Really Simple Syndication¶
If you don’t already, you should use an RSS(/Atom) reader.
I was reading about Troy Hunt’s experience getting phished today, and it made me wonder why people sign up for e-mail lists. RSS is older than some of my co-workers, and Atom came out before the iPhone. This recent surge in newsletters is nice, and certainly evokes some old-web nostalgia, but I feel like it’s worse in every way to sign up for an e-mail list than it is to subscribe to an RSS feed. Not only that, but feeds are better than basically every other way people get notified that there’s new content for them.
E-mail news letters go to the inbox with communications from banks and landlords. Anything unread in my feed reader gets hidden after 3 weeks, but anything unread in my e-mail client makes me feel like I’m neglecting important responsibilities.
More importantly, though, feed readers put your subscriptions under your control. There’s no risk that the administrator of an RSS feed sells your details to spammers, or accidentally leaks them like the aforementioned world renowned expert on account information leaks, because there’s no administrator. If you decide you don’t want to see a particular feed any more, you just instruct your reader to stop fetching it. There’s no sending of mail or clicking of unsubscribe links. Nothing changes in the content creator’s system; they don’t even need to know it happened.
Even worse than e-mail newsletters is stuff like following subreddits or facebook feeds or subscribing to YouTube channels. Those social media sites want your attention, and to the extent they can get it by showing you stuff you didn’t ask for, that’s what they’ll do. Instead of following people on BlueSky, you can subscribe to their feed. If you ever feel like doomscrolling, you still can. But wouldn’t it be nicer to just be notified when Aunt Edna has new cat pictures up without having to go and check? And without running the risk that you’ll see a post by Uncle Steve about how that politician you hate is doing everything right?
You, the consumer of the content, want to know when there’s new content from the people you like. Producers of content want you to know when they have something new to consume. RSS is made for this! Even better, there are already ways to get feeds from social sites.
I don’t particularly mind if the full content isn’t available in the reader. I don’t need to sabotage content creators’ analytics or advertising revenue. I just want to be notified when there’s a reason to go to their site.
Think about it. Do you really want to scroll through pages of stuff chosen for you by an algorithm, or would you rather pick things you want to see, and see them when they’re available?