How Google helped destroy adoption of RSS feeds (2023)

# Summary Google systematically undermined RSS feed adoption through an "Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish" strategy, building products around the open RSS protocol to gain users before removing RSS support and locking them in. Key examples include removing the RSS button from Chrome, shutting down Google Reader in 2013 after years of user reliance, limiting FeedBurner functionality, and removing RSS from Google Alerts—actions that left users with no alternatives and discouraged broader RSS adoption. This pattern represents a threat to internet openness while allowing Google to consolidate market control over web content distribution.