There were plenty of RSS readers. Many browsers had them built in: Mozilla called them "Live Bookmarks" and even Safari once had an RSS reader. I used apps like Reeder and ReadKit and loved them, but my favorite apps were probably newsboat and newsbeuter (CLI RSS readers; newsbeuter goes back to 2007).
It's like people forgot that non-web-interface rss readers existed.
I still use some RSS reader apps to keep up with various sites I care about.
Also, remember that ever podcast is also an RSS feed.
> It's like people forgot that non-web-interface rss readers existed.
I'd wager that a lot of people never even knew these existed. To a lot of people, the browser became (or simply always was) the only real interface to everything internet related (or for some people, just about everything period).
It's like people forgot that non-web-interface rss readers existed.
I still use some RSS reader apps to keep up with various sites I care about.
Also, remember that ever podcast is also an RSS feed.