[winternett]

They killed RSS because there was no solid means for data providers to ration, monetize and control individual access to their content. The decline of availability for RSS feeds wasn't based on waning popularity from what I observed. Back then RSS feeds simply went offline in droves, as everyone scrambled to figure out how in the heck to implement OAuth, and most people gave up trying to implement feeds after they came with monthly fees and when OAuth was forced on us by Twitter and Facebook etc... I'd even go as far as to say the requirements introduced for OAuth mainly served the horrible purpose of turning connecting to most (previously free and open) data sources into a fee based and tightly controlled commodity economy that made everyone go closed-data after external data became too janky, costly, and difficult to support.