It wasn't just RSS. Google search now deprioritizes smaller sites.
"Ecosystems" have a network effect. If everyone is on Facebook and you want to be seen, you have to be on Facebook. But the open web is an ecosystem. If people are going to Google Reader or web search engines to find content then if you want to be seen you create a blog.
But then Google murdered them, which damaged the ecosystem. In theory you could create a new search engine and a browser with solid RSS support etc. and if that's what people start using then you get the open web back. But that's a) not that easy to do and b) would have to gain market share fast enough that the things you want to index haven't already atrophied and died.
So now we have to push the rock back up the hill and build something good enough that it can start gaining rather than losing usage share as an ecosystem, but this time learn from past mistakes. In particular, don't let anybody become a single point of failure like Google was when they decided to kill everybody.
"Ecosystems" have a network effect. If everyone is on Facebook and you want to be seen, you have to be on Facebook. But the open web is an ecosystem. If people are going to Google Reader or web search engines to find content then if you want to be seen you create a blog.
But then Google murdered them, which damaged the ecosystem. In theory you could create a new search engine and a browser with solid RSS support etc. and if that's what people start using then you get the open web back. But that's a) not that easy to do and b) would have to gain market share fast enough that the things you want to index haven't already atrophied and died.
So now we have to push the rock back up the hill and build something good enough that it can start gaining rather than losing usage share as an ecosystem, but this time learn from past mistakes. In particular, don't let anybody become a single point of failure like Google was when they decided to kill everybody.