RSS Can Save The Internet

[CrunkLord420]

Centralized platforms are killing the free internet. I'm talking about your Facebooks, Twitters, Reddits, YouTubes. These giant websites that dominate internet traffic have become arbiters of culture, of discussion and who gets a voice.

Making alternatives can be helpful, but the fragmentation of the userbase is problematic. If an alternative becomes dominant, the same type of crackdowns will begin occurring all over again. Reminder that once upon a time Reddit was the new Digg, and Facebook was the new MySpace.

What did we gain from these platforms? We gained wider reach, a large userbase that will regularly log into the website and possibly see your content, and expensive video streaming infrastructure. We give up our freedom in exchange.

The internet would become a freer place if we could revert back to the world of many small and medium sized websites. Where there is no truly dominate platform, or rather, the internet and not the website is the platform.

Can you honestly ask someone to visit your WordPress blog in [CURRENT YEAR]? Maybe, but they'll likely forget about it never come back. It's not part of the users routine to visit your website, especially if your website only updates once a week or even once a month. But we solved in this problem, in 2002 with the popularization of RSS 2.0.

So what happened? Why is RSS a boomer technology and not the way everyone consumes their content? I suspect publishers did everything in their power to kill it. Google (the advertising company) killed Google Reader. Publishers started removing content from their feeds, leaving only a summary, forcing you to click through to their site. Mozilla Firefox (which pushed RSS heavily in the early 2000s) have dropped almost all their RSS support in favor of turning their browser into botnet adware. Fundamentally RSS makes monetization difficult because it allows people to consume content offline at their convenience and without a browser.

Despite the shortcomings of RSS I strongly advocate for everyone to start using RSS. Bypass the middle-man that is Facebook or Twitter and get your content directly from the content source. Don't allow the algorithms to play favorites with the content you want.

Optimally we'd take this even further with technologies like IPFS, but I can only dream. Right now RSS should be convenient and universal enough for everyone to start using.

Now only if KiwiFarms displayed most recent post instead of the OP every time.

Linux: Liferea (Open Source)
Android: Feeder (Open Source, available on F-Droid)
Web (Self-Hosted): Miniflux (Open Source)
Web (Self-Hosted): Tiny Tiny RSS (Open Source)
Web: Feedly (Proprietary)
Windows: RSSOwlnix (Open Source)
iOS/MacOS: macfags aren't actually people so I don't care enough to put anything here

Spoiler

this post was partly inspired by this Luke Smith video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYDwep9yI8A

 

[REGENDarySumanai]

I've never really dabbled with RSS, but this does sound like a good time to start and get experience with it.

 

[Otis Boi]

I miss using RSS Feeds I wish they where more popular. It was always a nice at way to see what was going on with websites I used to frequent when i was younger. I guess it went out of style because there are so few platforms now and the Big ones spam push notification at you so there ins't much point. Most normies have no need to go anywhere besides Facebook, Youtube, Reddit ect. so it not like they are bouncing around website to website and need a way to keep in the loop. Sorry if this was a bit rambly but i do think you have the right idea at anyrate

 

[byuu]

I like RSSGuard for reading RSS feeds.

You can also use an RSS reader to get YouTube account updates without having to use a Google account.
They stopped offering RSS feeds to users but YouTube still uses them and you can the get feed through the channel ID.

Here's a little script that gives you the feed URL of a YouTube account name:

#!/bin/sh

USER="$1"
curl -s "https://www.youtube.com/user/$1/videos" | \
   grep -o "channel-external-id=\"[^\"]*" | \
   sed -n '1s|channel-external-id="|https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=|p'

This combined with youtube-dl allows me to avoid that horrible website as much as possible.

 

[eldri]

I've started using RSS feeds for news and such months ago and it's great.

However, it is important to note that people should not use Web-based RSS feeds. If they are not premium then they are most likely selling your data to someone which is not favorable imo.

After looking around, I've settled on the Feedbro Reader, a Firefox add-on, since all of the feeds I'm subscribed to are only saved locally and it has a simple UI.

I like RSSGuard for reading RSS feeds.

You can also use an RSS reader to get YouTube account updates without having to use a Google account.
They stopped offering RSS feeds to users but YouTube still uses them and you can the get feed through the channel ID.

Here's a little script that gives you the feed URL of a YouTube account name:

#!/bin/sh

USER="$1"
curl -s "https://www.youtube.com/user/$1/videos" | \
   grep -o "channel-external-id=\"[^\"]*" | \
   sed -n '1s|channel-external-id="|https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=|p'

This combined with youtube-dl allows me to avoid that horrible website as much as possible.

How is RSS Guard considering updates are dead (at least on the official github)

Also, thanks for the info about RSS and youtube. I've come to the conclusion that since youtube punishes problematic channels then they will eventually punish the viewers of said channels. A youtube RSS feed will help me keep track of channels youtube doesn't like without youtube knowing.

I know that sounds paranoid but considering how much google wants to break into China and it's social credit system, it concerns me that google may create a behind the scenes social credit system with youtube has a factor for said score.

 

[Maggots on a Train v2]

I've started using RSS feeds for news and such months ago and it's great.

However, it is important to note that people should not use Web-based RSS feeds. If they are not premium then they are most likely selling your data to someone which is not favorable imo.

After looking around, I've settled on the Feedbro Reader, a Firefox add-on, since all of the feeds I'm subscribed to are only saved locally and it has a simple UI.



How is RSS Guard considering updates are dead (at least on the official github)

Also, thanks for the info about RSS and youtube. I've come to the conclusion that since youtube punishes problematic channels then they will eventually punish the viewers of said channels. A youtube RSS feed will help me keep track of channels youtube doesn't like without youtube knowing.

I know that sounds paranoid but considering how much google wants to break into China and it's social credit system, it concerns me that google may create a behind the scenes social credit system with youtube has a factor for said score.

What with Google being full of crazy people, and already giving the SPLC backchannel access, and the SPLC buying stolen data just to sabotage careers, it seems reasonable to me.

I'm sure they would love to compile an ideological blacklist of youtube accounts, cross-referenced to android and paypal accounts, and shop it around to other sites as a blocklist of ne'er do wells. They already obviously conspire behind the scenes to mass-ban famous bad people from multiple services at once.

 

[LocalFireDept]

RSS, self-hosted IRC and Mumble servers, mailing lists, and every other open protocols that's fallen by the wayside... all the cool and good ideas got shat on by proprietary garbage. We need decentralized, inter-operable platforms. Can we get a KiwiNET IRC server running and a proper RSS feed I can subscribe to so that I only need to come here to shitpost for stickers, please?

 

[CrunkLord420]

RSS, self-hosted IRC and Mumble servers, mailing lists, and every other open protocols that's fallen by the wayside... all the cool and good ideas got shat on by proprietary garbage. We need decentralized, inter-operable platforms. Can we get a KiwiNET IRC server running and a proper RSS feed I can subscribe to so that I only need to come here to shitpost for stickers, please?

I setup a Riot server for KF, @Null hasn't shilled it yet.

 

[The Cunting Death]

holy fuck is this 2009?

I mean, it wouldn't hurt to do it again

 

[CIA Nigger]

RSS feeds were the shit in the late 2000s when even Windows Vista/7 came with a desktop RSS feed reader and having an Android or WinMo RSS feed reader widget wasn't uncommon.

The problem besides publishers gimping it is that the big companies want you to get a specially curated news feed from Google or Facebook where an algorithm picks and chooses what you should be reading. This also makes blacklisting of "problematic" news sites such as Fox News, Breitbart, and especially InfoWars a lot easier as well.

 

[You Can't Sit With Us]

 

[BoingBoingBoi]

i've recently set up my own RSS for similar reasons (hating content aggregator sites, having my own favored new sources, etc.) but didnt think to encourage others to do so, so good for you for encouraging this.

the video in the OP is actually not too bad. it's actually great advice: if you dont want to worry about being censored or unpersoned on the internet, build your own website. the great thing about this advice is that unlike some other advice, it doesnt seem to have a time limit, since presumably, no matter what, you'll always be able to make your own website, at least if you have the know-how. i do not. a thread on how to do that might be neat too (the zillions of sites on "how to set up your own website" notwithstanding)

 

[CIA Nigger]

i've recently set up my own RSS for similar reasons (hating content aggregator sites, having my own favored new sources, etc.) but didnt think to encourage others to do so, so good for you for encouraging this.

the video in the OP is actually not too bad. it's actually great advice: if you dont want to worry about being censored or unpersoned on the internet, build your own website. the great thing about this advice is that unlike some other advice, it doesnt seem to have a time limit, since presumably, no matter what, you'll always be able to make your own website, at least if you have the know-how. i do not. a thread on how to do that might be neat too (the zillions of sites on "how to set up your own website" notwithstanding)

It's not hard to do really. Buy a domain, find a half decent host (avoid shit like Bluehost (and any EIG owned companies) or GoDaddy), set up Wordpress with a few plugins and you'll be good to go. Maybe have a "homepage" as well but try to make it a bit more than just a fancy page with a few links to your corporate owned social media accounts because doing that only makes you come off as a hipster who most likely has pronouns in their bio.

Make sure to update it once in a while because if it's out of date, it will get hacked. When I was newer to the internet, some guy I knew insisted on using the infamous old Invision 1.3 forum software with security holes up the ying yang instead of something newer and free like SMF or PHPBB. I think the site lasted a few weeks before it was "hacked" and the owner got the hint to use something more secure.

 

[CrunkLord420]

Netlify, Neocities and GitLab all provide free pseudo-anonymous static website hosting, GitHub does as well but they kicked off the ResetEra Ban Bot for a bullshit trademark infringement claim so fuck them.

Hugo is a great static site generator, it'd only take a couple seconds to generate thousands of HTML files from markdown. My deploy script would push the site to several of the aforementioned hosts, so if one got taken down the others would remain as mirrors (remember when websites had mirrors?).

 

[AnOminous]

If you follow federal court cases via PACER, actually checking the docket can be a cumbersome manual process, plus you also get charged for it.

However, each court has an RSS feed: https://www.pacer.gov/psco/cgi-bin/links.pl

I use RSS Bot to search for a string in that and notify me when what I'm interested in gets updated, and either ping me on my desktop or send an SMS (for that I use IFTTT "a free web-based service to create chains of simple conditional statements").

 

[Glad I couldn't help]

If are a Luke-Smith-watching, Arch-using 30-year-old boomer in the woods, you can get newsboat, a terminal application that using vi(m)-keybindings.

Speaking of Luke Smith, he recently uploaded a new video on this exact topic.

It's not hard to do really. Buy a domain, find a half decent host (avoid shit like Bluehost (and any EIG owned companies) or GoDaddy), set up Wordpress with a few plugins and you'll be good to go. Maybe have a "homepage" as well but try to make it a bit more than just a fancy page with a few links to your corporate owned social media accounts because doing that only makes you come off as a hipster who most likely has pronouns in their bio.

Hasn't Wordpress shit the bed with their new Gutenberg plugin (who made editing (with) Gutenberg a thing?)? Switched to Linux recently did a whole series of rant videos on the topic:

(BTW, the also recomends against using any EIG host or GoDaddy)

 

[Rand /pol/]

What is this gay shit? What is "open source" and why should I care?

 

[Pop-Tart]

My question is how do you get the normies on board? They make the bulk of the user base of everything, and are a key part of modern site traffic. How are you gonna get them to even bother with RSS?

I setup a Riot server for KF, @Null hasn't shilled it yet.
View attachment 637520

Is this a Discord clone, or more likely the thing discord copied?

 

[AnOminous]

Now only if KiwiFarms displayed most recent post instead of the OP every time.

Is there an easy way to rss-ify threads and read them in some compact reader so they're like Usenet threads but with formatting?

 

[CrunkLord420]

My question is how do you get the normies on board? They make the bulk of the user base of everything, and are a key part of modern site traffic. How are you gonna get them to even bother with RSS?

Downloading an app on your phone seems easy enough, lots of them have some type of feed search engine built in, too. As for why? We just need to wait for everyone to get deplatformed and then they'll be forced.

Is there an easy way to rss-ify threads and read them in some compact reader so they're like Usenet threads but with formatting?

Probably something XF should handle, which will need to wait until XF2.0, so never.