I'm happily using Feedly ever since Google Reader got shut down. I genuinely would be missing out on a lot of content if people would stop providing RSS feeds, especially for blogs that only update very sporadically.
I pay for Feedly not because I'm interested in any of the Pro features, but because Google Reader taught me that you should pay for things you like so they will stick around.
Although your statement is generally true, I think the remaining flaw in that consideration is the subscription model. It makes you and your information source totally dependent on the whims of others. Sure, maybe they won't shut down, but maybe they will not refuse some insane buyout from a tech tyrant to capture the market and you and the information about you, if they aren't already selling that.
The general internet/application model of pre-fb is probably the only viable option going forward, where you pay or invest or buy into development projects like you would in one of those gofundme type things.
Sure. It's the old self-hosted vs cloud problem. I don't have the time or interest to host my own services, so I pay someone else to do it. That comes with its own risks, like you say, but I think the tradeoff is worth it. Having a functioning business model that isn't based on abusing their own users provides some insurance against those problems, I think.
Seconded. I've been a very happy user of Feedly for years.
If someone posts an interesting, valuable article, what's the probability they'll post more? Very high! I'm happy to subscribe to their content and enjoy their insights!
>I genuinely would be missing out on a lot of content if people would stop providing RSS feeds, especially for blogs that only update very sporadically.
For me, that's the real value of RSS even if, truth be told, I'm more inclined to just find stuff through Twitter, here, etc. these days. I agree on Feedly. For all the hate on Google shutting Reader down, I've always seen it as an effect of not many people using RSS rather than a cause.
(I'm also sympathetic to the srsly Google? How much effort would it have taken to keep it going? argument. But, as has frequently been mentioned, working on Reader would probably have been career suicide or at least a guarantee of stagnation for anyone involved given the way Google operates.)
I am using inoreader.com and never looked back. Even the free version is great. I use the paid version and it gives me all what I need. I can only recommend it.
I might be wrong but my impression is that feedly exists precisely because google closed its google reader service and offered to export your subscriptions to feedly. It would be majorly funny if they bought it "back".
Feedly is best of both worlds - you can use it as a plain linear feed reader, or let it use AI to sort your stuff by popularity and even discover feeds by keywords. Its price is on the steeper end tho, if you want to go pro.
I personally went the self-hosting route using FreshRSS and quite enjoy it. I couldn't really justify the monthly Feedly costs when I had server resources sitting around being wasted.
