6 ms·

I agree with your sentiment, but RSS and the likes are not 'the same old weapon but better'. It was never 'weaponized' in the first place. It never really came

I agree with your sentiment, but RSS and the likes are not 'the same old weapon but better'. It was never 'weaponized' in the first place. It never really came to fruition for the masses. To me, RSS is like two sticks and a string, and it needs some people who can see that they can make a bow and arrow out of it (to stay in the realm of 'weapons'). I don't like talking about tech and business in a sense of 'weapons', 'winning', 'smashing the competition', etc. Talking about it in this sense makes it a struggle, because one will look at tech from the pov of a stockholder, capitalist, or just a narcissist. The wording is very important, and the moment you make that wording your own, you can't see it in a different light anymore. To be honest, it's only since recently that I myself take RSS seriously. Before, I developed a sh1tload of websites without even really knowing what RSS is capable of. Ignorant me. Thanks for your reply!

pxtail 5y ago
> I don't like talking about tech and business in a sense of 'weapons', 'winning', 'smashing the competition', etc. Talking about it in this sense makes it a struggle, because one will look at tech from the pov of a stockholder, capitalist, or just a narcissist. The wording is very important, and the moment you make that wording your own, you can't see it in a different light anymore. I like this paragraph a lot, in my perception this is why most of cryptocurrency initiatives and recently hijacked and massacred `web3` concept are fruitless so far - too much focus on how to get rich quickly
- rambambram 5y ago
  Thanks! Getting rid of notions like 'winning' and 'competition' in areas where it's not necessary was a mind changer for me. Even personal stuff like friendship becomes a competition this way (and I see it everywhere around me). Nowadays, I prefer to think about it as 'challenges' instead of competitions.
samhw 5y ago
Interesting point! What would you say the full realisation of RSS would look like? Also, the weapons metaphor was mostly just responding in the frame of the original language about 'pushing back on big tech', 'shattered by big tech', etc. And I do agree with that framing: I think there is a tussle over the direction of the internet – tussle, battle, tug of war, whatever you want to call it – and I'm not sure it helps to avoid the martial metaphor out of distaste when you are in a battle.
- rambambram 5y ago
  RSS is pub/sub, right? Doesn't social media like Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter - where you post stuff and other people post stuff - resemble that? Replace 'your' account, profile or page with your own website. With the right website software it's easy to have an RSS feed nowadays, so the only thing that's missing is website software that also works like an RSS reader. In the most basic sense you only have to read XML with your program. So now there's your own feed and other people's feed, mixed up in a nice and honest timeline (however you program that). To me this sounds a lot like the first principles behind social media, but without the obscure algorithms to fvck your timeline and without the intruding ads (I have nothing against ads per se). P.S. Sorry for ranting about the weapons metaphor. I triggered on it and felt the need to tell what I think about language. Edit: I forgot to say that RSS feeds have been there all the time for a lot of websites based on Wordpress. That has big value, because it means there's no need for technical adoption. These are all websites with feeds up and running right now. I've been hating on Wordpress for other reasons, but this was a good move for the open web from them.
  - moritz 5y ago
    https://micro.blog https://micro.blog for example does exactly this, sort of RSS based Twitter (i.e the idea is that your feed contains mostly shorter posts, but that’s not a hard restriction) . Give it the RSS of your website (they can also host one for you), "follow" other people (=subscribe to their rss feed) and boom there is your "social media"
    - rambambram 5y ago
      Nice! I really like their idea, and very friendly UI. I get a social vibe from it. Your explanation is exactly what I was thinking of as the ideal social media, but I don't see that explained on their website. No mention of RSS. As long as the feeds from my software can work with their feeds (and the other way around) I'm good.
      - samhw 5y ago

pxtail 5y ago

> I don't like talking about tech and business in a sense of 'weapons', 'winning', 'smashing the competition', etc. Talking about it in this sense makes it a struggle, because one will look at tech from the pov of a stockholder, capitalist, or just a narcissist. The wording is very important, and the moment you make that wording your own, you can't see it in a different light anymore. I like this paragraph a lot, in my perception this is why most of cryptocurrency initiatives and recently hijacked and massacred `web3` concept are fruitless so far - too much focus on how to get rich quickly

rambambram 5y ago
Thanks! Getting rid of notions like 'winning' and 'competition' in areas where it's not necessary was a mind changer for me. Even personal stuff like friendship becomes a competition this way (and I see it everywhere around me). Nowadays, I prefer to think about it as 'challenges' instead of competitions.

samhw 5y ago

Interesting point! What would you say the full realisation of RSS would look like? Also, the weapons metaphor was mostly just responding in the frame of the original language about 'pushing back on big tech', 'shattered by big tech', etc. And I do agree with that framing: I think there is a tussle over the direction of the internet – tussle, battle, tug of war, whatever you want to call it – and I'm not sure it helps to avoid the martial metaphor out of distaste when you are in a battle.

rambambram 5y ago
RSS is pub/sub, right? Doesn't social media like Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter - where you post stuff and other people post stuff - resemble that? Replace 'your' account, profile or page with your own website. With the right website software it's easy to have an RSS feed nowadays, so the only thing that's missing is website software that also works like an RSS reader. In the most basic sense you only have to read XML with your program. So now there's your own feed and other people's feed, mixed up in a nice and honest timeline (however you program that). To me this sounds a lot like the first principles behind social media, but without the obscure algorithms to fvck your timeline and without the intruding ads (I have nothing against ads per se). P.S. Sorry for ranting about the weapons metaphor. I triggered on it and felt the need to tell what I think about language. Edit: I forgot to say that RSS feeds have been there all the time for a lot of websites based on Wordpress. That has big value, because it means there's no need for technical adoption. These are all websites with feeds up and running right now. I've been hating on Wordpress for other reasons, but this was a good move for the open web from them.
- moritz 5y ago
  https://micro.blog https://micro.blog for example does exactly this, sort of RSS based Twitter (i.e the idea is that your feed contains mostly shorter posts, but that’s not a hard restriction) . Give it the RSS of your website (they can also host one for you), "follow" other people (=subscribe to their rss feed) and boom there is your "social media"
  - rambambram 5y ago
    Nice! I really like their idea, and very friendly UI. I get a social vibe from it. Your explanation is exactly what I was thinking of as the ideal social media, but I don't see that explained on their website. No mention of RSS. As long as the feeds from my software can work with their feeds (and the other way around) I'm good.
    - samhw 5y ago