RSS is Still the Best Way to Follow Blogs
I've been using RSS for years and I'm consistently baffled that more people don't. For following blogs and independent websites, it's still — by a considerable margin — the best tool available.
What RSS Actually Does
For the uninitiated: RSS is a standard format that websites use to publish a feed of their content. You subscribe to that feed in a reader app, and new posts from every site you follow appear in one place, in chronological order, with no algorithm deciding what you see or when you see it.
That last part is the key thing. On Twitter, Instagram, or any other social platform, what you see is determined by an algorithm optimised for engagement — which in practice means outrage, controversy, and whatever keeps you scrolling longest. RSS has none of that. It shows you what you subscribed to, in the order it was published. That's it.
The Death of RSS Was Greatly Exaggerated
When Google killed Google Reader back in 2013, a lot of people wrote RSS off as a dying technology. They were wrong. RSS is still supported by almost every blog, news site, and podcast. It never went anywhere — the mainstream just stopped paying attention to it.
There are some excellent feed readers available: NetNewsWire is free and excellent on Mac and iOS. FreshRSS is a solid self-hosted option if you're into that kind of thing. I use FreshRSS.
The Real Reason People Don't Use It
I think most people don't use RSS because they've never been shown it. The social platforms have trained people to get content through them, and there's no billion-dollar company incentivised to show people a better alternative.
Which is precisely why I keep banging on about it.
If you follow this blog and you're not subscribed via RSS, the feed is right here. Add it to a reader. You'll wonder why you didn't do it sooner.