It was removed because

- pretty much nobody was using it;

- it's pretty easy to reimplement as an extension.

Championing the Free Web is harder if you also need to champion the dead web.

edit "nobody" => "pretty much nobody"

> - nobody was using it;

You'll need a source for that, since most Wordpress sites which constitute a HUGE part of the web have pretty much by default rss feeds. It's not because you are not using it that nobody is.

And even you premise was true (which is debatable), it cost absolutely nothing for Firefox to keep a functional RSS reader without putting much effort into it (or instead, you know, putting efforts in pushing ads to people who never wanted them).

> You'll need a source for that, since most Wordpress sites which constitute a HUGE part of the web have pretty much by default rss feeds. It's not because you are not using it that nobody is.

I'm not making it up. I don't remember the exact details – you'll have to look at the archives of the Mozilla dev-platform mailing list if you want them – but I seem to remember the usage was below 0.001% of users.

I personally read RSS with Thunderbird, which is a much better experience anyway.

> And even you premise was true (which is debatable), it cost absolutely nothing for Firefox to keep a functional RSS reader without putting much effort into it (or instead, you know, putting efforts in pushing ads to people who never wanted them).

It actually does. Every piece of software that you need to maintain is a tax. Paying the tax makes sense if the code is useful, not if it isn't.

Also, frankly, this implementation didn't bring anything to users. It wasn't nice to use. There are much better RSS readers than a browser – starting with RSS WebExtensions.

No. Not literally noone was using it. Just a colloquial 'noone' as in 'noone is using Firefox'.

Additional features that the average user does not want to use or care about creates confusion and a feeling of bloat. An official extension would be nice though.

Did users actually consume those WordPress RSS feeds using Firefox? I imagine most RSS users are going to use an RSS reader like Feedly, NewsBlur, or Google Reader (RIP). Those RSS readers don't require users to copy/paste RSS URLs. Users can search feeds by site or topic names.

Was it hard to maintain? Is RSS antithetical to the open Internet?

If the answer to both is no, they should have left it. I wish I could tell my parents to subscribe to some news sites and my website to see updates, so they dont' have to join some kind of mailing list... but I can't, because I'm not going to explain how to configure addons to my 70 year old.

Pocket is also easy to implement as an extension. In fact, it is an extension. But they bundled it with the browser.

And most people seem to be very happy about it.

Person here.

Very happy indeed. I discovered Pocket as a result of it being integrated and have been a very happy user ever since.

It's their own service.

It wasn't when they first did it.

I am aware. But the difference is Google wouldn't care and Mozilla at least did something, even if it wasn't removing the extension.

And it competed with Pocket.

Not really. People use Pocket. People don't use RSS in their browser.

Market research indicates that most people actually love RSS.

In their browser? Interesting. I would have thought people take the link to a reader/podcast-reader/torrent-app.

An implementation of RSS baked into the browser?

I'd be surprised. Do you have a source?

I don't know what intention you had when you posted that link but it clearly disproves that anyone uses the terrible built-in RSS reader in firefox.

Here, just take a look at the first response:

>Literally 99.99% of Firefox users did not use the built in RSS support[1].

>I love RSS! I also never used the built in Firefox RSS support because it was not very good. Mozilla also compiled a helpful list of alternative RSS readers for the 0.01% of users that used this feature and made it easy to export your feed list[2].

>[1] https://www.gijsk.com/blog/2018/10/firefox-removes-core-prod...

>[2] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/feed-reader-replacement...

Ok, so you're just trolling. Too bad.

Is the misstep with Pocket including it in the browser?

Yes. I like Pocket, but I can't see why it shouldn't be an extension that can be removed.

Intellectually, I agree, but

- it actually doesn't hurt;

- market research indicates that most people actually love it.

Literally 99.99% of Firefox users did not use the built in RSS support[1].

I love RSS! I also never used the built in Firefox RSS support because it was not very good. Mozilla also compiled a helpful list of alternative RSS readers for the 0.01% of users that used this feature and made it easy to export your feed list[2].

[1] https://www.gijsk.com/blog/2018/10/firefox-removes-core-prod...

[2] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/feed-reader-replacement...

Market research, in this particular case adoption rate, also indicates that people love giving all their privacy away to google.

Good point. But Pocket isn't harmful, especially if you don't use it. In the worst case, it makes the Firefox installer a few kb larger, that's about it.

The same could be said of the RSS support.

True. The big difference is that users use Pocket but didn't use RSS.

A lot of people have a really strong negative perception of pocket. That should be enough to be able to remove it.

Meaning the nontechnical set of users that don't go out of their way to disable telemetry, at least...

If you disable telemetry, Mozilla won't know about you. If you want Mozilla to cater for you, don't disable telemetry?

Telemetry should never be enabled by default without consent. Its a dark pattern.

It leaks information about my browsing history.

These "missteps" are the reason I don't use Firefox. With Chrome, I know Google are watching. But I also know only Google are watching. They're not bundling irremovable third party apps in with the browser, or installing extensions without my consent, or sending my entire browsing history to another third party.

Mozilla have done all these things, and when called out on it, they don't seem to realise they've done anything wrong. That crosses the line from naive to actively malicious.

They definitely have a few bad apples in management.

Market research show that noone used RSS/legacy addons/all the other customization options, yet Firefox market share somehow plummeted after they removed all of it.

Literally everything I liked about Firefox is gone, so I have no reason not to use Chrome instead anymore. They are mostly the same, Firefox is just uglier than Chrome now and I can't change that anymore.

Neither does RSS. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't Pocket developed outside of the main Mozilla tree?

I don't remember the current status. It's probably developed outside of the main Mozilla tree, as a number of other features.

But the big difference is that people actually use it.