On 1 July 2013 Google switched off Google Reader. It had been announced in March, as part of a “spring cleaning” of products, and the reaction was loud enough that it is still quoted every time Google closes something. Thirteen years on, it is worth looking at what happened to feeds after it.
Before: one giant and many small readers
For most of the 2000s there was a crowded market of web readers, FeedShow among them, along with Bloglines, Netvibes, Pageflakes, NewsGator and dozens of desktop programs. Google Reader, launched in 2005, slowly absorbed most of their users. It was free, fast and tied to an account almost everyone had. Many small readers did not close because they were bad, but because they could not compete with free.
Worse, a lot of apps did not even try. They used Google Reader as their back end to sync subscriptions, so when it went, they went too.
After: a scramble, then a quieter market
The months around the shutdown produced a rush of alternatives. Feedly, which until then had been a layer on top of Google Reader, moved to its own system and gained millions of users in a few weeks. Others, like Inoreader, The Old Reader and NewsBlur, grew quickly too. Open-source projects such as Tiny Tiny RSS saw a wave of new installations.
The market that came out of this was smaller than in 2010, but it had something it lacked before: services that charge money. Paid plans made readers sustainable, and many of the names from 2013 are still running today.
Three lessons
- Free has a price. A service that does not charge you is paid for by something else, and that something can change its mind.
- Your list is yours. Users who exported their OPML file lost nothing. That habit is still the best protection.
- Open formats survive companies. RSS outlived the reader that made it mainstream. Every feed people followed in 2013 that still exists can be read today, in any reader.
Where we are now
Feeds never became mainstream again, but they never died either. They power every podcast, they are quietly published by most websites, and in the last couple of years interest has picked up again among people tired of algorithmic timelines. If you are one of them, our list of the best readers in 2026 is a good place to start.
