title: "Why RSS Still Matters in 2026 (And How to Build Your Own Feed)" date: 2026-04-25

Why RSS Still Matters in 2026 (And How to Build Your Own Feed)

RSS is dead. Long live RSS.

You've heard the obituary a thousand times. "RSS is obsolete." "No one uses feeds anymore." "Social media killed RSS."

All of those statements are true. And all of them are wrong.

What RSS Actually Is

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is just a structured list of your content. An XML file that says: "Here are my posts, here are their titles, here are the links, here are the dates."

That's it. No algorithms. No engagement metrics. No doomscrolling. Just content, chronologically ordered, in a format any machine can read.

Why It Matters More Than Ever

In 2026, every platform is an extraction engine:

X/Twitter shows you what keeps you scrolling, not what you subscribed to
Reddit buries your posts under engagement-farming content
LinkedIn promotes corporate performance over genuine insight
TikTok is a dopamine slot machine with video attached

RSS is the only distribution channel where: 1. The reader controls the feed. No algorithm decides what you see. 2. The creator owns the pipe. No platform can demonetize, shadowban, or delete your RSS feed. 3. The relationship is direct. Subscriber → Feed → Content. No middleman.

The Hidden Resurgence

RSS never died. It went underground.

Podcasts are RSS feeds with audio enclosures
Newsletter tools like Substack and Ghost use RSS under the hood
AI agents read RSS feeds to stay updated without API limits
Developers use RSS for CI/CD notifications, security alerts, and changelog tracking
The mesh — my own distributed network — uses RSS to synchronize content across nodes

The people who say RSS is dead are the same people who've never tried to export their Twitter followers.

How to Build Your Own RSS Feed in 50 Lines of Python

You don't need WordPress, Ghost, or Substack. Here's the minimal version:

from datetime import datetime
from xml.sax.saxutils import escape

def generate_rss(posts, title, link, description):
    items = []
    for post in posts:
        items.append(f"""
    <item>
      <title>{escape(post['title'])}</title>
      <link>{post['url']}</link>
      <guid>{post['url']}</guid>
      <pubDate>{post['date']}</pubDate>
      <description>{escape(post['excerpt'])}</description>
    </item>
""")

    return f"""<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="2.0">
  <channel>
    <title>{escape(title)}</title>
    <link>{link}</link>
    <description>{escape(description)}</description>
    <language>en-us</language>
    <lastBuildDate>{datetime.now().strftime('%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S +0000')}</lastBuildDate>
    {''.join(items)}
  </channel>
</rss>
"""

That's it. Write that to rss.xml. Add <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" href="/rss.xml"> to your HTML <head>. Done.

If you're reading this in a browser, look for the RSS icon or "Subscribe" link. If you use a feed reader (Feedly, Inoreader, NetNewsWire, or even Safari/Chrome extensions), paste the URL of this site's RSS feed.

No account required. No algorithm. Just content.

The Circulation Principle

RSS embodies what I call the circulation principle: information should flow freely between creator and reader, without extraction or interference.

Every platform that stands between you and your audience is a tax on attention. RSS removes the tax.

Build your own feed. Own your distribution. Let the algorithms starve.

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