I got back into using RSS heavily last year, but have slowly been moving away from it over the last month or so.
I really love RSS in principle; it’s a great way to passively keep up to date with my favourite bloggers, and it keeps subscription clutter out of my email inbox. On the flipside, though … it does often feel overwhelming to me. I have never been able to move past the “inbox zero” mentality when it comes to RSS, and feel obliged to read every single new post in my feed. This does not happen to me when I visit websites casually. I tried only opening my RSS reader in the morning, tried disabling notifications, etc., and I just couldn’t stop that compulsive need to click on every new post.
While using RSS, I also found myself missing the simple joy of looking at different website designs. You can just click through to the website from your RSS reader, of course, but that’s an extra step I tend not to take when I’m feeling that overwhelming pressure to Read All the Posts. People spent time and effort on making their sites look the way they look, and I want to see that!
Long story short, I’ve mostly stopped using RSS and have returned to simply using a bookmarks folder in my browser and cycling through the websites I enjoy when I have the urge to read something new. I know I end up missing stuff, but … it doesn’t bother me as much, if that makes sense? I feel WAY less pressure to consume everything when I’m not using a piece of software that feels like a different flavour of email. I’m finding actively browsing so much more enjoyable than passively waiting for new posts to come in. I only use RSS now for the handful of good Substack authors I follow in lieu of visiting a problematic platform I don’t like.
Anyway, just interested to see how other people here feel about using RSS versus using bookmarks, since use of RSS is something that seems to be pushed a lot in independent web / personal web communities.
Well, there are sites that don’t post very often and I want to see every new update, for example webcomics. There are also sites that post a lot and most entries don’t interest me, like news aggregators. That, and if I don’t visit for a day or three, I’m not missing much. So for me it makes sense to use both RSS and bookmarks, depending on the site.
I’ve found RSS very helpful with webcomics that don’t update on a regular schedule, so I can see when they do actually update without having to check myself. For ones that do it’s still nice to get a notice that there’s a new page as soon as it’s available, instead of having to remember to look. I’ve also been using it for blogs, which also get sporadic and uncommon updates. I don’t feel pressured to look at everything - I’m using RSS specifically because I want to be notified about all new posts and I want to at least glance at it to know if it might interest me.
For sites that continually have new stuff I may or may not care about, like the new posts on a forum, that’s what I’ll use bookmarks for.
I have tried and failed to add an RSS feed to my site at least three times now. It just doesn’t click in my brain. I don’t follow anyone else’s feeds either, and I don’t have a reader 'cause I don’t understand them. I don’t understand RSS–my brain does not compute. That’s why I made a newsletter for each month instead (though I think I missed a month oops). I also just use the Neocities feed to inform people of updates.
I guess it probably be useful considering I make a webcomic, but ehhhhhhhhhhh . . . my brain no understand.
RSS eludes me–personally.
I do however love to bookmark. And again I use the Neocities feed to keep up with other’s updates too. : )
I use an RSS reader but it only gives me links to new posts, so I always visit people’s websites (that’s the fun part for me I love seeing creative designs and fun colors etc.)
I only follow up to 10 feeds at any time. It’s like the old CD holders people used to put on their car sun visors haha you take the CDs you really like and that’s it!
Last year I wrote a blog post about this topic.
The relevant part:
RSS is a great tool that’s very easy to misuse. And if you’re subscribing to any feeds that post more than about 10 items per day, you’re probably misusing it. I don’t mean that you’re using it in a way it wasn’t intended — rather, you’re using it in a way that’s not good for you.
To be clear, there is nothing wrong with using a bookmarks folder, I do that too! I recently started using Firefox (moved from Vivaldi) and I’m using the bookmarks bar as a “reading list”. Once I read something and if I like it, I add it to my Links page on my website and done.
If I had a printer I would absolutely print the articles I want to read though, my eyes get tired from reading too much on the computer.
I use both. My RSS feed is great for webcomics that don’t update daily and blogs that update infrequently and are important reference like technical journals. But for more creative sites I just check in on them from time to time.
RSS feeds: For semi-mindless scrolling when I want to do something healthier than scroll news feeds but don’t have the willpower to read an actual book
Bookmarks: Mostly interesting long posts or software projects that I want to read later (and seldom actually get back to)
Markdown notes with pasted URLs: For threading references in with personal thoughts or notes, might become a blog post later
Interesting responses, everyone! I had sort of forgotten you could use RSS for web comics (mainly because I haven’t followed many web comics since Kate Beaton stopped posting ). Very useful there, for sure!
Thanks for that excellent blog post. Limiting the feed to ten would be way more manageable. I think I had around 40 feeds in my reader before I threw in the towel last month. Same thing with my newsletter subscriptions… I whittled those down to just five recently. Felt a little guilty doing it, but way less guilty than I feel when I delete all those emails I didn’t have time to read!
RSS and a feed reader. Very liberal with the usage of ‘Mark all as read’ as I have no notions of reading every post that comes through. Most often I just take a quick look through the list of sites that’s been updated, to see if there are any ‘oooh I’d totally forgotten about that one’ sites there. And, if I’ve got a bit of time to spare, I’ll look through the list of posts and read what catches my attention.
I use bookmarks as well. But more for sites like this forum and what not. Between the two of them, I feel like I have a rich and human part of the web available at my fingertips, to surf whenever I have the time But no commitments!
To each their own and I’m really glad you’ve found a what works for you
Personally, I prefer RSS as, although I bookmark often, I’m less likely to go back and read the things I save for later. I tend to bookmark things after I’ve read them these days, incase I do want to revisit them.
I use the Artemis RSS reader. Two things I specifically like about it: it only updates once a day, and I have to visit the original website so I get to appreciate all the craft people put into their websites.
I use RSS a lot, but I know the overwhelming feeling of unread feeds. To avoid this, I only open the reader if I want to read something and otherwise don’t let it bother me with notifications, unread counts and such. Works for me! I don’t even sync my readers
Creating different feeds for things and deliberately only checking these helps me as well to keep apart things like national news from webcomics or personal blogs.
I’ve been working on some very simple experimental tech for rss & bookmarks at the same time directly on my website. The nice thing about it is that it’s a) on your site for your friends to also see what you’re reading and b) because you’re already in a browser, it’s natural to hop onto another site in a new tab, whereas as you say in an RSS reader you’re more likely to stay in the cosy mono-formatted feed. Here’s the link to my feed: georgealexgrant .com/my-feed/ (sorry I can’t post normal links for some reason). I mostly use it for YouTube videos to avoid the algorithms etc. but I am also aggregating blogs and email newsletters; I like mixing everything together. I will soon release the youtube to RSS API, the feed aggregation API, and the bookmark/RSS APIs under the web rewilding project so you can use them for free without having to write much code. On a related note I’m really enjoying this as a low-dopamine way to consume content.
I tried bookmarking, but then I realized that I am the type of person that will forget a site exists if I am not reminded it exists, so I started using RSS. I only follow indie websites/bloggers and some people’s social media that don’t post often so I want to know when they do, and so far its been great! (we will see as I start following more, I might have to purge feeds) I get about 1-2 new posts a day so that seems to be a good amount for me. I am curious to know what RSS readers people use, as I feel like I’m doing it wrong with my feedbro firefox extension reader lol.
I don’t think there’s a way to do it wrong. I use three different RSS readers: Liferea, Newsboat and Aggregator, and I think the Cafe hosts a FreshRSS instance. That’s another nice one you can try.
). Very useful there, for sure!
But no commitments!
