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  • Hacker News
  • You never know what will be someone's straw-that-broke-the-camels-back moment, but this was it for me. Nothing in this post was new news, but despite that, seeing it written down in one place made me realize just the type of person, I mean company, that you are and what you really want, Google. For too long I've been holding on to the "do no evil" person, I mean company, that you once were. But now it's clear to me... you're a toxic friend. We've been drifting apart for years, but now it's official... we're breaking up. I'm sure there's a person, I mean company, out there for me. One that will treat me right, be good to me, and respect me as a person and I'm going to find it.
    by mattsimpson
  • Agree. It was the watershed moment that represented the break from "don't be evil", a cheeky slogan that was remarkably effective at conveying a sense of what they were about by talking about what they were trying not to be.
    by glenstein
  • Feeds still have a lot of inertia, at least. Most blogs generate them out of the box, and Wordpress being as predominant as it still is means you can still find them even where you don't expect to. Even social media profiles can compress into feeds with a little help from solutions like Nitter (or in Bluesky's case, offered natively). What I think is really missed is the social component that Reader had, which you still can't really find even with the variety of great readers that came in its wake.

    I know I will probably just migrate them to RSSHub when the time calls, but YouTube's channel and playlist feeds have been such a great way to follow a large number of creators. I'm still holding my breath for the day they unceremoniously stop working.

    by AlexAplin
  • And they shut down Google Podcasts, migrating it to YouTube Music. The podcast ecosystem is open and RSS-based. YouTube Music is closed.
    by logn
  • Fun fact, youtube channels have proper Atom feeds that you can subscribe to from most feed readers out there.

    Here's @realcountbinface's feed: https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UClAxTtZ...

    by jillesvangurp
  • EFF recently pointed out to some RSS feed readers as part of below article:

    Hate “The Algorithm?” RSS Is One of the Tools You’ve Been Looking For https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/06/hate-algorithm-rss-one...

    by pss314
  • I think the core issue is that it is hard to sell why you need an RSS, especially for the average user. It would not be uncommon to meet an IT professional who has at best heard the term, but never really tried to delve further. Sadly by the time the average internet dweller hears of RSS, their mind is already so ingrained in the "usual" browsing experience that anything that is out of the ordinary feels instinctively wrong, even if it clearly has multiple merits.
    by GrayHerring
  • I remember in middle school we had to do a preso on a web technology. I chose RSS. Nobody had heard of it before. After seeing my preso, nobody cared.

    I stopped using it not long after. Think the problem is people don't care enough to put in the time curating a feed.

    by frollogaston
  • I don't think the average person has to be taken into account all the time. There are millions of companies providing products and services which the average person has no interest in. Most books and music has no appeal to the average person, neither do most sports or hobbies.
    by carlosjobim
  • 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.

    by dabinat
  • Ironically HN don’t have feed…
    by mococa
  • I think simply because they are not aware of RSS
    by johanyc
  • It seems to me like the common pattern these days is to ask for notification permissions instead.
    by mathieudombrock
  • 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.
    by ikiris
  • Because you can't serve ads as nicely over RSS
    by wildzzz
  • RSS is a free way to reach almost no one.
    by basilikum
  • I've used it on every blog I've ever built (https://blog.tombert.com/index.xml) because it's super easy to set up, but I really don't know anyone who uses RSS in any serious capacity.

    That said, stuff like BBC actually does maintain an RSS feed: https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/rss.xml

    by tombert
  • 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

    by konsalexee
  • What's the Android option?
    by richie_adler
  • No Android or Windows availability?
    by venusenvy47
  • And he includes a Safari plugin to get an RSS button back into the interface for easy subscribing (on Mac).
    by carlosjobim
  • I mean you're right, but also Google had one of the legitimately best options at the time and massive visibility and seemingly credible institutional commitment. And it was early to a scene of web based always online RSS readers when before that they were typically desktop-based. And on desktop portability was achievable but not as convenient. With reader it was nearly effortless.

    While it was definitely possible to use alternatives, it effectively became king of the mountain which gave it the power to deal a punishing blow to RSS once they pulled the plug.

    I will just say it was a very different time and at the time I didn't regard Google as a place that didn't make credible commitments to new products. But big picture I think you're right.

    by glenstein
  • 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...

    by orzi
  • Somebody used Live Bookmarks?
    by TiredOfLife
  • Did any other browser ever have this?
    by culi
  • They moved the functionality from Firefox to Thunderbird IIRC, which seemed like a desperate attempt to get anyone to use Thunderbird.
    by bandrami
  • Google Reader going away felt like the beginning of the end the internet as I knew it. I miss websites
    by betenoire
  • Yeah. There honestly was a purity to the disconnected nature of shitty Geocities and Angelfires pages, where filled with amateurs writing shitty HTML just because they thought it would be cool to have their own web site.

    That's not a dig, to be clear. I was one of those kids writing shitty HTML for Geocities.

    I don't hate the modern internet, but I feel like there's roughly now about ~10 sites that I visit frequently, whereas when I was a teenager there were lots more. Maybe it's just my "old man yells at cloud" moment.

    by tombert
  • I'm still bitter about Google Reader going away. I endorse this sentiment.
    by danesparza
  • "I miss websites". Damn that hit. I realise the only place pushing me to an actual website these days are my RSS feeds (self hosted FreshRSS), and HN. Maybe very occasional share on LinkedIn.
    by adamm255