want you to see. When I explain that it is easy to curate what you follow with no ads, no raking and no "algorithm" they are generally on board and are happy to subscribe to some comics, YouTube channels and maybe a web comic or two. But the awareness is basically zero.
I think the following things would help get RSS into the spotlight:
1. Highlight that Google News uses RSS. https://support.google.com/news/publisher-center/answer/9545...
2. We need to get "Subscribe" buttons back into browsers. Right now you need an extension to detect sites that have feeds. Not only is that a huge step for most users but the most popular mobile browsers don't support extensions. (And even Firefox for Android only supports a whitelist on stable right now) IIRC Chrome on Android is experimenting with a very polished-over version, so it will be interesting if this gains traction and helps convince sites to maintain their feeds.
3. We need awareness. A lot of people are being made aware of the downsides of big services recommending them content, but very few are aware of the alternatives. Just helping out a few friends who are interesting in taking more control over their news can be a good start. And remember that it isn't all-or-nothing. I subscribe to a lot of feeds but still browse Hacker News and Reddit. I don't think I need to completely remove the algorithm, but I like to get most of my news "reliably" then when I run out I go into "discovery mode".
That being said it is a huge uphill battle and right now it looks like things are going the other way. I'm not hugely active in this "fight" but it is good to support when you can.
Re: “We removed the RSS feed since this technology became obsolete”
#115I'm a very happy daily RSS user, but we ought to be upfront about its ginormous deficiencies:
- every day I deal with broken links and broken images because my feed reader doesn't know from which URL it should resolve relative links
- there's no pagination mechanism, or way for a client to ask for "all posts since last Friday". If you want your feed to always have all posts available, you need to include the entirety of your archive in every feed response.
- if I want to follow any link I get kicked back out to a bloated web page
- lots of posts include iframes, or content that only makes sense with JS enabled
- XML
Despite this, I still love RSS. It's what we've got and we should continue to make the most of it. But it also sucks, and it's not any surprise that mostly only technical people use it. I think feeds are pretty much doomed to keep breaking and disappearing. Many of the replacements or pseudo-replacements that people come up with seem fine, but the problem - as always - is getting people to actually use it, which mostly never happens.
Re: “We removed the RSS feed since this technology became obsolete”
#116Apparently open standards can “become obsolete technology” now.
Re: “We removed the RSS feed since this technology became obsolete”
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm guessing they think that social media and a subscription email newsletter are adequate replacements. But they are not.
We can't really know looking in from the outside. Presumably they know how often their newsletters are sent out and how many social media followers they have and how often the RSS feed is pulled.
I do believe that online feed readers will only pull the feed once per x minutes for all their subscribers, instead of pulling the feed n times per x minutes.
For example, all of Feedly's subscribers will only count for one pull.
Re: “We removed the RSS feed since this technology became obsolete”
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Maybe I'm splitting hairs Not enough split, not really hair ;) The rewinder became obsolete, replaced by random access. Your need to seek remained. Your need to watch videos remained, relevant technologies got replaced etc. One's need for "informational pull" remains - there is no dead end.
> One's need for "informational pull" remains It clearly doesn't - since so few people are using RSS.
I don't think that follows. People need proper nutrition, but they can get by for an unreasonable time on sugar cereal and microwavable Salisbury steaks. The prevalence of cheap, nutrient poor meals is not an indication that people's need for nutrition doesn't remain. It's only an indication that suppliers would rather make a cheap, highly profitable good with marketing to convince people it fills a need than to go the less profitable route of actually providing for that need.
Re: “We removed the RSS feed since this technology became obsolete”
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
> One's need for "informational pull" remains It clearly doesn't - since so few people are using RSS.
I don't think that follows. People need proper nutrition, but they can get by for an unreasonable time on sugar cereal and microwavable Salisbury steaks. The prevalence of cheap, nutrient poor meals is not an indication that people's need for nutrition doesn't remain. It's only an indication that suppliers would rather make a cheap, highly profitable good with marketing to convince people it fills a need than to go t…
If there was such limited market demand for RSS when it was available that almost everyone's dropped it, then maybe it's not a solution that people actually need or want.
I get that people think it's a great idea, but in practice it seems not to be.
Re: “We removed the RSS feed since this technology became obsolete”
#120I'm a very happy daily RSS user, but we ought to be upfront about its ginormous deficiencies: - every day I deal with broken links and broken images because my feed reader doesn't know from which URL it should resolve relative links - there's no pagination mechanism, or way for a client to ask for "all posts since last Friday". If you want your feed to always have all posts available, you need to include the entirety…
A lot of us are happy to just use RSS for the aggregated listing. I really don't mind going to the original site in a browser to read the article.