How Google's actions contributed to the decline of RSS feed adoption
Overview: Google's pattern of embracing then dropping RSS
Google repeatedly added RSS features to its products to gain user trust, then removed those features after locking users in, which harmed confidence in RSS and contributed to its declining adoption.
Chrome RSS button removal
The removal of the built‑in RSS subscribe button from Chrome eliminated a low‑friction discovery path for feeds. Early versions of Chromium included an RSS icon in the location bar that appeared when a site offered a feed; the button disappeared without notice and no reason was given for its removal.
FeedBurner acquisition and service cuts
After acquiring FeedBurner in 2007, Google restricted developer access and later stripped core services, leaving many users with broken feeds. Google shut down the FeedBurner APIs in October 2012, preventing third‑party integrations, and in July 2022 removed most FeedBurner services that users depended on, including email subscriptions.
Google Reader shutdown
Shutting down Google Reader in 2013 removed a widely used RSS reader and discouraged continued RSS use. Google announced the shutdown citing declining usage, but an engineer remarked that it "felt like the entire time I was on the project, various people were trying to kill it." Users were left with no comparable alternative and no guidance on continuing to use RSS feeds.
Google Alerts RSS removal and reinstatement
Removing RSS delivery from Google Alerts (then reinstating after backlash) showed how quickly Google could drop RSS support, eroding trust. Google added RSS to Alerts in October 2008, removed it in July 2013 with no clear reason, and later restored the option after user backlash, but many had already abandoned RSS by that time.
Chrome RSS extension removal/reinstatement
Removing and quickly reinstating the Chrome RSS extension highlighted low priority for RSS within Google. Google provided an extension that placed an RSS icon next to a URL; it was removed in March 2013, reinstated within a week after backlash with a claim it was removed by mistake, yet the episode damaged user confidence in relying on Google for RSS.
Google News RSS deprecation
Deprecating and then ending RSS support in Google News forced users to find alternatives while Google’s own links kept working. Google News launched in 2002 with RSS support, deprecated old RSS feed URLs in December 2017, and then shut down RSS feed support entirely, giving no reason and leaving users to replace feeds manually.
Ongoing uncertainty: Chrome RSS experiment
Google’s 2021 experiment to bring RSS back to Chrome remains unlaunched, leaving users doubtful about future commitment. In May 2021 Google announced an experiment to restore RSS support in Chrome, but as of the article’s publication in August 2023 there had been no official launch, reinforcing the pattern of tentative support followed by abandonment.
Community perspective: comments on motives and alternatives
Commenters offer additional insight into why Google’s actions resonated and why RSS persists despite them.
"The Internet in the early 2000s felt a little more special as compared to today, when 99.999 % of content is locked in a handful of walled gardens. … RSS wasn’t in the interest of the big platforms as it’s decentralized and there’s no good way to deliver ads through it, simple as that." — @throwaway63467
"Google’s obviously fake excuse for killing their RSS reader (declining usage) was especially maddening at the time because they were pushing Google+ - which nobody used." — @bakemawaytoys
"Feeds still have a lot of inertia, at least. Most blogs generate them out of the box, and Wordpress being as predominant as it still is means you can still find them even where you don't expect to. … What I think is really missed is the social component that Reader had, which you still can't really find even with the variety of great readers that came in its wake." — @AlexAplin
"Just why bother relying on Google products for RSS? I use for the last many years NetNewsWire and have never had any problems reading the news I want to read." — @konsalexee
"When chrome took the stage, it was the only popular browser that didn't display rss feeds XML in a readable way. It still does not to this day." — @smusamashah
"Don't forget Mozilla removing Live Bookmarks (RSS feeds showed up directly in your bookmarks menu) and RSS feed subscriptions in Firefox 64." — @orzi
"And they shut down Google Podcasts, migrating it to YouTube Music. The podcast ecosystem is open and RSS-based. YouTube Music is closed." — @logn
"It makes me think if YouTube’s subscription feed will meet the same fate as RSS. It’s basically RSS for YouTube, in the sense that it’s a chronological feed of channels you directly follow." — @fiatpandas
"To be fair: youtube is one of the very few social media sites that still support RSS." — @hecmmm
"There are far, far more RSS feeds today than there were when Google Reader died. Google has not destroyed adoption of RSS feeds at all." — @blackqueeriroh
"Cause and effect seem reversed here. The feed aggregator is the most easily replaceable part of RSS, so if RSS were actually popular, it shouldn't have even mattered that Google killed Reader or those Chrome features. The harder part is getting RSS content, and YouTube is one hold-out supporting that." — @frollogaston
These perspectives suggest that while Google’s moves weakened RSS’s mainstream visibility, the format remains alive in niche and technical communities, and its decline is also tied to broader shifts toward walled‑garden platforms, limited monetization, and the loss of social features that once made RSS readers compelling.
Conclusion
Google’s pattern of embracing RSS to attract users and then withdrawing support has repeatedly shaken confidence in the format, contributing to its reduced mainstream adoption. Yet RSS continues to be used by those who value an open, ad‑free way to follow content, and the ecosystem persists through independent readers and services.