Why RSS matters 🔗 **Source:** [Why RSS matters](https://werd.io/why-rss-matters/) > [!note]+ Document Notes > tags: [RSS, open-web, syndication] > author: Ben Werdmuller > source: werd.io > reference: [https://werd.io/why-rss-matters/] > date created: 2025-12-11 10:30 > > # 🏷️ Title: Why RSS matters > <!-- deep-read:sections start --> ## 🧭 Table of Contents - [📝 Summary](#-summary) - [📖 Main Content](#-main-content) - [🗒️ Notes](#️-notes) - [📚 References](#-references) - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#️-paraphrase) - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) - [✅ Action Items](#-action-items) - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) - [📊 Methodology](#-methodology) - [❓ Questions](#-questions) - [🔮 Future Research](#-future-research) - [💡 Implications](#-implications) - [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment) - [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#-accessibility-assessment) - [🌍 DEIB Assessment](#-deib-assessment) - [✅ Logical Validity](#-logical-validity) - [🛡️ DARVO Analysis](#-darvo-analysis) - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) ### 🔗 References - Include links cited in or relevant to the article. --- ## 📝 Summary - What happened: The author explains how much of today’s web content distribution silently depends on RSS and argues it is “strategic infrastructure” for an open, user-controlled web. - Why it matters: As platforms enclose content and algorithms mediate attention, open feeds are one of the last direct publisher–reader channels. - Key stakeholders: Publishers, journalists, podcasters, CMS and tooling vendors (e.g., WordPress ecosystem), feed-reader developers, and everyday readers. - Risks and tradeoffs: Turning off or degrading RSS shifts power to platforms, weakens distribution sovereignty, and makes discovery more dependent on opaque algorithms; prioritizing open feeds may trade off some platform-native monetization and analytics. - Bottom line: Protect and optimize RSS, build better RSS-powered apps, and use it as neutral connective tissue across the emerging decentralized social web. --- ## 📖 Main Content - The author opens with a morning routine powered almost entirely by feeds: news apps, podcast apps, Slack updates, and Reeder all pull in content without visiting source sites directly; “My information diet runs on feeds.” - He identifies RSS as the single core standard behind this, noting that it powers blogs, podcasts, consumer news apps, and enterprise tools like LexisNexis and Bloomberg, as well as weather, software-update, and uptime feeds. Despite this, it is “the plumbing of the web” and largely invisible to end users and even many media professionals. - The article argues that every RSS subscription is a direct publisher–consumer relationship, unmediated by attention-optimizing third parties. This is contrasted with platform algorithms that rank and filter content to keep users engaged. - Because RSS feels like “old web” tech and is inconvenient for companies that profit from sitting in the middle, it has poor PR and is often neglected or disabled. The author warns that this erodes publisher distribution sovereignty and reader agency. - He proposes three moves: 1. **Protect and optimize existing RSS infrastructure.** - Many open-web-oriented platforms (WordPress, Ghost, even Medium) have good feeds and can expose multiple feeds for topics and categories, dramatically increasing reach. - Other tools (Beehiiv, Squarespace, Webflow, “no-code” site builders) ship with feeds off by default, rudimentary, or missing, meaning their content “cannot travel” into aggregators and enterprise workflows. - Feeds must be performant, not blocked as “bots,” and update quickly. - Podcasters who lock into closed streaming platforms instead of open RSS sacrifice direct audience relationships and risk full audience loss if business priorities change. 2. **Build better RSS-powered apps.** - Beyond consumption, RSS can power collaboration: e.g., an open-source newswire combining Creative Commons–licensed nonprofit outlets (ProPublica, The 19th, The Markup, Grist, etc.) so any newsroom can republish with one click from inside its CMS. - This would enable local hubs, niche digests, and new collaborative publications operating outside platform control. - Dave Winer’s Feedland shows another angle: public subscription graphs where following feeds is itself a social, discovery mechanism without algorithms. - We still lack a beautiful, simple, mainstream-oriented feed reader that hides technical details but gives people control and avoids corporate-surveillance positioning (the author critiques Feedly’s labor-monitoring pitch). - RSS’s simplicity makes it easy to build apps quickly; what’s missing are “tentpole services” to organize around. 3. **Build a more social feed ecosystem.** - New social protocols (ActivityPub, AT Protocol, Nostr) share RSS-like intuitions: decentralized, interoperable, user-controlled updates. - Mastodon and Bluesky already expose RSS feeds for profiles, allowing people to follow accounts from any reader without joining the platforms. - If you have inbound RSS plus an outbound feed of your own content, you already possess a basic social web stack. - RSS could be the simple, universal transport format and “common denominator” that connects richer social protocols, analogous to SMTP for email. - The conclusion: in an era of enclosure and algorithmic mediation, RSS’s quiet reliability is exactly what is needed to keep distribution and attention user-controlled. Treating RSS as strategic infrastructure can anchor a more open, resilient, and humane internet. --- ## 🗒️ Notes - “The future of the web depends on simple, open standards.” The author frames RSS as one such standard, quietly underpinning his personal information flow across news, podcasts, and work tools. - Much modern consumption happens without visiting sites: stories and episodes “just appeared, delivered automatically from each source to the app I’d chosen to read it in.” This is possible because of standard feeds. - RSS is framed as “the glue that holds the timely web together,” powering not just blogs and podcasts but mainstream aggregators and enterprise services tracking headlines, weather, software updates, and infrastructure status. - Its invisibility leads many to assume RSS is obsolete, especially post–Google Reader. But the author insists “we’ve never relied on it more,” especially as social platforms fracture and wall off content while AI remixes everything it can ingest. - Every subscription is a direct tie between publisher and audience, bypassing any engagement-optimizing algorithm. This structural property is what makes RSS strategically important for autonomy and agency. - Companies that monetize by intermediation find such standards inconvenient; RSS therefore gets neglected or undermined. The author calls this a threat that will reduce publisher control over distribution and diminish reader tools for self-curation. - He offers a three-part agenda: protect/optimize existing RSS; build better RSS-powered applications; and connect RSS with the broader social web. - Protection starts with platforms that already “get” the open web: WordPress (powering ~43% of sites), Ghost, and even Medium are cited as having “well-formed feeds,” often with multiple topic/category feeds that expand potential audiences. - The author notes he personally gets more readers via RSS than email, and vastly more when counting news portals his site syndicates into, underscoring RSS’s role as a reach multiplier. - Some modern tools under-serve feeds: Beehiiv supports RSS but disables it by default; Squarespace/Webflow offer limited or no feeds; newer no-code tools often omit them entirely due to a mindset that publishing ends at the site boundary. - Without feeds, “content… simply cannot travel” into aggregators or workflows, sharply limiting reach and making creators more dependent on closed platforms. - Even where feeds exist, technical misconfigurations like aggressive bot blocking or slow responses can make them unusable. Feeds must be fast, accessible, and updated immediately on publish. - The article criticizes the trend of “podcasts” locked behind proprietary streaming platforms with no open feed. These shows surrender direct audience control and risk complete audience loss if platform priorities shift. - On applications, the author imagines an open-source newswire network of nonprofit investigative outlets using Creative Commons licenses. A CMS could ingest their RSS feeds and let editors republish with a click, boosting public-interest journalism. - Such tools could power local news hubs, topic digests, and collaborative publications that coordinate on their own terms rather than through algorithmic feeds controlled by ad-driven platforms. - Dave Winer’s Feedland is highlighted for making subscription lists public and social: discovering new sites via other users’ subscriptions, effectively turning follow graphs into decentralized discovery without ranking algorithms. - The author calls for a “beautiful, straightforward feed reader designed for consumers who don’t care about the underlying technology but know they don’t want someone else’s algorithm getting between them and the content they want.” - Current readers like Reeder are praised but described as power-user-oriented; Feedly is critiqued both for UX and for positioning itself as a corporate surveillance tool (tracking strikes and protests). - Simplicity is presented as a key advantage: “You can build an RSS-powered app in an afternoon,” making it fertile terrain for rapid experimentation and a diverse ecosystem. - In the social section, the article surveys ActivityPub, AT Protocol, and Nostr, noting their shared design instinct around decentralized following and movable identities/graphs. - Mastodon and Bluesky’s existing RSS output shows how easy it is to decouple consumption from platform membership: anyone can follow profiles in any reader without being on those networks. - The author notes that a combination of inbound feeds and an outbound publishing feed “without heavy requirements for metadata” amounts to a fairly complete social web. - RSS is pitched as a layer of connective tissue among social protocols: a simple, universal transport format that can avoid reinventing syndication per-protocol. - The analogy: RSS for publishing could be what SMTP is for email—basic, universal infrastructure that everything else builds on. - The article downplays protocol “winner” debates; the real concern is whether publishers keep distribution control and readers keep attention control. RSS is characterized as “one of the strongest tools we have to make that possible.” - The closing emphasizes that in a web being reshaped by “enclosure, consolidation, and algorithmic mediation,” the quiet, durable nature of RSS is exactly what’s needed to sustain an open, humane internet. --- ## 📚 References - Ben Werdmuller, “Why RSS matters” – https://werd.io/why-rss-matters/ - RSS 2.0 Specification – https://cyber.harvard.edu/rss/rss.html - ActivityPub W3C Recommendation – https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/ - AT Protocol (Bluesky) overview – https://atproto.com/ - Nostr protocol – https://nostr.com/ - Dave Winer’s Feedland – https://feedland.org/ - Creative Commons licenses – https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ - WordPress RSS Feeds – https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/functions/feed_links/ --- ## 🗣️ Paraphrase - The web’s daily information flows—news, podcasts, alerts—are already powered by RSS, even if users and publishers don’t notice. This open standard creates direct links between creators and audiences, letting content travel into any compatible app without gatekeeping algorithms. - As platforms increasingly wall off content, centralize power, and rely on opaque ranking, preserving and strengthening RSS is crucial. The author calls for better feeds, more ambitious RSS-based tools, and tighter integration with decentralized social protocols so that control over distribution and attention remains with publishers and readers. --- ## 📰 Newsletter The open web quietly runs on RSS—especially the WordPress-powered slice of it. In this piece, Ben Werdmuller reminds us that every RSS feed is a direct line from publisher to reader, bypassing engagement-optimized algorithms. For WordPress folks, that’s big. Core already ships solid feeds for posts, categories, tags, comments, and more. With a bit of care—clean markup, fast responses, and multiple topical feeds—you can syndicate your content into news apps, research tools, and custom readers your audience actually controls. The article also imagines RSS-backed newswires and social discovery tools like Dave Winer’s Feedland, where public subscription graphs replace black-box timelines. It’s a great reminder to double-check your site’s feeds, advocate for RSS support in any hosted tools you use, and keep experimenting with feed-first experiences. Helpful links: - WordPress Codex: RSS Feeds - Creative Commons for republishing workflows - ActivityPub and Bluesky docs for bridging social profiles into readers --- ## ✅ Action Items #### DevRel - Promote examples of high-quality WordPress RSS feeds (per-category, per-author, custom post types) and provide copy-paste snippets for theme and plugin authors. - Run workshops on “Building an RSS-powered app in an afternoon” aimed at PHP, JS, and headless WordPress developers. - Improve documentation on feed endpoints, query args, and caching strategies; ship quickstart examples (e.g., RSS → React/Next.js reader). - Publish content and talks about why open feeds matter, contrasting them with closed platform APIs and proprietary podcast deals. - Encourage community feedback on feed performance and discoverability; surface this to core and hosting partners. #### OSPO - Codify policies that all public properties must expose stable, standards-compliant feeds for open content. - Ensure license metadata (especially CC) is machine-readable in feeds to enable the kind of republishing newswire the article describes. - Integrate feeds into security and update notification processes; ensure RSS endpoints are covered in SBOM and inventory efforts. - Offer consultation hours for teams adopting no-code or SaaS tools, helping them avoid platforms that cripple or omit RSS. #### Community - Help maintainers audit their projects’ sites for working feeds; add “RSS health” to release hygiene checklists. - Create contributor-friendly guides for building community-driven digests powered by RSS (local meetups, niche topics). - Encourage sponsors to support open infrastructure projects like readers, feed discovery services, and bridges to social protocols. - Organize cross-project hackdays focused on RSS-powered tooling (aggregators, dashboards, creative remixers). #### WordPress - Core: - Keep feed endpoints stable and well-documented; review performance defaults (caching, query limits). - Improve admin-surface discoverability of feed URLs for site owners. - Core Performance: - Profile feed generation on high-traffic, high-content sites; recommend caching strategies and object-cache patterns. - Add feed performance to performance dashboards and budgets. - Core AI: - Explore how feeds can provide constrained, permission-aware input to AI tools rather than scraping entire sites. - Document guardrails around training and remixing RSS-delivered content. - **Core Program Team:** - Coordinate cross-team work on feed reliability (Core, Performance, Hosting, Meta). - Run retrospectives on any major feed regressions or breakages. - Mobile: - Ensure the official apps consume site feeds efficiently where appropriate (e.g., Reader-like experiences). - Improve offline reading via RSS prefetch. - Playground: - Provide examples showing custom feed endpoints and how to test them in-browser. - Offer labs on building a simple reader that pulls from Playground sites. - Community: - Add RSS best practices to meetup and WordCamp materials; encourage sessions about feed-based publishing. - Promote community-run WordPress-based aggregators (local news, niche topics). - Training: - Create lesson plans on “WordPress as an RSS hub,” including CC-licensed syndication workflows. - Provide learning paths for beginner-friendly feed customization. - Marketing: - Position WordPress as a first-class citizen of the open, feed-powered web. - Highlight case studies of sites whose audience comes significantly via RSS. - Support: - Add RSS troubleshooting and “where is my feed?” answers to support docs. - Track common hosting misconfigurations that block or slow feeds. - Design: - Provide design patterns for “Subscribe via RSS” UI that feels modern and understandable. - Include icons and microcopy that de-mystify feeds for non-technical users. - Documentation: - Audit DevHub/HelpHub pages relating to feeds; ensure clear, up-to-date examples and use cases. - Add plain-language introductions to RSS for new site owners. - Photos / TV / Polyglots / Accessibility / Meta / CLI / Hosting / Tide / Openverse / Themes / Plugins: - Prioritize making project-owned properties expose clean feeds for updates, releases, and content. - Ensure any new .org properties (directories, portals) ship with RSS endpoints and docs by default. #### The WPOCC - Fund experiments around WordPress-powered RSS newswires and community aggregators for local journalism and open-source news. - Provide grants or stipends for maintainers of open-source feed readers, discovery tools, and protocol bridges. - Support documentation and governance patterns that keep feeds open and not paywalled by default. ### FAIR - Encourage local storage of feed metadata and signed content snapshots where appropriate, to avoid single points of failure. - Publish covenants discouraging capture of RSS infrastructure by single vendors (e.g., proprietary reader dominance). - Template governance artifacts for community-run aggregators, clarifying funding, moderation, and content policies. --- ## 🧪 Hypotheses - H1: Sites with well-implemented, discoverable RSS feeds achieve higher long-term audience retention than similar sites relying primarily on social algorithms. - H2: Newsrooms that ingest and republish Creative Commons RSS feeds can significantly increase coverage breadth with minimal additional staff time. - H3: A simple, consumer-focused RSS reader with good UX will attract substantial adoption beyond “power users.” - H4: Exposing RSS feeds for social profiles reduces dependence on any single social platform while maintaining or increasing follower engagement. --- ### 📊 Methodology - For H1: - Compare analytics over 12–24 months between matched cohorts of sites with strong RSS and those without; track direct visits, repeat visits, and non-search traffic. - For H2: - Pilot RSS-based newswires in a set of local newsrooms; measure story volume, topic diversity, and engagement pre/post. - For H3: - Build and beta-test a minimal, polished reader with non-technical users; measure activation, 30-day retention, and qualitative satisfaction. - For H4: - Track follower and engagement metrics for creators who promote RSS profile feeds vs those who only promote native follow buttons. --- ### ❓ Questions - How can RSS be made more visible and understandable to non-technical users without overwhelming them with jargon? - What economic models best support open, RSS-based ecosystems in the face of ad-driven, closed platforms? - How can WordPress and similar platforms expose richer, but still simple, metadata (e.g., licensing, content types) via RSS without complicating adoption? - What UX patterns make “subscribe by feed” feel as natural as “follow” on social platforms? --- ### 🔮 Future Research - Study the long-term resilience of RSS-based distribution during platform outages or policy changes. - Explore standardized extensions for licensing, attribution, and republishing rights in feeds to power automated newswires. - Investigate bridges between RSS and decentralized protocols (ActivityPub, AT, Nostr) in production environments. - Evaluate accessibility of popular feed readers and how that affects who can benefit from feed-based consumption. --- ### 💡 Implications - **Practice:** Publishers should treat RSS as a first-class channel, tuning performance and surfacing feed links clearly. - **Policy:** News and public-interest organizations may want policies requiring open feeds for public reporting. - **Security:** Feed endpoints must be monitored and protected while remaining accessible to legitimate aggregators. - **Education:** Training about the open web should include RSS basics and how to use feed readers. - **Funding:** Grantmakers could prioritize infrastructure projects (readers, aggregators, protocol bridges) that reinforce open standards. --- ## 🧠 Learning Styles Assessment - Reading level estimate: Roughly 10th–12th grade (based on Flesch–Kincaid–style heuristics: multi-clause sentences, domain-specific terms like “interoperable,” “syndication,” “protocol”). #### 👀 Visual learners - Present: Primarily text, with a single illustration mentioned. - Improve: Add diagrams of content flows (publisher → RSS → reader), comparisons between closed platforms vs open feeds, and architecture sketches of an RSS-based newswire. #### 🔊 Aural learners - Present: No built-in audio. - Improve: Provide an audio narration or short podcast-style summary explaining RSS’s role using everyday metaphors. #### 🗣️ Verbal learners - Present: Strong narrative, clear definitions, and quotes; several analogies (e.g., plumbing, SMTP). - Improve: Add a small glossary for terms like “ActivityPub,” “AT Protocol,” and “syndication.” #### 🧩 Kinesthetic learners - Present: No interactive components. - Improve: Include step-by-step exercises such as “Add this blog’s RSS feed to a reader” or “Create a category-specific feed in WordPress.” #### 🧠 Logical learners - Present: Clear argument structure (problem–solution–future), explicit three-part agenda. - Improve: Add tables comparing distribution models (RSS vs social vs email) and causal diagrams of intermediation risks. #### 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Social learners - Present: Descriptions of community-driven tools (Feedland, newswires). - Improve: Provide discussion prompts or links to forums where readers can share feed lists and reader setups. #### 🧘‍♀️ Solitary learners - Present: Essay format supports reflective reading. - Improve: Add reflection prompts like, “Map your own information diet—where could RSS reduce dependence on platforms?” #### 🌿 Naturalistic learners - Present: No explicit environmental framing. - Improve: Draw analogies between ecosystems and networks of open feeds; consider sustainability impacts of centralized vs distributed infrastructures. --- ### 📊 Accessibility Assessment #### Screen reader semantics - Present: As a standard article, likely uses basic headings and text. - Improve: Ensure proper heading hierarchy, language attributes, and descriptive alt text for illustrations. #### Keyboard navigation - Present: Basic article likely navigable with keyboard. - Improve: Confirm skip links and logical focus order in the site’s template. #### Contrast and readability - Present: Depends on site theme; not discussed. - Improve: Verify 4.5:1 contrast, comfortable line height, and non-justified body text. #### Text resizing and reflow - Present: Likely responsive layout. - Improve: Test at 200% zoom, ensure no content loss, and honor prefers-reduced-motion. #### Media and captions - Present: Primarily text and static imagery. - Improve: Provide captions or alt text for images; add audio versions where possible. #### Forms and interactions - Present: Minimal interactive elements in-article. - Improve: Site-wide, ensure forms (newsletter, comments) have labels and clear error handling. #### Standards reference - Map any gaps to WCAG 2.2 AA, particularly 1.4.x (contrast), 1.4.10 (reflow), 2.1.1 (keyboard), and 3.3.x (forms). --- ### 🌍 DEIB Assessment #### Cultural breadth - Present: Focuses on largely Western news organizations and tools. - Improve: Include examples from non-Western publishers and multilingual RSS ecosystems. #### Inclusive language - Present: Neutral, professional language with minimal jargon. - Improve: Add short explanations for technical terms and avoid insider references (e.g., “Web 2.0”) without context. #### Neurodiversity support - Present: Logical structure and headings; some longer paragraphs. - Improve: Further chunk text, use more subheadings and bullet lists for easier scanning. #### Representation - Present: Limited discussion of people; focuses on institutions and tools. - Improve: Highlight diverse creators and communities who benefit from RSS (e.g., independent journalists globally). #### Psychological safety - Present: Non-confrontational tone, no graphic content. - Improve: Add a brief note on respectful, open web governance and community norms where relevant. --- ### ✅ Logical Validity #### Strong reasoning - Inductive and causal reasoning: The article infers RSS’s importance from widespread but hidden usage across tools and industries, then links that to control over distribution and attention. The stepwise three-part proposal logically follows from the diagnosis. - Analogical strength: Comparing RSS to plumbing and SMTP effectively illustrates its infrastructural role and simplicity, helping clarify why it should remain universal. #### Fallacies - No major fallacies are evident; some claims (e.g., levels of reliance on RSS) are asserted rather than quantified, but they are plausible given industry practice. #### Tone of voice - Tone: Reflective, mildly urgent, and optimistic. The author warns about enclosure and algorithmic mediation while remaining constructive and solution-focused. --- ### 🛡️ DARVO Analysis - Deny: The piece does not deny harm; it acknowledges enclosure and intermediation risks. - Attack: No attacks on individuals or accusers; platforms are critiqued structurally and economically. - Reverse victim/offender: The author does not recast powerful actors as victims; instead, he centers publishers and readers as those at risk of losing autonomy. No DARVO pattern is present. --- ## 🎯 Conclusion RSS is not a relic—it is the quiet infrastructure that still lets publishers and readers connect directly. In a web trending toward walled gardens and algorithmic feeds, treating RSS as strategic infrastructure is one of the clearest paths to preserving distribution sovereignty and reader agency. Practical next steps: audit and improve your feeds, advocate for RSS in the tools you use, and experiment with feed-based apps and social bridges that keep power distributed. --- ## 🧱 Refactor Appendix ### 📚 Literature Split Pad - Purpose: Stage Konik CEE units that become per-source Literature notes. - Split level: **H3**. - Include verbatim quotes under 25 words and a [view highlight] link. ### [H1] 5–10-word present-tense claim > [!quote] [Why RSS matters](https://werd.io/why-rss-matters/) by [[Ben Werdmuller]] via [[werd.io]]. Published 2025-12-09. > “Every RSS subscription represents a direct relationship between publisher and consumer.” Two lines: context and use. Cite data if relevant. [view highlight](https://werd.io/why-rss-matters/#H1) #xref #articleseed ID:rw_[MISSING] ### [H2] 5–10-word present-tense claim > [!quote] [Why RSS matters](https://werd.io/why-rss-matters/) > “It’s the glue that holds the timely web together.” Two lines: context and use. [view highlight](https://werd.io/why-rss-matters/#H2) #xref ID:rw_[MISSING] --- ### 🔖 Atomic Split Pad (Zettel Candidates) - Purpose: Promote reusable claims into Atomic notes. - Split level: **H4**. - Each item: one idea, present tense, specific, testable. #### [Z1] RSS keeps publisher–reader relationships direct - Scope/condition in one line. - Pointer to page/time or dataset. - Links: [[Open-Web-Standards]] [[Syndication-Architecture]] #### [Z2] RSS can act as social-web connective tissue - Scope/condition in one line. - Pointer to page/time or dataset. - Links: [[Decentralized-Social-Web]] [[Interoperability]] --- ### ✏️ Fleeting Queue (Extract by Selection) - Purpose: Capture quick actions or sparks for Fleeting notes. - Extraction: **Select one line** → “Refactor: Extract selection to new note (content only).” - Keep each line short and self-contained. - [F1] Audit my sites for working, discoverable RSS feeds — context/https://werd.io/why-rss-matters/ #fleeting #inbox - [F2] Prototype a simple, non-power-user RSS reader — context/https://werd.io/why-rss-matters/ #fleeting #inbox - [F3] Explore an RSS-based newswire for CC-licensed journalism — context/https://werd.io/why-rss-matters/ #fleeting #inbox --- <!-- deep-read:sections end -->