Escape the walled garden and algorithm black boxes with RSS feeds

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Atom vs RSS and technical notes

  • Atom and RSS are described as functionally equivalent for most users; “RSS” is often used as a generic term for XML feeds.
  • One claim says Atom’s push features were essentially never implemented; another counters with specific protocol (SWORDv2) and real deployments, so usage is limited but not nonexistent.
  • Examples of Atom feeds include GitHub repo commits/tags/releases and Google/Blogger feeds.

How people use RSS today

  • Many participants consume Hacker News itself via RSS to see posts chronologically, including flagged/dead items, avoiding ranking effects.
  • Others aggregate HN alongside blogs, YouTube channels, and newsletters in one reader, using RSS as their main way to consume the web.
  • Some want easier ways to track friends’ activity without social platforms; one idea is a local‑first reader that syncs and republishes via GitHub.

Discovery, aggregation, and “planets”

  • “Planets” (topic/project-specific feed aggregators) are praised as crucial for discovering blogs and reducing polling load on individual sites.
  • Several software projects and directories collect planets and blogrolls, often exposing OPML to bootstrap subscriptions.
  • Tools to find or synthesize feeds include bookmarklets/feed-finder services, RSS-Bridge, custom scrapers, and RSS-to-email services.

Algorithmic vs chronological feeds

  • One side argues chronological feeds are “awful” at scale and inevitably biased toward high-volume posters; they advocate algorithmic readers (even TikTok-like) that select the “best” x items from a larger pool.
  • Others prefer chronological feeds for transparency and a clear stopping point, and object mainly to opaque, engagement-maximizing algorithms.
  • Middle-ground views suggest user-controlled or pluggable algorithms, flexible taxonomies, keyword filters, and per-source weighting rather than platform-controlled black boxes.

Barriers to mainstream adoption

  • Skepticism that RSS will “come back” beyond tech circles: non-technical users find it invisible, jargon-heavy, and lacking friendly onboarding.
  • Some think this niche status is protective (less incentive for platforms to kill or corrupt it), while others argue broader expectations would pressure more sites to offer feeds.

Readers, services, and platforms

  • A wide range of readers is mentioned: commercial (e.g., Feedly, Feedbin), self-hosted (FreshRSS, Miniflux), desktop/mobile apps, terminal clients, and browser-integrated options.
  • Several experimental projects aim to blend RSS with read-it-later, curation, social link sharing, or Yahoo-Pipes-style feed mixing.
  • Mastodon and Bluesky accounts expose RSS feeds; Facebook requires hacks or tools to approximate a chronological friends feed.