RSS can be used to distribute all sorts of information

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

RSS and Atom feeds are praised as simple, open standards that can deliver far more than blog updates, powering everything from podcasts and Git commits to homelab monitoring, newsletters, social timelines, and alerts. Commenters lament the decline of native browser support and the dominance of email signups and closed platforms, while highlighting modern readers, push extensions like WebSub, and even alternatives like ActivityPub and Nostr as ways to revive user-controlled content aggregation. A recurring theme is that while feeds remain technically robust and widely available, their future depends on usability, discovery, and incentives in an ecosystem that increasingly favors tracking, lock-in, and algorithmic feeds.

Value and Use Cases of RSS/Feeds

  • Many commenters still rely heavily on RSS/Atom for news, blogs, software releases, YouTube channels, podcasts, game discounts, kernel mailing list matches, certificate transparency, service status, and homelab cron outputs.
  • Feeds are seen as a calm, high‑signal notification channel and a way to avoid algorithmic feeds, clickbait thumbnails, and tracking links.
  • Beyond “website updates,” examples include: podcast distribution, Mastodon timelines/hashtags, git commits, artcasting, Twitter/Nostr bridges, dynamic wallpapers, to‑do/recurring tasks, bandcamp emails converted to feeds, and RSS-driven email digests.

Usability, Discovery, and Tooling

  • Early browser integration (address-bar icons, live bookmarks) is widely praised and considered to have solved onboarding and subscription UX; its removal is lamented.
  • Some modern browsers and extensions still support integrated feeds; various desktop/mobile readers (including email clients) are recommended, especially those that fetch full content from partial feeds.
  • Discovery is often social: people share links; specialized directories and tools like HN-specific RSS services also help.

RSS vs Atom vs JSON and “Feeds” Generally

  • Debate over using “RSS” as a generic term for feeds: some argue Atom is technically superior (clearer spec, better handling of HTML, titles, pagination), others say real‑world benefits are negligible.
  • There is interest in JSON Feed and custom JSON RSS serializations as a lighter-weight alternative for XML‑averse developers.
  • Some suggest saying “feeds” and letting formats (RSS 2.0, Atom, JSON Feed) vary under the hood.

Push vs Pull, Scale, and Alternatives

  • Polling is criticized as inefficient for near‑real‑time or high‑volume updates; others say occasional polling is fine for news and preserves simplicity and privacy.
  • Proposed push mechanisms include rssCloud, WebSub/WebSub hubs, Superfeedr, and long‑polling/WebSockets; WebSub is seen as largely superseding rssCloud.
  • Some value that RSS works on static hosting with no dynamic backend, while ActivityPub and similar systems require more complex, stateful infrastructure.

Competing Models, UX, and Adoption

  • Feeds are contrasted with email newsletters, apps, WhatsApp channels, ActivityPub, and Nostr. RSS is praised for user control but seen as unattractive to publishers who prefer push, lock‑in, and direct customer data.
  • Classic reader UX (email‑like lists, “mark as read,” per‑feed silos) is blamed for stagnation; there is advocacy for algorithmic/“TikTok‑style” feed ranking on top of RSS to surface the best 5–10% of items.
  • Some believe RSS “never died” but is under‑advertised; others see it as effectively niche/aging, especially for non‑technical users focused on modern social platforms.