RSS: The Future is Now

There is a lot of stuff on the internet. Like, a lot. Articles, blog posts, memes, musings, announcements, videos, social media, schedules, and so much more. Frankly, it can be a hassle keeping up with everything, especially when it seems like everything is on its own website or requires you to check yet another social media platform. Wouldn’t it be convenient if all you had to do was check one application to see it all? All the latest posts from all across the web, even if they originated from different websites entirely? Well, if you couldn’t tell, the solution to this problem is RSS!

But what exactly is RSS? RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, is a standardized way of accessing websites. Most commonly they get combined with a news aggregator (or RSS reader), a program that monitors these feeds for updates and then allows a user to read them. The process ends up being something like: find a RSS feed, add it to a reader, and enjoy. Because RSS is an open standard, anyone can add a feed to their website, making it super easy to gather information and updates from across the web into one place.

But RSS is more than just everything you want in once place, although the convenience cannot be understated. It ends up added a more focused and curated experience. There is no doom scrolling, there is no algorithm, and there is no ads. Its content you want, that you chose, with no distractions. Its a much more intentional experience whenever I open my RSS reader. It helps me stay mindful while consuming content online. But most of the time I don’t even need to be online to consume my content. A feature in most major readers is saving articles for offline reading. I don’t even need to think ahead as my reader takes care of fetching and downloading the latest articles for me.

There is one thing that stands out the most to me about RSS, and that is that it decentralizes the internet. If you rely on one website for everything, that one website controls everything. What you see, what you can do, what you can say. Its limiting, and we’ve become too complacent with it. RSS removes this issue. It allows users to get content from where ever they want, without having to rely on one service. RSS bypasses these large, centralized platforms and goes direct to the source to get the actual content. In doing so, they also bypass a lot of the data collection these platforms do. Taking control of your data is one of the most impactful things you can do these days, and RSS is an easy step to do so.

But sadly, it isn’t all sunshine and rainbows in RSS land. If you haven’t noticed, a lot of places don’t support RSS. The sad truth is, RSS is pretty much considered to be past its prime. RSS initially was released in 1999, with the peak of its usage being in the mid to late 2000s. Websites such as Twitter and Facebook used to offer RSS feeds, but these have gone the way of the dodo. This is really the biggest issue, most websites do not offer RSS. Most major websites and social media does not offer. Sure, there are a few work arounds, for example some privacy centric front ends offer RSS feeds and there are some services that allow you to create RSS feeds from any website, but hardly compare to proper support. This mostly has to do with RSS removing the user from the website. Instead of visiting a website with invasive trackers and ads, the user gets to bypass all that and read just the content. This isn’t profitable for websites, so why would they bother? Its tragic, but the truth.

Still, I highly encourage you to give RSS a try. Who knows, you might be able to consolidate a lot more than you think. Getting everything in one convenient place is incredible. Its always such a treat to be able open app and get updates from all across the internet on all the topics I’m interested in. If you choose to make the jump (which you should), this blog has an RSS feed! Add it so you always can get updated on my articles as soon as they come out.