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It's time for an RSS revival (2018)

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Re: It's time for an RSS revival (2018)

#41

Post by snird »

beej71 wrote: post #37
snird wrote: post #30

RSS fails miserably on 2 things: 1. Discoverability 2. Monetization Consider YouTube - it provides discoverability through the algorithmic feed. Giving creators a distribution platform they can't find anywhere else. It also provides monetization through ads, sponsorships and direct support to creators. Consider Newsletters - no discoverability built in, but it does support monetization. Pay to subscribe, and only you…

You're not wrong. But I do wish more people were happy with those "failures", which basically describe the Internet of yore.

I'm a creator myself.

Why would I want to build an audience on a platform with no monetization possibility, ever?

Even sponsorships are not possible, since I can't reliably count reads (which I can even in email).

It's nice to think of the "classic" internet, but it's a naivety that will keep RSS on the edges. And I love RSS idea! I want it back! I hate subscribing to email newsletters in a way that makes it hard to manage and organize.

Re: It's time for an RSS revival (2018)

#42

Post by ihuman »

snird wrote: post #30

RSS fails miserably on 2 things: 1. Discoverability 2. Monetization Consider YouTube - it provides discoverability through the algorithmic feed. Giving creators a distribution platform they can't find anywhere else. It also provides monetization through ads, sponsorships and direct support to creators. Consider Newsletters - no discoverability built in, but it does support monetization. Pay to subscribe, and only you…

> Pay to subscribe, and only you will get the newsletter. RSS feed can't limit only to subscribers.

Patreon has this feature with their podcast RSS feeds.[1] When you subscribe, you get a URL with a personal, unique parameter. This feed has all the episodes that you pay for. Your version of the feed stops updating after you cancel your subscription.

[1] They probably also have it for normal RSS feeds, but I've only used their podcast RSS feeds

Re: It's time for an RSS revival (2018)

#43

Post by hobo_mark »

yunruse wrote: post #22

I’m becoming a real fan of using RSS for anything that fits it – websites, YouTube [0], email newsletters [1]; even books [2]! Honestly I’m tempted to start putting summaries (hacker news, stack exchange, reddit) in my feeds, just to keep me from endless scrolling. [0] I think Feedly can handle this, but YouTube may have disabled this natively, which is a shame. [1] I’m a fan of https://kill-the-newsletter.com [2] Dr…

Feeds are definitely still enabled on YouTube at

" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UC

The only complicated part is finding the channel id, which is not always presented directly (sometimes you have a username, sometimes a channel "shortname", now you also have handles... even the YouTube data API itself can only resolve some of them).

Re: It's time for an RSS revival (2018)

#45

Post by ghaff »

snird wrote: post #41
beej71 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not wrong. But I do wish more people were happy with those "failures", which basically describe the Internet of yore.

I'm a creator myself. Why would I want to build an audience on a platform with no monetization possibility, ever? Even sponsorships are not possible, since I can't reliably count reads (which I can even in email). It's nice to think of the "classic" internet, but it's a naivety that will keep RSS on the edges. And I love RSS idea! I want it back! I hate subscribing to email newsletters in a way that makes it hard to…

Plenty of creators create without the expectation of direct payment. Of course, many are not in a position to do so as well. But I expect that, for the most part, the platforms make a lot more money off the creators attempting to monetize than the creators themselves do. And, in so doing, they make the overall experience worse.

But, yes, RSS was always pretty fringe. And today there's enough hope being dangled that a newsletter or YouTube channel will make it big that it's even more fringe.

Re: It's time for an RSS revival (2018)

#46

Post by Group_B »

anonymousiam wrote: post #40

Does anybody know why Randall Munroe (XKCD) has made a mockery of RSS on his site? I thought his joke was funny at first, but he has left it there and now the RSS feed from his site is worse than useless. Here's the content I get from his RSS feed on both my Android phone and my iPad: "xkcd.com is best viewed with Netscape Navigator 4.0 or below on a Pentium 3±1 emulated in Javascript on an Apple IIGS at a screen res…

lmao

Re: It's time for an RSS revival (2018)

#47

Post by philistine »

hobo_mark wrote: post #43
yunruse wrote: post #22

I’m becoming a real fan of using RSS for anything that fits it – websites, YouTube [0], email newsletters [1]; even books [2]! Honestly I’m tempted to start putting summaries (hacker news, stack exchange, reddit) in my feeds, just to keep me from endless scrolling. [0] I think Feedly can handle this, but YouTube may have disabled this natively, which is a shame. [1] I’m a fan of https://kill-the-newsletter.com [2] Dr…

Feeds are definitely still enabled on YouTube at " rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UC The only complicated part is finding the channel id, which is not always presented directly (sometimes you have a username, sometimes a channel "shortname", now you also have handles... even the YouTube data API itself can only resolve some of them).

If you give a channel URL to NetNewsWire, it will figure it out for you. I definitely recommend it, it's the golden standard of RSS readers.

Re: It's time for an RSS revival (2018)

#48

Post by philistine »

yunruse wrote: post #22

I’m becoming a real fan of using RSS for anything that fits it – websites, YouTube [0], email newsletters [1]; even books [2]! Honestly I’m tempted to start putting summaries (hacker news, stack exchange, reddit) in my feeds, just to keep me from endless scrolling. [0] I think Feedly can handle this, but YouTube may have disabled this natively, which is a shame. [1] I’m a fan of https://kill-the-newsletter.com [2] Dr…

My best idea was to subscribe to the RSS feed of my getpocket.com account. That way I can save any page anywhere to read it later in my RSS reader.

Re: It's time for an RSS revival (2018)

#49

Post by pdimitar »

It's time for this, it's time for that...

Imagine how much further away humanity would be if these critics actually sat down and produced what they think is missing.

I have a family to support and I'm slowly and painstakingly crawling out of a huge hole both in physical and mental health. And my job is fairly demanding.

I don't have the bandwidth. Many others don't have it as well. So whoever feels so strongly about stuff -- by all means, please create the thing! You'll be celebrated.

Historically it's been pretty evident that "raising awareness" is a very frail strategy that doesn't achieve anything short-term.

Re: It's time for an RSS revival (2018)

#50

Post by _Algernon_ »

snird wrote: post #30

RSS fails miserably on 2 things: 1. Discoverability 2. Monetization Consider YouTube - it provides discoverability through the algorithmic feed. Giving creators a distribution platform they can't find anywhere else. It also provides monetization through ads, sponsorships and direct support to creators. Consider Newsletters - no discoverability built in, but it does support monetization. Pay to subscribe, and only you…

>RSS feed can't limit only to subscribers.

Authenticated rss feeds are a thing. I have subscribed to some premium podcasts which have a auth token in the feed url for authentication.

This allows paid content, and most importantly revocation of access at a later date (if e.g. the subscription is cancelled).

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