7 ms·

Have you used any modern RSS reader recently like inoreader, they load the content of the page without visiting the publishing website. So still, no ads.

nordsieck 3y ago
> Have you used any modern RSS reader recently like inoreader, they load the content of the page without visiting the publishing website. I'm happy with newsboat[1]; but I'm not surprised that people have integrated scraping into RSS readers. Fundamentally, that's not a problem with RSS, that's a war between scrapers and content providers. If the email newsletter model persists long enough, I'd expect that people will come out with "newsletter readers" that scrape websites too. I'm not sure there's a good long-term solution to the problem. Aside from constant vigilance (obfuscation). --- 1. https://newsboat.org/ https://newsboat.org/
- tourmalinetaco 3y ago
  Actually, “newsletter readers” exist in a form already with email-to-RSS. https://kill-the-newsletter.com/ https://kill-the-newsletter.com/
- crushingk 3y ago
  Newsboat FTW
- yetanother-1 3y ago
  Sure, you can obfuscate all you want. But my point still stands valid. Earning a living from ads for these types of people.is not sustainable. They will have adblocker installed, so you are also wasting respurces with no income. RSS or newsletter or whatever scrapper, it's there today already.
johannes1234321 3y ago
Adding ads into feeds works, just make them an entry in the feed. I have also seen embedded images with ads. Issue is that Google Ads and such don't offer this and you don't get the "typical" ad networks. If RSS were more popular there wouldn't be a problem to build the required tooling. Even when feed readers don't send cookies etc. while fetching you can do a permanent redirect to a feed with an unique ID in the URL and most feed readers will store that URL, thus you can do tracking (incl. personalizing URLs in the feed) and all that. What saves reader privacy currently is the small user base.
- arek_nawo 3y ago
  Yeah, that's roughly aligns with what I've experienced. RSS is beneficial to publishers when reach is the top priority (e.g. it's a company marketing blog or the ads are "embedded" directly into the content).
- yetanother-1 3y ago
  I can agree with that. But still, an experienced user will skip the ads posts and will smell them from far away.

nordsieck 3y ago

> Have you used any modern RSS reader recently like inoreader, they load the content of the page without visiting the publishing website. I'm happy with newsboat[1]; but I'm not surprised that people have integrated scraping into RSS readers. Fundamentally, that's not a problem with RSS, that's a war between scrapers and content providers. If the email newsletter model persists long enough, I'd expect that people will come out with "newsletter readers" that scrape websites too. I'm not sure there's a good long-term solution to the problem. Aside from constant vigilance (obfuscation). --- 1. https://newsboat.org/ https://newsboat.org/

tourmalinetaco 3y ago
Actually, “newsletter readers” exist in a form already with email-to-RSS. https://kill-the-newsletter.com/ https://kill-the-newsletter.com/
crushingk 3y ago
Newsboat FTW
yetanother-1 3y ago
Sure, you can obfuscate all you want. But my point still stands valid. Earning a living from ads for these types of people.is not sustainable. They will have adblocker installed, so you are also wasting respurces with no income. RSS or newsletter or whatever scrapper, it's there today already.

johannes1234321 3y ago

Adding ads into feeds works, just make them an entry in the feed. I have also seen embedded images with ads. Issue is that Google Ads and such don't offer this and you don't get the "typical" ad networks. If RSS were more popular there wouldn't be a problem to build the required tooling. Even when feed readers don't send cookies etc. while fetching you can do a permanent redirect to a feed with an unique ID in the URL and most feed readers will store that URL, thus you can do tracking (incl. personalizing URLs in the feed) and all that. What saves reader privacy currently is the small user base.

arek_nawo 3y ago
Yeah, that's roughly aligns with what I've experienced. RSS is beneficial to publishers when reach is the top priority (e.g. it's a company marketing blog or the ads are "embedded" directly into the content).
yetanother-1 3y ago
I can agree with that. But still, an experienced user will skip the ads posts and will smell them from far away.