[javajosh]

Great idea! But the problem, now, is on the client side. Readers need RSS. This lets authors publish at their own pace (which we can assume is relatively slowly) and doesn't burden the user with checking for new content manually. Of course, Twitter is a de facto RSS feed for some, and several other services (HN included) serve that role to some extent. But for the personal web, for those readers (and writers) of the web, you need RSS.

The other problem is that a lot of writing is just not very good. Perhaps contraversially, I think that too is a tool problem: I've noticed that good authors take more time with their posts, get more feedback from more people, and even go to the trouble of thanking them in the post - which for very popular authors, like pg for example, is quite effective motivation and reward. But most authoring tools don't particularly encourage this behavior, preferring instead to give the author the least resistance possible to publishing.

So, with either the return of Google Reader or equivalent, or the addition of a great RSS reader in Chrome, plus authoring tools that promote collaboration and revision, the personal web can flourish. Until then we'll have to make do with Twitter, etc for RSS and cobble together our own ad hoc editor networks via awkward emails and/or shared google docs.

[asdff]

>Until then we'll have to make do with Twitter, etc for RSS and cobble together our own ad hoc editor networks via awkward emails and/or shared google docs.

Or you can use existing blogware and rss. Plenty of people do use rss still today. Plenty of small and major media websites still offer it. Every few years there's a hn thread something akin to "ask hn: does anyone use rss still" at which point its the most engaged thread on the front page, with nearly all replies either saying that "yes I use it every day," or even "I got to this very thread from an rss feed." Honestly, if you are a blogger and want to select a readership base that has certain characteristics you are interested in (maybe it overlaps with your stereotypical hn user: techie or in the technology industry with more money than the median worker), you should offer an rss feed to capture these readers who might not even bother with platforms like twitter at all.

[javajosh]

You know what, you're right. I just installed Opera for the first time, which includes a usable RSS browser. However, only one out of the OP's list of personal websites had an RSS feed!

Opera has a lot of cool features, BTW! In the first 30 minutes I'm much more impressed than I expected. Kind of incredible you can get such great software for free (if not open source). Of course, that probably counts as a red flag in some rational threat-models...

[aikendrum]

One of two things will happen. Either someone will build a huge business on top of a really great RSS reader, gradually adding features to feeds that customise to compete with substack / twitter etc; until the point where regular old feeds don't work as well, or at all in free readers. This is the IRC to Slack pipeline.

Or, RSS will continue as an important technology, but one that's sidestepped in favour of social networks.

I miss the old web, blogging, deep knowledge and intellectually diverse voices spread and hosted widely. But it stands in contrast to the centralising, oligopolistic tendencies of capitalism, and arguably high technology itself.