"Wherever you get your podcasts" is a radical statement. https://www.anildash.com/2024/02/06/wherever-you-get-podcasts/

@anildash We desperately need an RSS-like medium for written content, but with respect for formatting and branding.

To me, I think the reason why audio has long remained the perfect object for the medium of podcasting is that an audio file can’t be modified. It’s delivered as the creator intended.

I think email won the war for newsletters because it does a better job respecting the “as the creator intended” truism than RSS does.

I’m sure people will push back on this POV. But it’s so obvious.

@anildash

#Spotify seems to be letting #JoeRogan go back to being a real podcast again. It should be fantastic news even to people who hate him. Similar to everybody joining the #fediverse even if you won't follow them etc.

@anildash amazing points that gave me some hope this morning

“What podcasting holds in the promise of its open format is the proof that an open web can still thrive and be relevant”

Thank you for the reminder of the power we all hold

@anildash We need that radical openness that podcasts have across mediums. It is the purest gatekeeper-free medium that we have; we need to duplicate it.

@ernie @anildash That's a feature not a bug for me. A lot of sites have a design which is, kindly, ass. My RSS reader gives me clean text on a clean background to read.

Perhaps a way to toggle that on the reader end would be nice, but those sorts of features get you out of Really Simple territory quickly.

@malderi @anildash The medium has to work for everyone, including publishers.

For publishers, it’s the biggest bug there is, and exactly why they don’t invest in this ecosystem.

@ernie @anildash I don't disagree, but that kind of control is exactly why it's better for the user. I'm very worried too that the only way to make money on the internet is with user-hostile patterns.

@ernie @anildash I never thought about that view; I regard HTML email as a pox that should never have happened, read only the text/plain part of incoming multipart/alternative, and send only text/plain. I do not subscribe to email newsletters; if the speaker doesn't offer an RSS feed, I assume they're just building a list of email addresses to sell to spammers, aka "advertisers" or "marketers"

@malderi @anildash I mean, I don’t know what the solution is—should we just deliver PDFs of magazines to readers?

I don’t think it has to even be user-hostile. I just think that if you look at what worked with audio content, and what works with video content, it’s clear that having the content presented as the creator intended makes those mediums more commercially viable. Newsletters, for all their faults, are the closest we get to that with written content.

@malderi @anildash It’s too bad. The user deserves a say in the discussion, obviously, and I want them to have one.

But I look at a medium that is starving and worry about its long-term viability, and just hope for something of a middle ground.

@anildash podcasts are pretty good, I follow quite a few, but only routinely listen to one, just skim the episode descriptive text. My main source is RSS feeds with text, rather than audio.

@bet @anildash I work with a lot of newsletter publishers. We do not think this way. I see HTML in email as a creative medium and a way to present content as I intended it.

It’s not ideal, no, and it’s a poorly suited format for so many reasons. But as a delivery mechanism for written content, it’s a lot closer than so many other things, unfortunately.

@ernie @anildash Thank you; it's good for me to learn about this perspective, even if I don't empathize with it. I'm interested in the words, and clever presentation forces me to hunt for them.

@ernie @anildash No argument on any point there. It's super hard and I agree with you. But it's definitely going to be an uphill battle, just like ad blockers.

@ernie @malderi @anildash There's degrees of nuance to "as the creator intended". For example, YouTube lets you adjust the playback speed but Disney+ doesn't.

@AzureArmageddon @malderi @anildash absolutely. I think in the case of this theoretical format I am pitching you want a format that would not allow JavaScript and would only allow a subset of HTML/CSS.

I think the constraints of email actually play in the format’s favor sometimes.

@ernie @AzureArmageddon @malderi @anildash this is a straw man though. Feeds allow html (though readers filter some of it) and social media sites allow far less. Twitter and Facebook are plaintext plus images, and publishers are all over them

@KevinMarks @AzureArmageddon @malderi @anildash I feel like I have been saying for years, “I’m a publisher, I would like the ability to have a say in the visual appearance of my content in my feed.”

I use what’s available to me design-wise with the RSS spec to design something along those lines, which I get via FeedPress: https://feed.tedium.co

It doesn’t go anywhere, but I do it!

Please, consider for a second that maybe this is not a straw man but something I’d like to see fixed.

@KevinMarks @AzureArmageddon @malderi @anildash Social media also plays a much different role in the publishing apparatus. It’s like comparing a billboard to a magazine.

@KevinMarks @AzureArmageddon @malderi @anildash (I should add some context here that I think may be lost for folks who don’t follow me—I spent nearly a decade as a print designer and as a result I see design as an important part of the editorial process.)

@ernie @KevinMarks @AzureArmageddon @anildash Yeah, I should probably stop pointing out how hard your job is and instead say that I appreciate reading your work! :-)

@malderi @KevinMarks @AzureArmageddon @anildash LOL, it’s fine. I have lots of opinions on things!

@anildash

really interesting point about inefficiencies in the ad market leading to new creator opportunities

@ernie @anildash

This is called #ActivityPub. You are using it now.

@amgine @anildash It could be built on ActivityPub, but we don’t quite have it yet.

@ernie @anildash

You might try writing up a spec of what such an ActivityPub-based platform should do. I would envision posts as Latex, but others may think pdf or more exotic.

@MidniteLibrary @malderi @anildash Responsive PDFs are technically possible now. It may (and likely is) be the wrong format for it, to be clear, it was sort of where my brain went as I was writing.

@MidniteLibrary @malderi @anildash Here’s some info on the responsive PDF capabilities, something Adobe calls “liquid layout.” https://blog.developer.adobe.com/adobe-sensei-makes-responsive-pdf-experiences-with-liquid-mode-562320362e2a

@ernie @AzureArmageddon @malderi @anildash I agree that it needs fixing, I wrote a plea for this a while ago https://epeus.blogspot.com/2011/12/facebook-twitter-and-google-plus-shun.html

@anildash great post. Maybe if the Fediverse takes off, we'll be able to say 'follow us wherever you get your socials' rather than reeling off a list of usernames on different platforms.

@ernie @anildash yeah there’s absolutely no reason we couldn’t just have HTML as an RSS enclosure

@anildash

My opinion is #bandwidth is still a limiting hurdle for #podcast creators, and people with #privacy concerns.

To explain: almost no podcasts host their content. Bandwidth (and storage) cost $$$. $(3rd party #CDNs and podcast hosting svcs) < $(commercial hosting) < $(than server hosting). But all seem part of #SurveillanceCapitalism.

#Peertube, #Funkwhale could reduce cost/increase findability, but painful. #InterPlanetaryFileSystem (#IPFS) might be best.

@ernie I want topush back but… can't. Scratching my head here, very interesting point!

@anildash

@rysiek @anildash I’m going to explain my point in full. It’s not the first time I’ve suggested this but the thought monster deserves to be let loose.

@ernie @anildash From my perspective I see most publishers providing RSS/Atom webfeeds. They don't always promote it, but they often do.

And besides: webfeeds link to webpages the exact same way podcasts link to audio. The difference is how clients choose to present it.

I fail to see the problem?

@alcinnz @anildash The problem is not with the format, it’s what the format does for the creator or publisher.

You can make a living on a podcast because you often shape how it’s distributed and what it includes. You often cannot make a living on an RSS feed, because the content is untethered from things that allow for business models.

@ernie @anildash Again: I don't see any lack of uptake amongst publishers. But what you're complaining about is an issue with many, not all, feedreading clients.

I see the issue as being with a promotion of feedreaders, most people don't know the tech exists.

@alcinnz @anildash I think you’re misunderstanding what I’m asking for.

I’m saying content should be presented as a single piece, exactly matching the creator’s intention, with design. I basically want to see a format that presents information similar to a newsletter.

RSS feeds are often neglected, even forgotten by publishers, because they do not make them money. We need a higher-end publishing format that allows publishers to better control how they present themselves.

@alcinnz @anildash I think RSS deserves an update that allows publishers more control over the experience, but also isn’t stuck in the backwater of 25-year-old email markup.

@alcinnz @anildash The best comparison I have is that I want to see someone take the parts of Google AMP that were a good idea and combine them with the good parts of RSS.

@ernie @anildash I get the impression that a client could address these concerns, without updating the protocol. Though I might be wrong.

Basically we're arguing over strategy.

It'd be great for Mozilla to tackle this, I think it'd be *well* worth the investment for them! But I'm not holding my breath.

Or I'm willing to incorporate your ideas into my work, but that won't have the adoption.

@alcinnz @anildash I'll flesh out my explanation a bit more. I do think there's something here.

@anildash wow now I'm gonna have to vote biden just to return balance to the force

@alcinnz @ernie the point is that iterating the format also necessarily updates expectations for client apps, instead of a piecemeal voluntary set of improvements.

@anildash @ernie In practice: Adoption of a new iteration of the standards is also piecemeal. These standards orgs will tell you as much, & I have personal experience.

And one disagreement between me & Ernie (different perspectives) is that I don't see these gripes as the core issue hindering webfeed adoption. They'd be good to address, especially in the process of promoting the tech. Since I see the main hindrance being that noone's heard of it.

@anildash 🔥🔥🔥

@ernie @anildash «We desperately need an RSS-like medium for written content, but with respect for formatting and branding.»

You can embed HTML in Atom feeds. Or PDF, if you really want (as an enclosure). There's nothing stopping you from putting ads in your Atom feed, other than people not wanting to subscribe to it if you do.

https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc4287#page-8

@mathew @anildash There’s a difference between being able to do something and being developed for that purpose.

@ernie @anildash The web wasn't developed with the purpose of distributing advertising-funded publications either, but that doesn't seem to be stopping anyone.

@mathew @anildash To be clear, “as the creator intended” does not automatically mean “advertising,” which seems to be your implication here.

I think for example that RSS could be a great mechanism for subscriber-driven publications, for example, if it was presented that way.

But I think more importantly, you can’t just develop HTML-based content in an RSS feed if there is no ecosystem support for it.

@anildash @ernie Well, I’d say it’s up to the commercial publishers to come up with the ecosystem support. Like Apple have with Apple News, which is web feeds under the hood, and supports commercial subscription offerings.

@mathew @anildash Or we could just work on ways to support this stuff on the open internet so we’re not constantly throwing people in the direction of gatekeepers.

@ernie @anildash I’m not clear on how HTML is deficient for commercial publishing, but assuming it is, I think the people who should be developing the alternatives should be the people who want them. They’re the best ones to steer the design and the ones who should be paying for the work.

@anildash Thought monster deployed: https://tedium.co/2024/02/06/rss-creator-economy-rethink/

@anildash
Spelling 'conspiracy' as 'conpsiracy' is kind of radial too but maybe fix that one

@anildash It's still terribly difficult to just download podcast files. Most podcasters just link to Spotify, so I need to google the name, find a good result from one of the many podcasting services, fail to find a download link, and extract it from the RSS. Many web players hide the download button behind "Share", if they offer it at all.

@andy @anildash I think this is actually why you want to build a new version or scheme from ground up so everyone is on the same level. It’s sort of like, what’s the point of adding something like this if readers don’t support it?

@ernie @andy I think the technical way of talking about this would be a define profile of Atom that you specifically want clients to support. And then the trick is figuring out the incentives nad rewards for everyone embracing that subset of the format. (This is how OpenID evolved into being useful.)