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I ditched the algorithm for RSS

(joeyehand.com)
744 points DearNarwhal | 1 comments | 16 Jan 25 12:18 UTC | HN request time: 0.291s | source
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artisanspam ◴[16 Jan 25 20:02 UTC] No.42730158[source]▶
I love RSS. I use RSS daily. I use link-aggregation websites like HN to find interesting authors and subscribe to any RSS feeds that they have. Highlights from my reader sync automatically into my Obsidian vault. It's great.

But I know I, and everyone else posting in this thread, are in the minority. It's clear that most people prefer algorithmic drip in a walled garden. There's a reason everyone flocks to those platforms when RSS superseded them. I don't think I need to re-hash why those platforms are bad for the health of the internet and society as a whole.

So what can be done at a structural level to fight this? What can be done to incentivize people to leave these algorithmic drip feeds to reverse this trend?

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1. _Algernon_ ◴[17 Jan 25 14:00 UTC] No.42737563[source]▶
1. Mandate that all platforms must have a reverse chronological feed as the default. Alternative "algorithmic" feeds must be explicitly opted in to (preferably with age verification).

2. Regulate out of existence the business model where time spent on site converts to revenue, and force people to directly pay for stuff. Levels of indirection in "payment" for services turn the free market into (even more of) a joke (Noam Chomsky already highlighted this when advertising was cohort based in print- and TV media long before the targeted advertising of today).

Would immediately increase the signal-to-noise ratio by many orders of magnitude.