Is RSS still alive? I'm asking this out of curiosity. I've stopped using RSS long time ago. It has nothing to do with Google Reader. I've stopped using RSS before Google Reader died.
There are certain technologies that are no longer considered sexy, but are extremely powerful for people who select the right tools and invest a little time in learning how to get the most out of them.
Text editors like vim and emacs; email clients like mutt; NNTP clients and text-only Usenet groups; RSS feed readers...
In 2018 it is reasonably hard to find RSS feeds. There are no good directories, people are not sharing their OPML files (not in articles nor <link> elements)
Finding smaller websites in 2018 is even harder. There are no good directories, people are not sharing their favorite websites but if they do their audience is so microscopic that it doesn't reach you.
I sort of ended up building my own box of tricks. Talking about those mostly generates feedback from the RSS oblivious who moan about RSS being dead and praising the glory of walled gardens that have some laughably inferior news implementation. (I'm not complaining, if not an accurate description it is an understatement)
The way I see it I would prefer to glorify with my subscription the (perhaps low audience) websites that really deserve it. People who worked to write and record things I'm interested in and ran that extra mile to make it informative.
But who cares about that if you can have the fcebook and twitter type of walled echo chambers?
It is not so much that RSS is dying. Why even make a website if you cant find readers for it? Arguably the whole concept of a website is changing from providing information for free to hard-sell commerce.
That said, while it is certainly getting more difficult every year to find new subscriptions, it can be done.
If you continue to put in the effort to find more you will reach a sweet spot where the number of dead feeds matches the number of new finds. One week you will be very happy with the results the next might be a sad display of the large older news outlets. It may give the impression of slow death.
It is rather weird... do you just delete feeds that don't work? Do you crawl the dead list every week? How long does it have to be dead before you purge it? Did it just move? Is the website it self still there? How valuable is its content to you?
Then, to repeat myself, since everyone and their mum is pretty much locked into walled gardens there is this huge echo chamber effect where, much like TV in the 80's, everyone is talking about the same topics. Trying to filter those out feels like reanimating a corps.
However: It continues to be worth it to find original thought. If I have to crawl the entire internet to find that last blogger who isn't parroting Ruppert Murdoch or Donald Trump ~ I will.
A long story short, if RSS is dead you've killed her. (lol)
Text editors like vim and emacs; email clients like mutt; NNTP clients and text-only Usenet groups; RSS feed readers...