The View from RSS
Diving deep into the enduring power of RSS, this piece explores how an author's feed-first approach unveils the unfiltered realities of online content. It exposes the hidden world of SEO-driven articles and AI-generated summaries, offering a unique 'behind the scenes' look at the internet's true nature. This perspective, celebrating foundational web tech and critical media consumption, perfectly aligns with Hacker News's curious and technically-minded audience.
The Lowdown
Caroline Crampton details her unique approach to consuming web content: an RSS-first strategy she's employed since the mid-2000s. She explains how this method, especially relevant as AI reshapes online information, offers a distinct and often stark view of the internet, contrasting sharply with the curated experience of traditional browsing.
- Long-standing Practice: Crampton inherited and expanded a collection of nearly 2,000 RSS feeds, which she uses daily with Feedly to curate "The Browser" newsletter.
- Unfiltered View: Her RSS reader presents a minimalist, chronological stream of content, often without images, forcing a focus on the text itself and revealing the sheer volume of daily publications.
- The Web's Underbelly: This method exposes a vast amount of SEO-driven content—such as videogame cheats, affiliate product reviews, and articles tailored for AI summarization—that typically remains hidden from homepage promotion.
- Human Glimpses: Despite the commercial noise, RSS also occasionally reveals the human element of publishing, like temporary "TKTKTK" headlines, draft versions, or personal posts published exclusively for RSS readers, fostering a sense of community (e.g., Dave Rupert's RSS Club).
- Machine Feeds Machine: Crampton observes a rise in content seemingly generated for AI tools, suggesting a feedback loop where machines create content for other machines to consume and summarize.
Through her RSS-centric lens, Crampton offers a compelling and often surprising insight into the raw, unpolished, and sometimes absurd landscape of the modern web, highlighting both its commercial drivers and unexpected pockets of human connection.