The feed is everywhere. It’s very convenient: a list of interesting things that you scroll through, at your own pace. Great design.
It’s in social media, in group chats, in RSS.
Slack is essentially used as a feed by most people.
IRC is a feed, podcasts, Twitch and Discord as well. You get the point.
Email isn’t a feed though! Email is that thing where for every item you need to make a decision for. The feed isn’t like that. The feed flows.
I know a lot is going on right now with social media slowing down. Dave Winer, RSS godfather has a vision for the feed that I don’t really share. There’s Mastodon that I don’t really want to get into. There’s ActivityPub which seems to be overly-complicated, a feature of all new software since the 2010s.
Anyway.
This is how the feed should be, based on RSS of course.
It should be yours
The feed should be your own carefully crafted curation of what you want to keep around you. The feed shouldn’t be shared, the same way you don’t share your clothes even though you could. I recommend having things to try out, people with different opinions or maybe aesthetics that you’re curious about. Be curious, subscribe and grow.
It should be used with one app only
And the app should be extremely simple: one left pane with the feeds, a right pane with the content of the feeds. I’ve tried all the feed systems. The two-pane paradigm is by far the best, allowing you to move quickly and effortlessly through your curation.
Don’t sync shit
Synchronization of feeds between devices is unnecessary. Don’t pretend that you have 2 minutes to kill waiting in line somewhere, and that this is why you need to know exactly where you are in your feed consumption. If you’re like that, seek help. Consume your feed responsibly by checking it a few times a day, not every single second when you idle. Idling has big value in that it lets your brain “print” what you’re learning.
Do not have news in your feed
Completely avoid general news in your feed. Think about your feed as something to inspire and motivate you. News ain’t it. They will make you depressed and quit your feed. Don’t add them.
Use this service to convert newsletters to RSS feeds. Remember, your inbox doesn’t flow. Don’t mix those things up.
It’s been so good to me this way.
All I’d need is a new feedreader with sqlite, chromium rendering and full client-side styling (if I want to read your stuff in Times New Roman or Segoe UI, I should be able to do so).