Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How Google helped destroy adoption of RSS feeds (2023)

openrss.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 265 posts

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

#111

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#112

Post by al_borland »

inigyou wrote: post #104
fsflover wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What prevents you from using RSS now? Outsourcing your RSS feed to a megacorp sounds like a horrible idea.

Who do you outsource yours to, or do you read with curl?

I use NetNewsWire. It’s free, open-source, and explicitly says not to send money.

> First thing: don’t send money. This app is written for love, not money. :)

https://github.com/Ranchero-Software/NetNewsWire/blob/main/T...

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

#113

Post by richie_adler »

konsalexee wrote: post #25

Just why bother relying on Google products for RSS? I use for the last many years NetNewsWire and have never had any problems reading the news I want to read. For ref: https://github.com/Ranchero-Software/NetNewsWire

What's the Android option?

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

#114

Post by inigyou »

ashu1461 wrote: post #107

Was evolution of email newsletters also one major reason ? Email newsletters are more publisher friendly where they get your data (emails), understand how many people are opening your email, sell subscriptions as well.

Compared to websites that is an incredible paucity of surveillance data. Just email address? That's all?

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

#116

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#117

Post by emzo »

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…

Google felt a little more special. "Don't be evil" and all that. Those were the days.

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

#118

Post by throwawsy7273 »

colesantiago wrote: post #97
adolph wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I have a feeling that it used to be much more valuable to send users to your site in the past, than today where a lot of traffic comes from search/ads/social media.

Perhaps it is time to revisit a distribution model, where the full content of the article is available for paid users inside the reader itself. The RSS reader would require a subscription and pay RSS feed providers a share of the subscription price. A sort of distributed spotify model.

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

#119

Post by jeffbee »

deepsun wrote: post #38
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.

Same thing with Google Music, it was perfect. You could stream, or could buy and download mp3, or you could upload your library to it. And the best feature: "I am feeling lucky" -- play a random song you ever liked and keep playing a generated playlist off it. But they killed it due to internal wars with YouTube Music that sucks. There's still nothing like Google Music.

> "I am feeling lucky"

YouTube Music still has this feature and it even uses the die icon, just like always.

> you could upload your library to it.

You can also do this in YouTube Music.

> But they killed it

They rebranded the exact same code base with largely the same staff. I don't know why you perceive this to have been a break.

Post reply on HN