The RSS header is often still present. It's browsers that stopped supporting it.

Not really, I have a browser extension that still shows it. Super rare now, which isn't surprising, because like you say the browsers don't show it by default anymore.

Right. Browsers stopped supporting it. Defaults matter. You can add a plugin for any obscure thing.

I'm not sure what your point is, but I think we're basically agreeing? RSS and decentralized hosting used to be normal until the bigcorps got greedy and started manipulating the masses (by removing features from browsers and such) into believing walled gardens are the only way.

i think your point is that RSS used to be a norm on the consumption side, and is no longer; and GP's point is that it still is a norm on the publishing side, such that for the users who care -- like yourself -- the practical difference is not that large.

beeboobaa is saying basically the opposite: that they have RSS detection enabled, but many fewer sites/publishers have RSS or have the autodiscovery tag for it, and they're saying that's an understandable effect of the browsers no longer supporting it.

maybe it's a matter of degree then. enough publishers still support RSS that i can still use it exclusively and not miss much. maybe my reader is doing more magic to find the feeds than it used to?

there's the weird email newsletter format (say, Matt Levine's column) which completely ignores RSS, but that's probably tangential to the argument. the biggest offenders i see are less $BIGCO and more individual developers who roll their own blog and overlook RSS. but in that latter camp, every off-the-shelf publishing system or static site generator gets RSS support by the time i'm liable to encounter it in the wild, whether the operator knows it's there or not.