> it can create pressure to pander to your audience
RSS creates no such pressure, as you needn't be aware of who/what is following you. It's a convenience function simply for the convenience, rather than as a form and measure of external validation.
the pressure is intrinsic from the knowledge that what you publish will now be displayed to a bunch of people, unfiltered by algorithms. do you really want to put out a post that you yourself might find useful, but might be considered shallow, low effort, repetitive, non unique by your readers, and a waste of their time?
the fact that people want to read every new thing being posted is external validation, rather than letting each piece stand alone by its merit.
For a similar reason, blog posts should have no words as these can become SOE and the purpose of blogging become intrinsic SEO.
Personally, I blog in my head but am concerned still it could lead to bias in my other activities which are mainly related to sitting under a tree by a lake in the middle of nowhere.
My general experience with RSS users is that they understand not every post is for them. I've got some feeds that I read once or twice a year when I'm in the mood to learn what's going on in that corner of the world. I've got feeds where I skip 90% of the posts, because they're not the topic(s) I subscribed for. And I've got feeds I read daily, of course.
I tend to expect most useful sources of high-quality information to have a fair amount of off-topic content, since it's hard to reach critical mass on a single narrow niche. I read Hacker News, but click maybe 10% of the links
RSS is very liberating. Quality of content is something very subjective and the audience can choose what to engage with. Nothing called perfect and not every post has to be a masterpiece.
> do you really want to put out a post that you yourself might find useful, but might be considered shallow, low effort, repetitive, non unique by your readers, and a waste of their time?
Yes. If some of my readers don’t like that I do that too often (or even once), they can unsubscribe.
Meanwhile, _as_ a reader, feeds like RSS and Atom are super useful. They let a computer check my favorite sites so I don’t have to.
I’ve had a Wordpress blog since 2012, and many years of a Livejournal before that (when timeline filters were pretty much nonexistent) and I don’t think I ever felt this fear. Sometimes I had art to share. Sometimes a serious post about something that was on my mind. Sometimes just the results of a “which Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle are you” quiz that half my friends had already posted.
Worrying about this “pressure” is a great way to be that guy with three posts about their new static site generator and nothing else.
Honestly, my blog's RSS feed subscribers are the best. They tell me when the feed breaks and demand literally nothing else. Once in a while, they will email if they like a post. That's it.
> while rss is nice, it really shouldn't be required to be considered a blog.
I agree. A blog is literally a web log. A chronological sequence of posts published on the web. RSS is certainly helpful for syndication and distribution but I wouldn't consider it to be a defining part of what a web log is.
Good point. My idealistic (realistic?) view of a web log is just a person typing out something unique that concerns that person and their view, life, or experiences.
As soon as you start catering to and fishing for views you lose that angle. Not a drama, but it’s already 99.5% of the internet.
Edit : I really like Marginalia search, for prioritizing non commercial content.
being "followed" isn't always a good thing, it can create pressure to pander to your audience, the same thing that makes social media bad.