That's an extremely rare edge case that fails to justify your point spectacularly.

I thought the comment says "it was an absolute dream for consumers" but actually it says "it's". Sorry to burst your bubble, if you ask any normal person who does not spend 10 hours on HN per week, chances are that they have never heard of the term RSS in their life.

I think there are a lot of us out there in fact. Managing a queue of feeds in an RSS reader is much more pleasant than having newsletters mixed with email. Separation of purpose is a good thing for most, imho

Does not help that the browsers killed native RSS support. To bring up the infamous example, many normal people were using Google Reader.

Nearly everyone I know has a favorite podcast. Even if they never heard of RSS, they are probably using it.

It's a bit sad that you get heavily downvoted but it shows that they have a completely distorted view of reality.

I still use RSS but I am completely with you on this. Most people, even those who work in tech related fields very rarely know what RSS is and when you explain it to them, they mostly don't care.

I have had a very nice example where I explained what RSS/Feedly was to an interested graphic artist/designer (pretty competent with computers, spends all day on it). Once she got it, she told ME it was basically the same as email newsletter or subscribing to a Facebook page, Twitter feed or things like that. Which of course it is.

So, she couldn't be bothered to try the thing and set it up. I completly get it. For those who are used to it, it makes sense. If you already have your subscription stuff managed elsewhere, it's just more work for little benefits for most people.

What's more RSS actually inverse the responsibility in the relation, and you become the one who has to manage long term changes. Some feeds change URLs and I don't even notice it and you need a specific software to read them, which might be paid and might change overtime. And unlike emails, you can't even archive it easily, you need another software or a reader that has the functionality.

It's just a hassle and the reason most people don't care is because they can get the same benefits without paying for anything or having to manage/learn new stuff.

RSS is just a technology that matches an idealism about the world, very prevalent in the optimist technophile sphere. But the reality is that people don't want to make that much effort for some dubious "advantage" and they are right.

Oops, apparently people don't like me saying some truth out loud.