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How Google helped destroy adoption of RSS feeds (2023)

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Re: How Google helped destroy adoption of RSS feeds (2023)

#91

Post by asveikau »

abraham wrote: post #78
bakemawaytoys wrote: post #7

Google’s obviously fake excuse for killing their RSS reader (declining usage) was especially maddening at the time because they were pushing Google+ - which _nobody_ used.

> Google’s obviously fake excuse for killing their RSS reader (declining usage) What's obviously fake about that?

It has the vibe of a corporate company doing post hoc justification for a decision they already made.

And then the commenter provides a parallel to how willing they were to put money into Google+, i.e. they appear willing to put money into a relatively low usage product when they feel like doing it.

Re: How Google helped destroy adoption of RSS feeds (2023)

#92

Post by adolph »

gkoberger wrote: post #80

Okay bear with me here. We blame the RSS aggregators for the death, which is very fair. But I don't know if blog writers ever supported RSS, either. With RSS, your words are read, which is great. But you lose the ability to control the feel of the post... the best blogs have a vibe where the medium is at least large portion of the message. A pg essay would feel wrong in a chunk serif font, and I've read blogs that ha…

> lose the ability to control the feel of the post.

Agreed, rss was popular with people who wanted to decrease noise.

> RSS also kills monetization, since you can't have ads

This was the killer and the dumb part, because it could, but monetization sofar means integration with all the bad parts of the Internet that desire to track people.

Re: How Google helped destroy adoption of RSS feeds (2023)

#93

Post by jfengel »

throwaway63467 wrote: post #48

The Internet in the early 2000s felt a little more special as compared to today, when 99.999 % of content is locked in a handful of walled gardens. I mean sure everything we had then is still possible but let’s be honest everything about the web is fine tuned to deliver ads to our eyeballs, browsers, operating systems and even protocols are being designed with ad delivery in mind. Even the privacy friendly browsers j…

There was also .001% of the content there is now. The Internet of 2000 was microscopic.

Now everyone can create content, without any of the friction of hosting it. The vast majority of it is crap, but that was always the case.

The main difference between now and 30 years ago is that the Internet is vastly more diverse. It isn't just other CS majors any more. Now everyone gets to wade in the vast crap pool looking for the smidge of things that appeal to them. Meanwhile the CS majors still host their own stuff, because they can, and you find out about it via the same word of mouth.

Re: How Google helped destroy adoption of RSS feeds (2023)

#94

Post by tripleee »

delduca wrote: post #53
dabinat wrote: post #29

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.

Ironically HN don’t have feed…

hnrss.org

Re: How Google helped destroy adoption of RSS feeds (2023)

#97

Post by colesantiago »

adolph wrote: post #92
gkoberger wrote: post #80

Okay bear with me here. We blame the RSS aggregators for the death, which is very fair. But I don't know if blog writers ever supported RSS, either. With RSS, your words are read, which is great. But you lose the ability to control the feel of the post... the best blogs have a vibe where the medium is at least large portion of the message. A pg essay would feel wrong in a chunk serif font, and I've read blogs that ha…

> lose the ability to control the feel of the post. Agreed, rss was popular with people who wanted to decrease noise. > RSS also kills monetization, since you can't have ads This was the killer and the dumb part, because it could, but monetization sofar means integration with all the bad parts of the Internet that desire to track people.

So what is the solution here other than ads?

Most people who use RSS, use it because they don't want to go to a website (filled with ads) and they want content 100% for free.

Re: How Google helped destroy adoption of RSS feeds (2023)

#98

Post by gkoberger »

adolph wrote: post #92
gkoberger wrote: post #80

Okay bear with me here. We blame the RSS aggregators for the death, which is very fair. But I don't know if blog writers ever supported RSS, either. With RSS, your words are read, which is great. But you lose the ability to control the feel of the post... the best blogs have a vibe where the medium is at least large portion of the message. A pg essay would feel wrong in a chunk serif font, and I've read blogs that ha…

> lose the ability to control the feel of the post. Agreed, rss was popular with people who wanted to decrease noise. > RSS also kills monetization, since you can't have ads This was the killer and the dumb part, because it could, but monetization sofar means integration with all the bad parts of the Internet that desire to track people.

For what it's worth, and there's lots of reasons this hasn't and won't happen, I think micropayments are the solution here.

But until that happens, ads fill a middle ground: users don't want to pay and creators want to be paid.

Re: How Google helped destroy adoption of RSS feeds (2023)

#99

Post by inigyou »

jfengel wrote: post #93
throwaway63467 wrote: post #48

The Internet in the early 2000s felt a little more special as compared to today, when 99.999 % of content is locked in a handful of walled gardens. I mean sure everything we had then is still possible but let’s be honest everything about the web is fine tuned to deliver ads to our eyeballs, browsers, operating systems and even protocols are being designed with ad delivery in mind. Even the privacy friendly browsers j…

There was also .001% of the content there is now. The Internet of 2000 was microscopic. Now everyone can create content, without any of the friction of hosting it. The vast majority of it is crap, but that was always the case. The main difference between now and 30 years ago is that the Internet is vastly more diverse. It isn't just other CS majors any more. Now everyone gets to wade in the vast crap pool looking for…

The .001% was the top .001% of today's content. The other 99.999% we gained was spam aimed at getting money while providing minimal value and taking minimal effort.
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