The Top 5 Reasons RSS Readers Went Wrong
Sam Diaz over at ZDNet wrote the following in a blog entry titled RSS: A good idea at the time but there are better ways now in response to an announcement of a new feature in Google Reader … I take issue with the title of Sam's post since …
Context & Ripple Effects
The critique of RSS readers is four years old by this point: a 2005 post called out RSS usability problems directly, and a 2006 piece dismissed feeds as little more than a glorified favorites feature. What is new on 26 August 2009 is that the argument has moved from design complaints to whether the format deserves to survive at all.
The trigger is a new Google Reader feature, announced the same day, which prompts ZDNet's Sam Diaz to publish 'RSS: A good idea at the time but there are better ways now'. Dare Obasanjo takes issue with that framing and answers with his own list of where readers went wrong — a direct rebuttal rather than a neutral roundup.
First-order effects
- Sam Diaz's ZDNet post hands mainstream-readership ammunition to the anti-RSS camp right as Google Reader ships a feature change, forcing Obasanjo and other feed advocates to defend the format on its own terms.
- Google Reader, already the dominant reader, becomes the de facto stage for the format debate: its product moves now shape public perception of whether RSS itself is obsolete.
Second-order effects
- Other reader makers face a positioning problem: they must either differentiate on fixing the usability flaws named in the 2005–2006 critiques or concede the consumption layer to whatever 'better ways' Google defines next.
- Publishers watching the debate have to weigh whether feed syndication still earns distribution, or whether attention is migrating to curated and social channels that don't expose raw feeds.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — open format, fragmented clients, persistent usability complaints since 2005 — feed reading consolidates around a few hosted platforms, trading openness for convenience and leaving the format's fate tied to one company's product priorities.
The trend: Web content consumption is drifting from user-pulled open feeds toward centrally controlled reading experiences, with the RSS reader's design failures cited as the reason.