The death of social media is the renaissance of RSS (2025)

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Enthusiasm for RSS and Current Usage

  • Many commenters still use RSS daily and express nostalgia, especially for Google Reader.
  • A wide ecosystem exists: hosted services, self-hosted backends, desktop/mobile readers, browser extensions, and RSS-to-email workflows.
  • Cross-device sync is a major desire; some solve it via self-hosted aggregators plus multiple clients, or by using email as the sync layer.

Limits, UX, and Mainstream Adoption

  • Several argue RSS will remain a niche “power-user” tool. Reasons cited:
    • Most people don’t want to manually curate sources; they prefer algorithmic feeds.
    • RSS often needs explaining; terminology (“RSS” vs “web feed”) and ugly XML views put off non-technical users.
    • Core browser integration and clear UI cues (like the old RSS icon) have largely disappeared.
  • Others counter that users don’t need to know the underlying tech; an RSS-based product can hide the protocol and “just work,” as podcast apps do.

Discovery, Algorithms, and Social Graph

  • RSS excels at letting you follow exactly what you choose and avoid unsolicited or “AI slop” content. Unfollow is the main quality control.
  • Weakness: discovery. You typically must already know which sites or blogs to subscribe to.
  • Past solutions (e.g., Google Reader’s social layer, “planet” aggregators) are missed.
  • Many predict that if RSS grows again, algorithmic discovery layers will emerge on top.
  • Some see this as inevitable and fine, so long as base RSS remains open; others fear recreating the same engagement-driven problems.

AI and RSS

  • Some say the real consumers now are LLMs, not humans.
  • Opinions diverge:
    • One camp: LLMs can replace RSS by scraping any site and turning it into a structured feed, plus doing better filtering and local content copies.
    • Another camp: RSS is lightweight, precise, energy-efficient, and ideal as input to optional AI/ML filters rather than being replaced by them.
    • Several note RSS cannot inherently filter AI-generated content; users must choose non-slop sources.

Economics and Content Quality

  • Concerns that RSS and especially LLM summaries undermine ad-driven sites and content creators.
  • Some argue this will kill SEO-driven clickbait and leave hobbyists or paid products, potentially improving honesty and quality.
  • Others doubt people will keep writing if their work is primarily consumed via third-party aggregators or AI systems they don’t control.