When I logged in to my FreshRSS installation running on a spare Mac mini server I noticed that the Autoblog RSS feed was having problems. It’s been a couple of days since I read articles on the site and a quick investigation shows the site had been sold and they discontinued the RSS feed.
I could subscribe to them through the normal Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or other social media platform but that is not a substitute for directly reading the articles through an RSS feed. Admittedly, Autoblog had switched to just including the headline in the RSS feed which was fine as I then clicked through to the article to read if necessary.
This is a consequence of the consolidation of news sites on the web. Some are shutting down, some are selling, and some are being rebranded with AI “authors.” In every case the quality of the news decreases and the site becomes a click aggregator only interested in making money and not dispensing news.
I remove these sites from my FreshRSS system and continue on. Sad, but it’s a fact of life as dedicated news is replaced by corporate greed.