RSS Independence

There is no doubt the leading social media platforms influence and shape peoples' opinions globally. Elon Musk was criticized for overpaying for Twitter yet this gamble clearly played out as he is now able singlehandedly command millions across the world, making him probably the most influential person on Earth.

But Twitter is of course not the only game in town. There are the well established Facebook and LinkedIn, and for those hoping for more neutrality there is BlueSky and Substack. I'm a member of both platforms, but mostly passive. I have been circling around Substack trying to understand what it is and if I should become more active there. It seems many notable people I respect have found their home there.

But the key question is how the social media landscape looks like in 5, 10, or 20 years from now. This blog has been around for 20 years and despite not being promoted, difficult to find, and not very interesting, has had a steady stream of followers. People who are more attached than just scrollers-by who throw "hearts" and "thumbs up" here and there.

From the opposite perspective - the information consumer's perspective I get most of the real stuff from a carefully curated list of sources available through RSS feeds. I use Feedly as the RSS client/aggregator (since the long gone Google Reader), serving me several dozen of posts every day.

The thing is, through the personal RSS selection I feel independent. There is no "algorithm" behind, which may sound arcane, but gives me the sense of being in control instead of being controlled. The RSS approach is not the easiest one - you need to research the information sources yourself and then even adding feeds requires some effort (however lame that sounds). But I think this independence and being fully in control is what I value the most and therefore will continue publishing my thoughts this way.