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RSS isn't for hackers, it's for infovores. The same people who make the majority of pageviews on the internet, oh and also make most of the pages on the web. It's for a minority, but that minority is the very tip-top of the most hardcore users of the web. It's not going away.

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It is worth mentioning a large part of the reason RSS is so reclusive is that none of the browsers kept the "subscribe via RSS" button in the nav bar Firefox had 6 years ago. Back then it was one click to add feeds to the browser, and anyone could use it. Now you have to go out of your way looking for it.

I remember the FF bugs for removing it suggested only 7 percent of people used it. What frustrates me is that 7 percent x web scale is not a small figure; and many of those were curators - prepping info for others.

7 percent x web scale is not a small figure

Not sure if they still do this, but Mozilla used to give new hires a little toy and say, "This is your million users; try not to abuse them too much." That concept is built-in to the culture there. Why take up space and memory for the 93% of users who don't use that feature, when an add-on can do just as good a job for the 7%?

The road to UX hell is paved with minor feature requests.

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