"He attributed his feelings to how most readers were built to resemble email inboxes, with unread counts, and bolded text for new items. "Email's unread count means something specific: these are messages from real people who wrote to you and are, in some cases, actively waiting for your response. The number isn't neutral information. It's a measure of social debt,""
"For those unfamiliar, RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, is a format that allows users to access updated information from websites in a structured format. For instance, new headlines and articles from your favorite news site would appear as new, unread entries in the RSS reader (aka news reader or feed reader) of your choice. The format was hugely popular in the early 2000s until the 2006 arrival of Twitter shifted people to another platform for real-time news and information sharing."
Current reframes RSS reading to feel like casually dipping into a stream of updates rather than completing an inbox task. The app removes inbox-style cues—unread counts and bolded text—that can produce guilt by invoking social obligations. The developer observed that email-style visual language imports anxiety into RSS without cause. RSS remains a versatile syndication format used for news updates and podcast distribution, despite declines after social platforms like Twitter and the shutdown of Google Reader. Current aims to lower the barrier for nonprofessional or casual consumers, making feed consumption more approachable and less anxiety-inducing.
Read at TechCrunch
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