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Comment by Dalewyn

1 day ago

Back like 15 to 20 years ago when I ran or helped manage some hobbyist websites, I added RSS functionality if only because it was "popular" back then.

I can confidently tell you not a single bloody soul used it, at the height of adoption no less.

If I run a website again I definitely won't bother, it's additional maintenance for a feature nobody uses. The cost-to-benefit ratio makes no sense because the benefit is zero.

It heavily depends on the target audience, I'd say. Especially if it's not ubiquitous.

  • The audience was hobbyist game developers and people generally interested in computers, so if they didn't use RSS then frankly I don't know who will (and clearly, speaking now in the future, noone has).

In an effort to bypass Google News and broaden my media bubble - I tried to find RSS feeds from our national newspapers. Most had RSS at some point, but almost none still had it running.