💾 Archived View for sbg.one › gemlog › 2019 › 08-10-What-Happened-To-RSS.gmi captured on 2021-12-04 at 18:04:22. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2021-12-03)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
10 August 2019
RDF or Resource Description Framework developed in 1999 was when an excellent standard was created to publish and share websites in and easy to read format. Today it's known as Really Simple Syndication, RSS, or sometimes that of a competing name from 1999, Rich Site Summary.
The format is still in use today by many bloggers and podcasters and news websites. However, it's popularity seems to be finally dwindling, especially on the news organization websites.
It is becoming more difficult to find mainstream news outlets that provide an RSS feed link that we can put into our aggregators. All of the media websites that I wish to get a feed from either don't have one anymore, or they cripple it with a cursory sentence or two. Those end up with a headline and a link to the main website. If that's all they're going to do, then why do one at all?
Some bloggers still maintain a full RSS feed without the need to point you back to the website. For them, I appreciate that because it makes me want to follow and read more of their content in a way that I enjoy.
I do not enjoy reading content, news, or articles on websites usually. That is because they are full of ads, javascript, and privacy trackers as well as images, and videos that follow you up and down the page. A lot of them even have autoplay videos which annoy me, and I have to get creative in finding ways to prevent them from playing.
That's where RSS and small aggregator programs help out a lot. They eliminate the bloat, the ads, the videos and images and will give you a clickable link to see them if you desire.
I think it's sad that so many sites are abandoning RSS or give short summaries. They want you to visit their crappy, bloated, ad-infested web pages instead.
Perhaps that's the reason why RSS is dying; these sites want to generate revenue from page views and serving you ads instead of the content that their writers produce.
I'm still in search of good news sites that provide a full RSS feed. You can find more bloggers that always do so, but they're starting to drop off too.
I designed this website to have a full RSS feed of my posts. Even if you visit my webpage directly, you won't get all the bloat, and the articles will always be easy to read.
Don't let full RSS die my Internet friends!