What if you read things around the web the way you watch movies or listen to music?

A couple of days ago I made a post on Mastodon introducing lettrss.com, a project I made that takes a book in the public domain and sends one chapter a day to your RSS reader.

Xinit replied with a great point about RSS feed management:

This is fascinating, but I know how it would go based on the thousands of unread RSS feeds I’ve had, and the thousands of unheard podcasts I subscribed to. I’d end up with an RSS of unread chapters, representing a whole book in short order.

Regardless of my inability to deal, it remains a great idea, and I will absolutely recommend while hiding my shame of a non-zero inbox.

When I first started using RSS, I thought I’d found this great tool for keeping tabs on news, current events, and stuff I should and do care about.

After adding newspapers, blogs, magazines, publications, YouTube channels and release notes from software I use, I felt a false sense of accomplishment, like I’d finally been able to wrangle the craziness of the internet into a single app, like I had rebelled against the algorithm™️.

But it didn’t take long to accumulate hundreds of posts, most of which I had no true desire to read, and soon after I abandoned my RSS reader. I came back to check on it from time to time, but its dreadful little indicator of unread posts felt like a personal failure, so eventually I deleted it entirely.

Will Hopkins wrote a great post on this exact feeling.

I don’t actually like to read later:

I used Instapaper back in the day, quite heavily. I built up a massive backlog of items that I’d read occasionally on my OG iPod Touch. At some point, I fell off the wagon, and Instapaper fell by the wayside.

[…] The same thing has happened with todo apps over the years, and feed readers. They become graveyards of good intentions and self-imposed obligations. Each item is a snapshot in time of my aspirations for myself, but they don’t comport to the reality of who I am.

I couldn’t have said it better myself. This only happens with long-form writing, whenever I come across an essay or blog post that I know will either require my full attention or a bit more time than I’m willing to give it in the moment.

I’ve never had that issue with music. Music is more discrete. It’s got a timestamp. I listen to music through moods and seasons, so much so that I make a playlist for every month of the year like a musical scrapbook.

What if we took this approach to RSS feeds?

Here’s what I replied to Xinit:

This is something I find myself struggling with too.

I think I’m okay knowing some RSS feeds are seasonal, same as music genres throughout the year. Some days I want rock, others I want jazz.

Similarly with RSS feeds, I’ve become comfortable archiving and resurfacing feeds.

For reference, I follow around 10 feeds at any given time, and the feeds I follow on my phone are different from the ones on my desktop.

You shouldn’t feel guilty about removing feeds from your RSS readers. It’s not a personal failure, it’s an allocation of resources like time and attention.

Further Reading

Marco Arment, Sane RSS Usage:

RSS is a great tool that’s very easy to misuse. And if you’re subscribing to any feeds that post more than about 10 items per day, you’re probably misusing it. I don’t mean that you’re using it in a way it wasn’t intended — rather, you’re using it in a way that’s not good for you.