So you're giving G credit for recognizing the world progressing before the rest of the world realizes? Or that the users just adapted to the loss of the product? Just trying to compare G killing software to Apple killing hardware. The transition away from SCSI and ADB to things like USB/FireWire/Thunderbolt, USB-A to USB-C, etc riles the masses during the transition, but ultimately it is the better decision.

To a first approximation, the "rest of the world" never knew what RSS was. Yes, Google kills random projects that have a passionate fan base. But they're mostly not products that actually have broad mainstream appeal.

I'm not really giving Google "credit" for anything. It's just that a lot of people want to identify a bogeyman in RSS's demise. But that bogeyman is really the collective us. There are still plenty of RSS feeds and at least a couple of decent clients for anyone who want to use RSS today.

Very few people using it seems the very definition of withering. Yes, a lot of sites and blog software etc. still default to offering RSS feeds. (Which I take advantage of from time to time and it's presumably used behind the scenes for various purposes.) But that's hardly a ringing endorsement of the role of RSS in today's world.

Why do you care if other people use it as long as it is available?

Because when things aren't used, organizations such as, say, Google tend to stop supporting them over time.

It’s been over a decade since Google abandoned reader. RSS is just a check box in most CMSs.

As ghaff mentioned, it’s the very definition. COBOL is still used by some old banks, but you’d still say it’s popularity has “withered.”