Earlier quoted context omitted.
For HackerNews readers, and also for me that's probably true. However, the popularity of Twitter would indicate to me otherwise.
Twitter became popular because Firefox / Chrome got rid of their in-navbar subscribe button and Google didn't advertise Reader. They had incentives to monetize doing things their own way, and every average joe who would go to twitter would have the easy path to just using what is in front of them or having to discover feeds in the page info, install an addon to return the subscribe button, and find an RSS application…
I feel like this is a case of the tech savy being somewhat removed from the majority of the web's consumer base. Honestly, I've had a surprisingly large amount of trouble explaining something like IRC/RSS to someone like my parents or my non-techy friends. I try to explain that IRC is just like any other chat room, but honestly it's incredibly scary and unattractive to most people.