“… anyone weary of black-box algorithms controlling what you see online at least has a respite, one that’s been there all along but has often gone ignored. Tired of Twitter? Facebook fatigued? It’s time to head back to RSS.”
Although I may not have the writing skills nor the connections in the industry, I should be a tech journalist. I have anticipated several topics that tech journalist are addressing of late (RSS-still relevant, RSS and RSS readers). I have wanted thoughtful consumers of online content to have a better approach to locating content they can trust. RSS allows you greater control that Twitter or Facebook’s suggestions.
RSS is undead is the title of a TechCrunch post suggesting there is value is RSS feeds, but the present versions lacks innovation. The author proposes the problem of RSS is the same issue that resulted in the privacy problems of Facebook – a business model. RSS does not have one and presently has no obvious way to encourage innovation. Facebook, Google and Twitter have a way to make money (information about you).
The author proposes:
I would gladly pay money for an Amazon Prime-like subscription where I can get unlimited text-only feeds from a bunch of a major news sources at a reasonable price.
I think I saw something like this a couple of years ago. You paid a monthly fee and there was some kind of matching that went on between you and sites that signed up for the service. Whatever you contributed was divided among the sites you visited. I wish I could remember the name of the service. I am certain I wrote a blog post about it, but I cannot seem to generate a search term that will find that post.