Friday, May 22, 2026
RSS is awesome, so let’s make it easy
I’ve been trying to think of a better experience for people who click on an RSS link or button.
It currently seems like gate-keeping. If you know what RSS is, you’ll figure it out. Everyone else will be baffled. Chrome shows you code, Safari offers to open an app, Firefox downloads a file.
Compare that with the experience you get from clicking on a social media icon. You’re told exactly what to do and how to do it.
Why can’t we have something like that for RSS? I’m not about to send people to the Wikipedia page.
Over at thriftmac, I’m trying something different. It’s a site about free Mac apps, so I’m linking visitors to a page telling them about free Mac RSS apps, along with basic instructions on how to use them.
I almost think it might be worth creating a one-page website that anyone with RSS could link to. “Welcome to RSS. Here’s why you should use it and how.”
If we want to help wean people off the algorithms, we need to make it easy. Give them a few simple instructions to get them started, and they can take it from there.
More posts in the RSS category
