Rethinking RSS Readers: A Developer's Perspective on Content Discovery and Web Serendipity
By
salmon
Hot, fresh, and worth queueing round the block for.
Summary
The author discusses their ambivalent relationship with RSS readers - appreciating RSS as a protocol for content distribution but finding RSS readers themselves to be a chore that creates pressure with endless backlogs. They've created a browser extension to make discovering random, independent websites more enjoyable, aiming to recapture the serendipity of early web browsing rather than the algorithmic curation of modern platforms.
Key quotes
· 4 pulledI don't like RSS readers. I know, this is blasphemous especially on a website where I'm actively encouraging you to subscribe through RSS.
As someone writing stuff, RSS is great for me. I don't have to think about it, the requests are pretty light weight, I don't need to think about your personal data or what client you are using.
However as something I'm going to consume, it's frankly a giant chore. I feel pressured by RSS readers, where there is this endlessly growing backlog of things I have to read.
I wrote a browser extension to try and make finding random, independent websites more fun.
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