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Goodbye, Feedly

erikgahner.dk

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Re: Goodbye, Feedly

#101

Post by Macha »

cosmiccatnap wrote: post #94

Have we really fallen this low? How are there so many people in this comment section defending feedly while berating the author for what I would consider a level headed and fair assessment of the state of it. As someone hunting constantly for a reader as simple as Google reader and feedly use to be it all makes perfect sense and is equally frustrating to me. It's an RSS reader that no longer accepts many RSS feeds, t…

HN readers generally put themselves into the vendor's shoes and therefore have a hard time accepting criticism of something the vendor does at their own interest at the expense of the user's.

Re: Goodbye, Feedly

#102

Post by jacurtis »

r2222 wrote: post #70

I’ve been very happy with https://feedbin.com It’s a paid RSS syncing service and web app too, costs $5 per month, I use it with Reeder (and NetNewsWire etc). It doesn’t have any social cruft or AI assistants or ML companions. I was also a Feedly user when I decided to try Feedbin, and I immediately noticed how much faster fetching the feeds was on Feedbin. I also like to have my email newsletters in same place (forw…

I switched from Feedly to FeedBin recently for all the same reasons and noticed all the same things you highlighted here. I don't mind the nominal fee of $5/mo since it is a delightful experience that is powerful, fast, and clean. They have added features that I think we need, without the Bloat. Ironically Feedly is only $1 more per month, but I was never enticed to upgrade because the experience was really just awful. FeedBin also gives access to a solid API for you to manage your feeds and supports all the open standards as well to easily import/export them.

I think the takeaway for product owners is that sometimes you need to really zoom out and look at your product. I used Feedly for 8-9 years as a free user and never wanted to upgrade. I was willing to for the right product, but never did. Once I found a simpler product (FeedBin) that met my needs, I immediately paid.

Feedly has shoved ads and half-assed new features into their product for almost a decade trying to get their influx of Google Reader subscribers to upgrade. But no one was compelled to. It eventually pissed off free users enough that they switch to other paid alternatives. That's pretty sad honestly.

Re: Goodbye, Feedly

#103

Post by Semiapies »

prepend wrote: post #32
longrod wrote: post #12

Going through the article I realized this attitude is what eventually kills some really good software. If a software does what you expect it to do and does it well but includes a few prompts here and there for marketing purposes...is that really so bad? Live and let live, I say. Not everyone is running a charity and Feedly is nowhere even near the top of the list of software ripping off their users or selling their d…

> is that really so bad? I think in many situations, yes. I grew up with shareware and so I know that prompts are necessary to drive income. What the prompts in this article are so bad at is that they are perpetual. Is it really necessary to nag a user over and over for something they don’t want and declined? That is probably not going to work in the long run as people associate a bad experience with the product. Fig…

Not giving out a service for free is probably the best option.

Re: Goodbye, Feedly

#104

Post by Semiapies »

hamdouni wrote: post #33
jzb wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a problem solved by software, pay for it. They’re not a charity. If you’re just using without giving back you have zero standing to feel let down. Feedly is a SaaS, not a foss project. They have bills to pay.

Foss project also have bills to pay.

People regularly act like asses to them without contributing a cent, either.

Re: Goodbye, Feedly

#105

Post by Semiapies »

madsbuch wrote: post #47

Growth vs. value, development vs. maintenance, innovation vs. operations. It really seems like a lot of projects should embrace the the path of becoming a stable product: Charging 10 USD a year, assigning a single person to a comfy job of maintaining the app without adding new features. Just maintaining infrastructure, updating packages, and doing the occasional exchange of stack when old technologies are deprecated.…

Most people don't actually want to pay for things.

Re: Goodbye, Feedly

#106

Post by bornfreddy »

applefangirl wrote: post #42
longrod wrote: post #12

Going through the article I realized this attitude is what eventually kills some really good software. If a software does what you expect it to do and does it well but includes a few prompts here and there for marketing purposes...is that really so bad? Live and let live, I say. Not everyone is running a charity and Feedly is nowhere even near the top of the list of software ripping off their users or selling their d…

I guess it's a matter of opinion because Feedly's interface looks cluttered to me. It's not a bad offender for a webapp but compared to other feed readers its interface is IMO busy. Also a matter of opinion but app developers IMO shouldn't use their apps to market. I've already got an email app and a Feed reader. If I want to keep up with you I'll subscribe to your mailing list or follow your feed. I disable auto-upd…

Tangential: if updates bother you, you might want to give NetGuard a try (not affiliated). FOSS, though the pro version license costs $5 iirc. It is a great way to make apps behave nicely - even Firefox is too chatty (telemetry & co.) for my taste. Since updates are often from a different domain, you can just block them. How it works is that all the traffic on the phone is routed through a local (just an app on your phone!) VPN where it can be logged and filtered. Brilliant idea.

As a bonus, it is also very satisfying watching apps try to connect to various ad networks and spy agencies^W^W Google unsuccessfully.

Re: Goodbye, Feedly

#107

Post by WastingMyTime89 »

bayindirh wrote: post #86
longrod wrote: post #12

Going through the article I realized this attitude is what eventually kills some really good software. If a software does what you expect it to do and does it well but includes a few prompts here and there for marketing purposes...is that really so bad? Live and let live, I say. Not everyone is running a charity and Feedly is nowhere even near the top of the list of software ripping off their users or selling their d…

> is that really so bad? In case of Feedly, yes. I feel like a hamster being tried to be converted. Feedly's free tier doesn't feel like free. It feels like a getaway drug which tries to make you pay for other features. I have used for a week, then SDF announced availability of their TTRSS instance. As a paying member, I moved there. I am much more happier now. TTRSS is free and open source. I'm just supporting SDF s…

> In case of Feedly, yes. I feel like a hamster being tried to be converted.

You are a hamster trying to be converted. That’s the point of the free tier. You could just pay for it and the nagging would stop. You are now paying for TTRSS and have the experience of a paying customer.

Re: Goodbye, Feedly

#108

Post by Semiapies »

cosmiccatnap wrote: post #96
simonebrunozzi wrote: post #36

Do you think there's an opportunity for a new RSS reader to emerge? And be financially successful, without the BS of ads, etc?

An open source RSS reader could easily be someone's weekend project...

And probably has been many times, given how many there are.

Re: Goodbye, Feedly

#109

Post by jacurtis »

naugtur wrote: post #27

If you liked it before all the monetization strategies, maybe should have paid for it to keep it sustainable that way?

I'm am a huge proponent for paying for good software to support developers and creators.

HOWEVER, I think you sentiment is wrong here. You _should_ support creators that are doing things you like so that they keep doing those things you like. But it doesn't make sense to pay creators that are doing think you don't like. The fact that you start paying them is taken as confirmation that you are enjoying the product.

Imagine if we all hated Feedly's product but banded together to have everyone subscribe to Feedly to support them. They would see that userbase as confirmation to keep doing what they are doing, building shitty software. They aren't going to about face their product strategy because you are paying them $6 a month now.

So instead what we should all do is find creators that are doing RSS readers justice and support THOSE creators. For example, I switched from Feedly to Feedbin. I was a free user at Feedly and never wanted to upgrade because, like the author of the article said, it was bloated and unejoyable and the premium features weren't things I needed. So instead I found a tool that is everything I wanted, which happened to be FeedBin. I supported them and am paying them $5 per month for them to continue their efforts because they are building the software the way I want RSS Readers to be. So I would like to see them survive and thats what my paid subscription provides.

Let's encourage good products. No reason to throw good money at bad products. Find the good ones and support those.

Re: Goodbye, Feedly

#110

Post by browningstreet »

I pay for Feedly, and have since the beginning, but I don’t love it. Their search function has severe usability issues, which I’ve emailed them, and their enhanced features are stupid and useless.

I don’t like Feedly, and use Unread on the iPhone to read the feeds. They are like the Evernote of today. Every year I think I’ll dump them and probably will. It’s just been laziness so far.

I pay, they feed my RSS feeds, so in that regard, it works. But yeah, I feel OP.

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