How Google helped destroy adoption of RSS feeds (2023) • Hacker News Board

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

#191

Post by bandrami » Sun, Aug 02, 2026, 9:10 AM UTC

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #188

fl4regun wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i don't think it's fair to say it was just CS majors, I'm a 90s baby and i was on the web in the 2000s when i was in middle school, I still remember reading web comics and forums, messaging people on MSN and playing MMOs with online friends, looking up gameFAQs to get past sticking points. This could just be me, but it felt more social and personal.

Yeah it feels like people aren't making friends online as much nowadays. Everyone is chasing clout, and if you get a rando who sends you a friendly message, it's quite likely a pig butchering scam.

In the early aughts the web was largely anonymous (MySpace and Friendster were just starting out and Facebook was still a Ivy league only thing). We thought we wanted to be able to find and be found by specific people, but in retrospect I definitely regret that change. It was better when I was just a randomish string of characters.

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

#192

Post by bandrami » Sun, Aug 02, 2026, 9:13 AM UTC

jonas21 wrote: post #40

pronik wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably Google's biggest failure ever was to recognize they've already had a social network: Gmail.

They tried to develop Gmail into a social network in 2010 with Google Buzz [1]. It received a lot of backlash from people who did not want their email to be a social network. The social network they were not developing well was YouTube. Eventually, they figured it out, and it's estimated YouTube would be worth $550B as a standalone business today [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Buzz [2] https://variety.…

Buzz was weird because its main impact was killing another Google product, Orkut

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

#193

Post by bandrami » Sun, Aug 02, 2026, 9:15 AM UTC

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...

They moved the functionality from Firefox to Thunderbird IIRC, which seemed like a desperate attempt to get anyone to use Thunderbird.

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

#194

Post by ajsnigrutin » Sun, Aug 02, 2026, 10:18 AM UTC

firatsarlar wrote: post #176

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…

So we have ad blockers, ad blocker detectors.... But apparently no ad blocker blocker. Should I continue? Block the blockers by blocking the blockage... ouch.

There are adblock blockers... some sites detect the ad blocker and prevent you from visiting the site without ads... so yeah, you then don't visit the site.

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

#195

Post by piguin » Sun, Aug 02, 2026, 10:23 AM UTC

cwnyth wrote: post #123

mschild wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

[dead]

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

#196

Post by sylware » Sun, Aug 02, 2026, 10:48 AM UTC

Weird.

I download RSS from gogol: youtube channel information. Why, because the real evil of gogol and its friends: the whatwg cartel. Their web engines are technical abominations they pushed down the throat of the whole planet, because they actually control all (including the SDK then the computer language). How? They break on purpose interop with small tech web engines, aka noscript/basic HTML.

What's really annoying are major authorities unable to regulate that, namely force interop with small tech (network protocols/file formats)... like they know but are careful not to do anything with a significant impact. Well, In my EU country, this is decided at the top level: prime minister and president and that's it: this is a sorta proof that matter is actually really important. Everything started to go wrong from my EU country gov of 2015/2016 since they 'forgot'(ooopsie!) small tech web engines in the 'master document'.

There is still hope, once small tech is added again to this 'master document' (web engines, currated subset of network protocols and file formats), interop with small tech web engines (most are EU) will have to be added, in 3 years.

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

#197

Post by inigyou » Sun, Aug 02, 2026, 10:51 AM UTC

drnick1 wrote: post #81

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…

> 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…

I switched to a Firefox fork, but recently opened Firefox itself and was horrified to see the browser itself shoving ads in my face. Buy our VPN! Sign up to a Mozilla profile! Did you know about the extension store?

Firefox (the product) and Mozilla (the for-profit company) are lost causes. Firefox (the technology) is still there, for now.

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

#198

Post by inigyou » Sun, Aug 02, 2026, 10:59 AM UTC

InsideOutSanta wrote: post #16

monksy wrote: post #3

What did Google benefit from killing rss? Seems like that would help engagement on the web in general.

It's a decentralized solution in a world where google wants everything to go through google.

They could've added a Google-only feed type to Reader and encouraged authors to migrate to it using EEE. This is exactly what they tried to do with Usenet via Google Groups. (Google is now banned from Usenet)

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

#199

Post by pmdr » Sun, Aug 02, 2026, 11:03 AM UTC

drnick1 wrote: post #81

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…

> 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…

> It's not like ads weren't a thing 20 years ago. Pop-up windows were particularly bad.

Google pretty much declared war on those back then, providing reasonable-looking ad formats that could be integrated discreetly on the page (and as far as I remember, they had a limit of how many banners you could show). I really wish we could back to that. Now they serve animated/video ads.

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

#200

Post by TFNA » Sun, Aug 02, 2026, 11:17 AM UTC

Grombobulous wrote: post #129

al_borland wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In the early millennium, I read a wide variety of blogs on art, humanities, and the religious denomination I was part of. This audience trended non-techie and rather elderly, and yet in blog comments readers would often reveal in passsing that they were largely consuming blogs through RSS. The technology was much more accessible than you assume.