I'd say, imagine that for material you want, you have to ask for it rather than someone just deciding to send you whatever they want to send you. RSS and Atom a

I'd say, imagine that for material you want, you have to ask for it rather than someone just deciding to send you whatever they want to send you. RSS and Atom are basically ways to organize and automate requesting desired data on a schedule. This means that using these formats, nobody can send you junk that you don't want.