> Google Reader deprecation probably hurt RSS more than anything else

And, indeed, if the protocol was one killer app deprecation and removal away from being obsolete, the problem was the use case, not the protocol.

(Personally, I don't think RSS is dead; it's very much alive in podcasting. What's dead is people consuming content from specific sites as a subscription model instead of getting most of their input slop-melanged in through their social media feeds; they don't care about the source of the info, they just want the info. I don't think that's something we fix with improved RSS support; it's a behavior issue looking for a better experience than Facebook, not for everyone to wake up one day and decide to install their own feed reader and stop browsing Facebook or Twitter or even Mastodon for links all day).

It wasn't just one killer app deprecation/removal away. RSS was also integrated into browsers at one point, and then removed. You wouldn't need a social media feed if your browser home page already gave you your timeline, and if it were trivial for any web page to add a "subscribe" button. But instead of known, proven use-cases that have clear demand, we get Javascript APIs for niche stuff like flashing firmware onto USB devices.