[wolvesechoes]

To be honest I consider even RSS as too much.

I have a blog. I post there one fairly long text once per month at most. I follow few other blogs. If I want to check updates I can open a browser and visit a specific blog once per week/month. Literally no effort.

I have all things I want to follow in one place - the Web. It works by typing domain names in my URL bar or by clicking bookmarks.

[stevekemp]

I integrate RSS into my daily email flow - I don't track too many different sites, so I just let emails build up in an "Automated.RSS" folder until I want to read them.

Having feeds send their output by email means I can use my existing way to keep state - if I've read an article it shows as read on any system I use for email (be it desktop, laptop, or phone). I can also easily search and filter feed items inside the mail-client if I want to.

I wrote/use rss2email, but there are no doubt a hundred different implementations of the idea, with the same name:

https://github.com/skx/rss2email/

[aworks]

I may want the opposite - email2rss.

I have a good method for handling hundreds of RSS feeds in the Bazqux reader. Reading in gmail feels like a burden as I have yet to find a good flow to handle too much information.

[0x445442]

IIRC there used to be a website with this very name (rss2email) that basically had just two input fields; an RSS URL and an email address.

[kevincox]

I guess if you just follow a few blogs the tiny overhead isn't worth it. But I follow literally hundreds of blogs and vlogs, many that only post a few times a year. It would be a waste of time to not automate the aggregation.

[wolvesechoes]

To each according to his needs. I do not care about most of the content out there, and in my view very few people write things interesting, subversive or novel enough to justify following their activity.

[kjkjadksj]

You don’t have to read everything that comes up in your feed you know. You can even follow hn on rss and have aggregated content from multiple people on there.

[pavel_lishin]

> If I want to check updates I can open a browser and visit a specific blog once per week/month. Literally no effort.

That sounds like rather a lot of effort to me - remembering that a given blog exists, remembering its URL, remembering to check it every so often.

A buddy of mine just updated his blog after a 14 month hiatus. I forgot he even had a blog, and I would have definitely missed the update if it wasn't in my RSS reader.

[wolvesechoes]

Well, I tend to believe that I remember things worth remembering. If I would forget about any of the blogs I read from time to time, I wouldn't consider it a loss.

Someone else here mentioned they follow 700 YT channels. I follow maybe 4, so I think we are from different planets.

[incompleteCode]

As someone with ADHD, I’m glad that the technology exists to create a RSS feed off a website even if the author intentionally doesn’t maintain one.

I don’t think “if it’s important you’ll remember it” is applicable to everyone.

[brokenmachine]

I don't know how to see the number of YT channels I subscribe to, but I bet it's similar.

I also have over 1000 tabs open in my Firefox session.

[kordlessagain]

Come on, if checking a blog once a month is too much effort for you, maybe you're spending way too much time glued to your RSS reader and not enough time outside touching grass. Just saying.

[aeonik]

For me, it's exactly the opposite problem. If I'm not checking something every day, I forget about it.

For example, I'm subscribed to over 700 YouTube channels, but most of them only post one a week to once a quarter. I force notifications on for these, and it's always a treat when one of my favorites pops up in the feed.

There are very few YouTube channels that I want to watch daily, unless it's a series... or Simon Whistler.

[pavel_lishin]

What an uncharitable diagnosis of my life.

[kordlessagain]

Same could be said of your comment to my submission, and hard work.

[lnxg33k1]

I agree with you, RSS for me are bad because it tells me when to go to check a blog, with bookmarks I have the control of when I want to go

[eviks]

> Literally no effort

- you need to remember all the names

- you have to navigate through incomplatible interfaces to get a list of articles

- you have to remember the last one you've read to make sure you're not missing anything

- you can't easily sync check/reading status across your devices

- you waste time polling sites without updates

...

Even for a few blogs that's wasted effort vs. opening a single list and reading through it

[wolvesechoes]

And here lies the difference. I do not care if I read the same post again, as I only follow those creators that create something worth getting back to. I do not care if I visit their blog and do not find any new content, for their old content is good and worth rereading. I do not care about syncing, as I have only laptop and a phone, and tend to use the first one. I do not need to navigate through incompatible interfaces, as they all consists of text and hyperlinks. And I have no issue with remembering all the names, since there is like 5 of them.

So like I said, no effort.

[kjkjadksj]

If you think all that is no effort, following those same blogs on rss is like negative effort.

[eviks]

> difference. I do not care

That's indeed the only difference. Otherwise the wasted effort still exists