> ActivityPub puts timestamps on things so you can ask your Mastodon server for everything that's been updated since the last time you polled. RSS makes you pol

> ActivityPub puts timestamps on things so you can ask your Mastodon server for everything that's been updated since the last time you polled. RSS makes you poll over and over again and download everything. so instead of downloading X kb of content you could be downloading 20X kb if you are polling too fast, alternately you could be losing content if you poll to slow. This is a pretty obvious consequence of trying to misuse HTTP (or debased "REST") to get it to do something it's just not very well-suited for. A client-to-server protocol like XMPP that's tailor made for this application would be a better fit, but what captures public attention rarely involves coming up with answers to questions like, "First, which is the superior technology?"