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About a decade ago, the average internet user might well have heard of RSS. Really Simple Syndication, or Rich Site Summary—what the acronym stands for depends on who you ask—is a standard that websites and podcasts can use to offer a feed of content to their users, one easily understood by lots of different computer programs. Today, though RSS continues to power many applications on the web, it has become, for most people, an obscure technology.
The story of how this happened is really two stories. The first is a story about a broad vision for the web's future that never quite came to fruition. The second is a story about how a collaborative effort to improve a popular standard devolved into one of the most contentious forks in the history of open-source software development.
Who killed RSS?
[NB: SoylentNews supports syndicated feeds — scroll to the bottom of almost any page on the site (for certain it is on the main page) and you will see links to our Atom and RSS feeds. --Ed].
(Score: 5, Insightful) by chromas on Monday January 14 2019, @11:32PM (5 children)
Mozilla tried
(Score: 3, Funny) by RandomFactor on Monday January 14 2019, @11:43PM (1 child)
RSS is dead?
I keep missing memos.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 5, Funny) by DECbot on Tuesday January 15 2019, @04:47AM
Have you tried manually updating your feeds? That usually works for me.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2) by driverless on Tuesday January 15 2019, @03:06AM
Oooh, oooh, I know this one: This is why it died [youtube.com].
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 15 2019, @08:39AM
It's sad that some pages have built in feeds but no button to click to subscribe. The usual fix is to view source and ctrl+f "rss".
I don't think I could stand using the internet without it tho.
All my webcomics have RSS, I get my youtube subscription feed via RSS, I get notified of available software updates via RSS and of course I get my news with it too.
The only person I've successfully converted to it is my mother. Other people wish they'd get updates in their twitter feed so they don't have to check multiple feeds but they still want the shackle on one foot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 15 2019, @12:05PM
-1 redundant
Mozilla tries to kill all sorts of things all over the place.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by TechieRefugee on Monday January 14 2019, @11:46PM (7 children)
Considering I get a good bit of info through RSS (actually I was a bit of a late bloomer to this, I only started using it last April or so), yeah nobody.
How long until "The Rise and Demise of IRC"? "The Rise and Demise of FTP"?
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 15 2019, @12:31AM (4 children)
FTP will never F%&%ing die, no matter how many times I try to explain to people that a plaintext protocol that is older than they are isn't really the best choice in the 21st Century. That damned protocol will outlive every one of us.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday January 15 2019, @11:59AM (3 children)
I plan to write a FTP server in COBOL when I retire, link to immortal pieces of technology together.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 15 2019, @12:07PM
It's been done [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 15 2019, @01:33PM
its funny, on my home network, or over the 2048 bit aes-256 vpn, regular ftp seems to fit my needs just fine.
i dont add locks, not even privacy locks, on my refrigerator door and other points of the home that, technically, could be made less useful because someone else is insecure and has no concept as to how I use things.
maybe they should just tell their friends to use sftp or ftps and point them to lets encrypt if for some reason the home or private network really needs a public certificate for encryption, or teach them how to make a private cert and import it so the computers using it don't keep displaying scary errors that they didn't buy into a public system for transactions that are not public.
(Score: 2) by DavePolaschek on Tuesday January 15 2019, @02:26PM
Not a gopher server? I think you're missing out on a big chunk of the market!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 15 2019, @12:39AM (1 child)
I actually hope FTP dies soon... it's a more complex protocol than people give it credit for. Consider setting up firewall rules for HTTP or SSH... pretty darned simple, open 443 or 22; done. Now FTP on the other hand.. 21 plus a port range and to cap it all off there's no encryption https://www.mdjnet.dk/router.html [mdjnet.dk]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 15 2019, @09:13AM
TEXT and binary transfer mode... the most awkward option in a protocol if you ask me.
(Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Monday January 14 2019, @11:47PM (2 children)
RSS works just fine. It's just that it's not as profitable if people visit a news site one item at a time, instead of using the front page or an app, which are crammed with ads.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Tuesday January 15 2019, @03:20PM
*this*
the signal to noise of RSS is almost useful...
the signal to noise of news site is almost useless...
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Wednesday January 16 2019, @05:09AM
No, RSS is a piece of shit. Have you tried implementing a complete RSS client?
First thing you might do is find the spec doc. Oh wait, there is no spec. Actually, there are two or three different specs. Well, there used to be multiple specs, I hear that now there's a single RSS 2.0 spec. The spec sucks though. You'll have to make sure you support every version of the spec as well. Also, there are lots of RSS providers that don't follow any of those specs, and you have to support them anyway because users will complain.
Here's post written by someone who has written an RSS client: https://nullprogram.com/blog/2013/09/23/ [nullprogram.com]
RSS should go die in a fire. Once I finish fixing up my site, I'll be sure to provide Atom and specifically not provide RSS.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Apparition on Tuesday January 15 2019, @12:28AM (4 children)
It's as dead as bulletin board systems, IRC, MUDs, and whatever else the general Internet-using populace has no clue ever existed but people with a clue still use today just fine.
Heck, I've even been contemplating starting up my own BBS over SSH and becoming a FidoNet node.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 15 2019, @01:16AM (2 children)
I've been thinking of going back to USENET. I'm sure this "world wide web" thing is just a fad.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday January 15 2019, @04:58PM (1 child)
USENET? Why bother when you can just be dialing up individual BBSes???
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by Apparition on Tuesday January 15 2019, @11:38PM
Exactly!
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 15 2019, @03:11AM
channel, which is connected to the clearnet one. There are at least two Synchronet based BBSes up on it (not sure if either has automated registration, so they may be accessible to new users), plus Retroshare has nodes all across it. For that matter there are a few Tor based BBSes as well, not including the large number of clearnet ones still in operation.
Even better, dosbox has outbound TCP/IP serial modem emulation that can allow your dos era clients to connect over telnet to remote hosts allowing you to use all your favorite classic DOS dialup communications programs to connect. Although it is likely you will have to manually dial them with ATDT hostname:portnum, since most dialers used fixed format addressbooks based on the domestic phone number format :(
Enjoy!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 15 2019, @12:36AM (4 children)
New users have started using the internet skipping the details of how this internet came to be and the older and recent history. They just want to visit "their" facebook page and upload a rectangle of pixels to it.
Also, websites spy on their users, whether they came from RSS or whatever and nobody likes it except the spies. When it comes to volunteering your details to the internet, less is more.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Tuesday January 15 2019, @12:48AM (3 children)
Now They Are Coming For RSS
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Tuesday January 15 2019, @05:43AM
If you give stuff away for free, you must be a Commie/Socialist/enemy of the state, so you deserve to die.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Hyper on Tuesday January 15 2019, @10:56AM
‘Do you not know that a protocol is not dead while its name is still spoken?’
- Sir Terry Pratchett
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 15 2019, @11:03AM
They can pry my pipedot feed from my cold dead clammy hands.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by VLM on Tuesday January 15 2019, @12:45AM
I suspect its propaganda along the lines of "when did you stop beating your wife?" leading questions.
I certainly don't see much change in use or quantity of info from my newsblur use.
My guess is "big social media" is dying so a short term reaction is to declare everything else dead especially competitors.
Also this topic comes up every six months in the news cycle much like the old days when "LSD is coming back" was a standard every six months topic in the 80s for legacy media. Its possible there really isn't any story at all other than this gets run every couple months/years as a filler. Not so much here, but on clickbait sites that get picked up etc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 15 2019, @04:09AM (1 child)
Maybe we should learn some English before RSSing our crap all over the place.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 15 2019, @08:23AM
"Whom" is deprecated. Everyone uses Whobook and Whotter now.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by aim on Tuesday January 15 2019, @09:14AM
I'm one of the many users of TT-RSS. My list of feeds in there is rather long. It's my main, if not only, means of keeping up-to-date on news from all over.
That list of feeds has (english, french, german language) sources from all over Europe, GB, the USA - the kind of "serious" media I read have all kept their RSS/atom feeds in place and keep them updated. I don't see them going anywhere.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 15 2019, @02:16PM (1 child)
I first saw this post in my RSS reader. I can get my information much quicker in one reader than if I visit every web site that I use RSS for. I would most likely not visit most of the sites very often if I had to use a web browser. I also liked it when twitter could be accessed by my reader. I only use twitter to get information I want, I never post.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by iWantToKeepAnon on Tuesday January 15 2019, @08:24PM
I have scrapers for twitter and instagram so I have to exit tt-rss less and deal with aggravating infinite scroll ui's less.. There is a secret youtube url to turn any channel to a feed ("secret" url found via web search). This story was read over RSS. I am considering web scraping FB so I don't need to visit that site anymore either.
I guess if it totally dies I'll be busy writing more scrapers. :/ I refuse to go the iOS way of 1 app per site; WTH?
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy