Around the mid 90s, my dad used to sit in his chair in the mornings and read the Atlanta Journal and Constitution and we always had a copy of the Atlanta Business Chronicle downstairs next to some old Campmor paper catalogs in our bathroom that was the "community bathroom" in our house growing up. He would sit in his leather chair next to his deck and read these and I would always try to show him that you can now get the most current news on Prodigy if you wanted. This was before the internet was a commercial thing, per se. There were also options like CompuServe and the brand new AOL that could deliver news in a flash, and they would push ( and pay people ) for the most recent news. It wasn't a day old, IT WAS FROM RIGHT NOW. Seconds after it happened. It was the future. My dad would still continue to read the papers and their 24 hour lag. I didn't get it until a few years ago.

My main source of news these days is Feedbin. While I wouldn't describe RSS as an old internet artifact just yet, I think you could definitely say it has already seen its heyday. In a world of Substack email newsletters and their million attempts to get you to subscribe to four "extra" publications that they want, and the days when the normal internet surfer now has a Pi-hole + eight browser plug-ins to defend themselves from ads ( or worse ), RSS is still a breath of cool fresh air. Some sites don't want you to use RSS anymore, they lose precious view counts and metrics, but still, RSS has stood the test of time. If it were gone marketing departments would have nothing to do. CMOs wouldn't get invited to parties. Cats and Dogs.

Take for example this morning:

How else am I going to know that Malcolm in the Middle got his first win? I used to visit Sportscar365 daily. My interest in IMSA and endurance racing has waned over the last few years, and it just simply isn't on my radar that much anymore. I am happy I knew this ( party conversation with CMOs! ) so good job Frankie. It's these side niches, and hobbies of a former life, that I would miss if I didn't add that site's RSS at some point to my traveling list.

That list has traveled over the years. From my own creations to Google Reader ( RIP Sweet Prince ) to Feedbin to some new shiny RSS reader that is supposed to bring the format up like Lazarus, and then back to Feedbin inevitably. I wrote about this a few years ago and honestly my use has increased since then - as has my Filter word list.

RSS really is one of the good formats on the web. Support it, support the places that use it. View Source and ctrl-f whenever you don't see the icon to find it ( usually it is there, even if the site author doesn't know it is ).