Hacker News Reader

I still have reader bookmarked. I keep it next to my gmail bookmark as a reminder to not get overly invested in any one ecosystem/service.

While Reader still shares a place in my heart along with Firefly, I do wonder if it would have died an ecosystem death anyway? Blogging was on the decline, perhaps they sped it up but I don't think it would have held back the tide.

The media consumption landscape is too supercharged with quick hit fast-food to support long form profitably.

Can blogs be run non-profitably? Of course, but either the author is time/money rich, or they'll try and hop the influencer train.

Blogging for blogs sake seems to be destined for niche-ness.

But there are still so many blogs, and even successful companies who charge money for feed readers. It never really went away.

I imagine there's a world where Google, still in the RSS space, realized that newsletters were an oddly vibrant market, and were the ones who started alternate-universe Substack.

RIP google reader