Hello, RSS. Bye, Reddit
I downloaded Cold Turkey and blocked Reddit and Metafilter, two sites which I habitually browsed. (They are literally habits at this point - that’s why I’ve gone to the extent of blocking them…)
Both of these sites are social media which aim to have their communities select good content from across the web and assemble it into one long, entertaining feed - in other words, they’re content syndicators. A feed of things I enjoy is something I’d very much like. Why don’t Reddit and Metafilter fulfill that role?
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I should’nt need to supply any sensitive information to get a personalised feed of entertainment. How are things such as date of birth, real name, or even email address necessary to simply create a list of content according to a set of websites/interests/topics?
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The front pages of Reddit/Metafilter are filled with bland content. You can search the site for more interesting pieces, but that defeats the point of a content syndicator, which is supposed to do all the searching and fetching for you. It also turns out there is very little genuinely entertaining, useful content on Reddit/Metafilter.
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A lot of the conversation (so, the social media aspect of these syndicators) is shitty “advice” which tends to make the problem it aims to solve worse, not better. Something - the culture, the format, maybe a combination - encourages these sites' users to dwell in depressing mindsets. “Everyone hates losers like us, I’m never going to make it” is especially prevalent on Reddit, for example. This is something I’d especially like to avoid.
I am not only uninterested but actively dislike a large portion of the content on Reddit/Metafilter, which is a strong case to quit using both platforms and find some other way to set up a feed of interesting things. RSS has no social media aspect, the only thing it asks for is a list of feeds to follow, and is entirely focused on gathering content for me to look at.