Always Avoid Alliteration: Building a Better Online Experience: RSS is More Useful Than Ever

Algorithm-driven content littered with advertisements, astroturfing, bots, and global tracking cookies have made RSS feeds relevant again. Repeatedly, on social media, I see users complaining about the enshitification of the Internet and that the Internet isn’t what it used to be. My answer to this complaint is that if your online experience in the 2020s is primarily via the algos, you have no place complaining about the enshitification of the Internet, because all of the content you consume already is shit. Furthermore, it’s never been easier or more accessible for anyone to create a website, estore, or to have a digital presence. In his book The Pathles Path author Paul Millard argues that “the Internet has handed people the means of production” and I agree with this sentiment: Is the internet slowly being privatized? Absolutely. Is it easier than ever before to have an estore or self publish? Absolutely. Yes, that means your estore or personal enterprise won't immediately be as successful, but that's the trade off.

As long as you are in an algo stream, you are being manipulated. This is especially evident on platforms like Facebook, where engagement is driven by content designed to provoke a strong emotional reaction, often within the first two to five posts in your feed. Social media sites like Reddit are also not immune to misinformation. For example: here is an image that was reposted again, again, and again on Reddit the week that I started writing this post. It contains a photoshopped image of a worker being arrested by ICE while wearing a Latinos For Trump shirt. Today most of the top comments point out that the image was fake, this was not the case on the day that the image repeatedly made it to the front page of the website.

A fake photoshopped imaged of a Latinos For Trump Supporter Being Arrested

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) will allow you to have a stream of news and information similar to your Reddit feed, Facebook feed, and whatever other social media sites that you’re stuck with using. The difference is that your RSS feed will be built by you outside of the ecosystem of any one website. Instead of being based on any algorithm, your feed instead will be based on how recent the content is - if that's how you configure your feed to work for you in the first place. What I am getting at is that using an RSS reader is one way in which you can unenshitify your Internet experience.

Over the past few months I found that as I fell back on more smaller dedicated communities, resources, and websites; my time online is a lot more engaging and interesting. In a recent interview, Mark Zuckerberg reflected a similar sentiment in his recent Joe Rogan Interview about 37 minutes in. My warning when engaging in smaller online comunities is to make sure that you don’t fall into an echo chamber. A good way to avoid this pitfall is to keep in mind that if you find yourself agreeing with everything that a person says, that person is probably swindling you. Subscribe to and keep an eye on media that you are skeptical of and feel like you should keep an eye on, but be sure to prioritize your mental health first. Also, focus creating online communities of people you already know: bring together your friends and neighbors into group chats and Discord channels. Build connections.

I personally use a reader called Feedly, but I'm open to other RSS readers if anyone suggests one that works better for them. Open RSS seems to have a similar ethos to what I am expressing here. Below are some examples of things that you can plug into an RSS reader to inspire you. Many of these services can just be added to your RSS reader app by searching for them in the app without having to follow the below steps.

News:
I follow aggregate tech news sites Slashdot and Boing Boing, making my own RSS feed an aggregate of aggregates in a way. Furthermore, it's going to be important to follow individual writers and contributors as legacy media continues to fail and decline in quality. I suggest following Ken Klipinstein on Substack. Every Substack newsletter has an RSS feed that allows users to subscribe without needing an email address that can be accessed by adding /feed at the end of the URL.

NPR Podcasts also have RSS feeds, which can be accessed on the NPR website's podcast pages themselves:

In most RSS readers you can also set keyword filters for you name, company, revelant topics you are interested in, etc.

Sports:
I follow RSS for specific teams that give me news updates for example:
https://www.pff.com/pff-rss

Blogs:
Bruce Schneier is a leading cybersecurity expert, cryptographer, and author who writes about digital security, privacy, and government surveillance.
Here is the RSS link for his blog.

I am now dedicated to operating an RSS feed for this site.
Here is the RSS link for this blog.

Messaging:
Many RSS readers will now follow Telegram and Signal channels. This can be helpful when you follow someone on one of these apps and it's how they primarily get news and updates out.

Podcasts:
Usually, at least one of the streaming platforms that distributes podcasts you listen to will natively be supported by the RSS reader of your choice.

Youtube:
The Subscribe feature on Youtube notoriously does not work.You might miss out on new content or live streams from your favorite YouTubers simply because their latest video never appears on your subscription page, or you don’t receive a notification. Many RSS Readers will natively support Youtube channels just by you providing the URL to the Youtube channels that you want to follow.

Steam feeds:
The news page for any game on Steam has a link for an RSS feed. This allows you to get patch updates for games directly in your feed.