Every once in a while some random journalist decides to cry foul about the demise of Google Reader and the death of the Open Web, but the 2013 redesigns of Twitter and Facebook seem more likely to be the cause, both in functionality and policies.

It was very clear cut at the time, Twitter did a 180° and left RSS along with lean HTML and got super slow and noisy (so much for adtech.) Facebook started changing its appearance compulsively and adding random crap. Then it removed itself from search engines for vendor-lock maxima.