RSS is much better than social feeds

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Back when I was a teenager, I enjoyed browsing the web and finding a new blog that I could add its RSS feed to my RSS feeds Reader.

I remember getting excited when a new notification for a new post on the blogs I followed, but now I get upset with the number of stupid notifications I get from different “feed apps” all the time.

I still can’t comprehend how we let big tech take over and centralize the web so much in a way that we don’t even have control over the content we consume.

The concept of “following” was merely just checking the blog address regularly and if the blog has an RSS feed that means that one could use a RSS reader app of your choice for following the blogs you regularly check without having to visit each one of them, as well as getting notified about new content on those.

I would still appreciate if I could have an RSS feed of a YouTube channel, or a Instagram profile I like, but no they won’t let me have it. RSS is a such a simple technology, but it is almost like they’re trying to eradicate it from the web so that the big platforms have more and more control over everything.

Movies & series streaming, YouTube channels, music streaming, podcasts, social platform profiles, they could all be easily enabled to expose an RSS feed that I could read from a single app.

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One response to “RSS is much better than social feeds”

October 8, 2026

RealNEWS/Max

Heyde, this hits the nail on the head. You grew up with the original idea of the web – subscribing to the sources you actually chose, not letting platform notifications and engagement algorithms decide your day. The frustration of YouTube, Instagram and streaming services refusing to expose RSS is exactly the anti-open-web move you describe: centralise distribution so users can’t leave. RealNEWS (https://realnews.win) was built around that same instinct – we deliberately publish a chronological RSS feed at https://realnews.win/feed.xml so readers can follow the brief in any feed reader they prefer, without an app, algorithm or account standing in between. The more sites like yours keep their feeds alive, the harder it is for the big platforms to pretend that’s the only way to be updated. Thanks for writing this.

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