Find solution
What's the difference between Atom and RSS feeds?

Why did news feeds (RSS/Atom) suddenly go out of fashion?

  • A few years ago every browser had an icon to the right in the location bar, and every site put icons for easily accessible newsfeeds. This trend seems to have gone away. Even in Chrome you have to have an extension just to use it ? (wtf?) Why? It was one of the greatest inventions in history ! Btw. RIP Aaron Schwartz (RSS co-author)

  • Answer:

    The question indicates the extreme power Google exerts over the net.  It kills Google Reader, and shortly thereafter questions of this sort are being asked.  What replaces reader for those seeking that which came to them via reader?  The answer is *search* and we know what company accounts for the majority of that activity. Alternatives to Google Reader exist, and are readily available. I see no significant drop-off in the RSS icon. Nor do I see sites removing it. The other comments on this, noting that there is no commercial aspect to RSS, make a strong point.  Moving these queries to search puts them in a commercial, ad supported environment, .

Dean Landsman at Quora Visit the source

Was this solution helpful to you?

Other answers

I think the average user switched to Twitter and Facebook for streaming-type news.

Miguel Paraz

This is my reasonable assumption that RSS feeds are ignored since it does not make any major company profitable. It was a naive information flow on internet where no out to the bank account of any company. If you look at the current variants of RSS feeds they are all collected as a commercial application as flip board or Google's Current app. Long story short internet does not favor free stuffs around.

Eren Golge

I think the reason Google killed reader (which as resulted shifted the relevance of it in today's desktop browsers and even sites ) was mainly due to Currents. Though it does not really replace Reader, it fills a similar roles and that is bringing content to you. I think Currents is better than Reader, it introduced magazine-like content consumption and podcast integration on top of a feed reader - yes you can indeed subscribe to RSS via Currents. Having said that, there is no desktop web app and it maybe a deal breaker for most people but is not a problem for me. By killing Reader, Currents took its place and shifted from being a redundant tool to a necessity for news junkies.

Vijay Kantavil

Really Simple Syndication, RSS, hasn't lost that much popularity, with users but as you point out browsers seem to have made it less main stream. Basically, it went to plugin status, simple because there weren't a lot of browser users who wanted it. Its, the cigarette lighter and ash tray for your car. Everyone had them then no one had them as standard equipment. Also, RSS, while still available from many sites, is not all that lucrative for the content producer. Its very anonymous; unlike E-Mail, Linkedin or even Twitter and therefore generates less ad income. So the feed button isn't likely to get very good placement.

Alan Cohen

Well... Some time ago a bunch of Internet conmen exploited that useful feature to drop their virus payload. While users were reading their feeds from their favourite online newspaper, they got channelled to malicious servers. Victims to this threats got blocked PCs until a format was needed to solve this issue...

Nicola Siliprandi

Related Q & A:

Just Added Q & A:

Find solution

For every problem there is a solution! Proved by Solucija.

  • Got an issue and looking for advice?

  • Ask Solucija to search every corner of the Web for help.

  • Get workable solutions and helpful tips in a moment.

Just ask Solucija about an issue you face and immediately get a list of ready solutions, answers and tips from other Internet users. We always provide the most suitable and complete answer to your question at the top, along with a few good alternatives below.