One Big Fluke

From More innovation means less control. Is that bad? Emphasis added:

The conventional wisdom, which is conventional but not wisdom, says that RSS is obsolete because now we have Twitter and other social things. Techcrunch even said "In essence, Twitter is a big RSS reader."

In fact, Twitter is not a big RSS reader. RSS is something you control, and Twitter is something other people control. (Even if you dedicate a Twitter account exclusively to the same sources of content you had in Google Reader, the viewing options, functionality and everything about Twitter is controlled by Twitter.) That both give you streams of content is a superficial similarity. Fundamentally, they are opposites.

What Google Reader and RSS fans fear is not the loss of a good service and a great format. They fear the loss of control. They fear a future in which decisions about what they see, watch, read and listen to are determined by secret algorithms and the whims of the social media masses.