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

121–130 of 265 posts

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

#121

Post by ashu1461 »

inigyou wrote: post #114
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?

Social Media / RSS feed / Email newsletters are things which are just entry points to bring people eventually to the website.

Amongst these maybe Email newsletters are more friendly to publishers at least in terms of capturing first party data, so that you can be retargeted easily

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

#122

Post by throwawsy7273 »

culi wrote: post #73
orzi wrote: post #68

Don't forget Mozilla removing Live Bookmarks (RSS feeds showed up directly in your bookmarks menu) and RSS feed subscriptions in Firefox 64. https://www.gijsk.com/blog/2018/10/firefox-removes-core-prod...

Did any other browser ever have this?

Opera used to have a built in RSS reader that was better in my opinion.

Some of the people behind Opera has built Vivaldi, which also contains an RSS reader. I haven't used it myself, but it looks promising.

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

#123

Post by cwnyth »

mschild wrote: post #85
drnick1 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I use Firefox with uBlock Origin on Linux, and haven't seen an ad in years. It's not like ads weren't a thing 20 years ago. Pop-up windows were particularly bad. Javascript, in particular, has been constantly abused against the user ever since it was crea…

> Firefox with uBlock Origin on Linux Same setup and same experience. I've recently joined another company which only provided chrome with no extensions by default. I know the web is filled with ads but I'm shocked again and again when I get a glimpse into what it's like without an adblocker.

There are dozens of us. Maybe one day people will realize how much better Firefox is now and how nicer the web can be with no ads.

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

#125

Post by ikiris »

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.

Because RSS is a way to give your bait content away for free without getting your ad revenue for it. Its a complete misfeature from the perspective of a site.

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

#126

Post by dredmorbius »

asveikau wrote: post #91
abraham wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

G+ plausibly challenged an existential threat: Facebook.

Reader had no such strategic leverage, at least to Google execs' understanding.

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

#127

Post by tombert »

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…

> It isn't just other CS majors any more.

Hey, that's not fair! It also had nine year olds who bought a book about HTML and made shitty sites on Geocities!

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

#129

Post by Grombobulous »

al_borland wrote: post #106
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.

The mainstream ended up using social media to solve the problem RSS had already solved years earlier… it just had poor marketing. A lot of people do use RSS without realizing it, via podcasts.

While that may be true, I just don’t believe for a second that RSS had any chance of becoming mainstream outside of techie circles.

“Solving the problem” is only one aspect of the reason something becomes popular in the mainstream.

I also don’t think the user experience offered by products like TikTok is possible with RSS.

Post reply on HN