Building A Newspaper Out of the Internet with Molly White

0:00This is an iHeart Podcast.

0:30any workload in a high availability, consistently high performance environment, and spend less than you would with other clouds. How is it faster? OCI's block storage gives you more operations per second. Cheaper? OCI costs up to 50 % less for computing, 70 % less for storage, and 80 % less for networking. Better? In test after test, OCI customers report lower latency and higher bandwidth versus other clouds. This is the cloud built for AI and all your biggest workloads. Right now with zero commitment, try OCI for free. Head to oracle.com slash strategic. That's oracle.com slash strategic. Parking shouldn't slow you down.

1:12ParkWiz gives every driver a shortcut. Book ahead, save up to 50 % and skip the hassle of circling the block. Park smarter, park faster. ParkWiz. Download the ParkWiz app today and save every time you park. So I love Square. They make paying for stuff at a store really easy. I just use them at Court Street Grocers to buy a sandwich here in Brooklyn, New York. Their stuff's reliable, easy to use, and it just works for both businesses and their customers. Square keeps up so you don't have to slow down. Get everything you need to run and grow your business without any long-term commitments. And why wait?

1:44Right now you can get up to$200 off Square hardware at square.com slash go slash better offline. That's S-Q-U-A-R-E dot com slash G-O slash better offline. Run your business smarter with Square. Get started today.

2:25Unlock AI experiences with the ThinkPad X1 Carbon, powered by Intel Core Ultra processors, so you can work, create, and boost productivity all on one device.

2:39CallZone Media

2:44Hello and welcome to Better Offline. I'm, of course, your host, Ed Zitron, as ever.

3:00And today I am joined by the incredible critic and author of the Citation Needed newsletter, Molly White. Molly, thank you for joining me. Thanks for having me. So you generally seem to, this is a strange way to put it, actually love the internet. Kind of like you're mad at what they've done to it, but you actually enjoy the computer quite a lot. Yes, big fan of the computer over here. You wrote this fantastic thing about RSS. And I think like a lot of people kind of have the idea it's a feed. Can you walk people through exactly what RSS is and why you like it so much? Yeah, so RSS is just a protocol.

3:35It's sort of a system by which websites can make their content available to be ingested by programs called feed readers, which are websites or applications or can be an app on your phone, where you can pull together feeds from any number of sources, whether it's the newsletters you follow, the news organizations that you subscribe to, podcasts, YouTube videos, Mastodon feeds, any sort of feed-like structure can be pulled into these feed readers. And then you can read them anytime you want on your own time without going to the Substack app, opening your Mastodon account, going to wired.com. And it's a really wonderful way to interact with the web these days because it's sort of radically different from how a lot of our online interactions have become this sort of abusive, you know, wrestling match with whatever it is that you're trying to read.

4:47You know, the content appears there. There's usually no ads in your RSS feed. There's not any... Go ahead. And is it like you said you can put Mastodon posts and Blue Sky into it? You can have your social feeds in there too? Yeah. A ton of different services provide RSS feeds, sometimes without people even realizing it. So pretty much any WordPress site will publish an RSS feed. Every ghost blog has an RSS feed by default. Substack has RSS on by default. There are other content management systems where it's either on by default or easily enabled with a click or so. And the real benefit to the person using an RSS reader is that you don't have to rely on the sort of algorithmic feeds that we have become accustomed to where if you go to Twitter and you just want to see, you know, news articles written by the journalists that you chose to follow there.

5:51Chances are you're not going to see that. You're going to see Twitter ads. You're going to see rage bait that's being boosted by the algorithm. Four or five gropers, that kind of thing. Yeah, like Elon Musk's posts always show up even though you don't follow him. Right. And then the journalists that you did go out of your way to follow, the chances are you're not going to see the news articles they wrote because Twitter downranks links. And that's the same thing with threads as well, I think, but maybe not to the same extent. And Facebook. I mean, a lot of social media websites have started downranking links to try to convince people to stay on the platforms rather than going to wherever people actually publish their work.

6:31And it's this horrendous situation for both publishers and readers. And so you can sort of opt out of it by using rss to follow these things very directly and avoid a lot of the surveillance and a lot of the um you know sort of abusive practices that we're increasingly seeing on platforms and does do they still get the traffic so that was that's the one thing with rss i've never really been able to get that my the hang of because i know i don't get subscribers I won't get reads, which is fine, but does this not slightly disadvantage the publishers? I'm surprised they haven't turned it off. Well, it depends a lot on how a publisher makes their money.

7:14So, for example, I write a newsletter. People can pay to subscribe to my newsletter. And it's really no different to me if they read it in their email inbox, if they come to my website, or if they read it in their RSS reader. It's sort of all the same. And then people who publish paywalled content can opt to have either excerpts of their posts published on their RSS feeds, or increasingly we're starting to see people create subscriber RSS feeds. Yeah, I know Patreon does that. Yep, and I subscribe to 404 Media, and so I have a specific RSS feed that I can follow there that gives me the full text articles.

8:01And so that's a way in which publishers can still earn money through subscriptions while offering RSS feeds. The place where it can be challenging is ad-supported publishers where they really rely on you visiting the website to get the ad traffic. And so you'll often see ad-supported publishers publishing excerpts from their RSS feeds, but not full text. Meaning that if you're following them in a feed reader, you still have to open the page and it takes you to the website and they get the ad traffic. And so that's how a lot of those sites get around it. But there are websites that basically decide that it's sort of a loss leader.

8:46It's like the Costco rotisserie chicken. and it gets people in the door. Even if they lose some ad revenue, you're still seeing their material more that you might not otherwise. You're still visiting the site. You might sign up for a subscription, whatever it might be. And so they sort of decide it's a worthwhile trade-off. And you use InnerReader, right? I do, yeah. And you mentioned, this is a really specific one, but I saw on your piece you were saying you no longer recommend Feedly. And I've heard Feedly mentioned a few times. Why is that? Yeah, so I used to use Feedly and I used to recommend them pretty widely.

9:22You know, they were doing, they had a very nice full-featured RSS reader. And then they sort of started to pivot in ways that were a little bit uncomfortable, where it was very clear that they were targeting, you know, cybersecurity researchers a lot of the time and very, like, corporate, you know, people. Yeah, it was a very odd, like, subset of traffic where they were constantly trying to help me, like, follow threats online and stuff yeah threat intelligence yeah they and then so but that was fine you know i was like okay i'm not the demographic for this yeah they've just changed their business yeah focus on them except that once they after they did that for a little bit i started to get um promotions about tracking strikes and it was all about monitoring where there might be strikes happening.

10:13And it, they say that they sort of - The cops RSS reader. Right. Yeah, exactly. They tried to sort of, after I, you know, wrote to them a little bit about this, they tried to sort of play it off as like bad messaging and that they were really just trying to help people protect their workers. It's to help people strike. Yeah, it definitely came off as sort of strike breaking as a service. And I decided I was done with Feedly. Finally. Yeah, right. Right, what we've all been waiting for. But I mean, the one thing I really love about RSS is that it's a protocol. It's not a service that you're locked into.

10:50And so it's actually very easy to switch RSS readers if one of them decides that it's going to start surveilling strikes. That's actually a good question. How do you, so if you sit, and I really, I'll be linking to this piece conspicuously, your excellent RSS piece, but how do you move was actually one of my questions. It's incredibly easy. Pretty much every RSS reader allows you to export all of the RSS feeds that you follow. And it's just a simple XML file. It's the same thing that I use to publish my blog roll on my website. So if you're curious what blogs I read, I just export those folders into an OPML file is what it's called, and then I put it on my website.

11:35And you just open that file in a reader or what have you. Right, and it took me probably 10 seconds to switch from Feedly to my new Feedly reader. Very nice. Yeah. Wow. There is some stuff in the internet that works still. It's magic.

11:58So I've shopped with quints before they were an advertiser and after they became one, and then again before I had to record this ad, I really like them. My green over shirt in particular looks great. I use it like a jacket. it. It's breathable and comfortable and hangs on my body nicely. I get a lot of compliments. I liked it so much. I got it in all the different colors, along with one of their corduroy ones, which I think I pull off. And really, that's the only person that matters. I also really love their linen shirts, too. They're comfortable, they're breathable, and they look nice. Get a lot of compliments there, too.

12:25I have a few of them. Love their rust colored ones as well. And in general, I really like quints. The shirts fit nicely and the rest of their clothes do, too. They ship quickly. They look good. They're high quality, and they partner directly with ethical factories and skip the middleman. So you get top tier fabrics and craftsmanship at half the price of similar brands. And I'm probably going to buy more from them very, very soon. Keep it classic and cool this fall with long lasting staples from Quince. Go to quince.com slash better for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash better.

12:59Free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash better. Parking shouldn't slow you down. ParkWiz gives every driver a shortcut. Book ahead, save up to 50%, and skip the hassle of circling the block. Park smarter, park faster. ParkWiz. Download the ParkWiz app today and save every time you park. Mint is still$15 a month for premium wireless. And if you haven't made the switch yet, here are 15 reasons why you should. One, it's$15 a month. Two, seriously, it's$15 a month. Three, no big contracts. Four, I use it. Fine, my mom used to say. Are you playing me off? That's what's happening, right?

13:39Okay. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. A upfront payment of$45 per three-month plan,$15 per month equivalent required. New customer offer first three months only. Then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See mintmobile.com. This is Lunchbox from the Bobby Bones Show. Toyota is moving toward a more sustainable future by giving you the freedom to choose from a full lineup of hybrids, plug-in hybrids, regular gas, and 100 % electric vehicles, including stylish cars like the Camry and Corolla, as well as efficient and spacious SUVs like the RAV4 and Grand Highlander.

14:11All backed by Toyota's reputation for reliability, no pressure, just possibilities. Visit buyatoyota.com for a great deal on efficient Toyota today. Toyota, let's go places.

14:27And having you on here to talk about RSS was important because, first of all, people say I complain all the time, and they are right. And it's just, it's nice to see that there are still some functional parts of the internet. Is there other parts that you actually, other things like, I don't know, RSS that you use regularly that could make the world's, make our listeners' internet worlds a little bit better? Yeah, I mean, I think it's all part of a theme of sort of avoiding these intermediaries that have these incredibly extractive relationships with both the users and often publishers who are on the other side of that relationship.

15:07And so I do everything I can to sort of avoid those intermediaries where possible. And so, for example, I write a newsletter. I use the ghost newsletter software where the relationship that I have with the people who subscribe to me is very direct. People are subscribing to Molly White, the writer. They're not subscribing to Ghost, the website that then deigns to give me a cut of whatever they're taking in, which is unlike some of the other services out there, for example, Patreon, where if you set up a Patreon account, everyone is actually in a financial relationship with Patreon, not with you.

15:54And so if you decide to leave, it can be incredibly challenging to move people to another service. Whereas with Ghost, if I want to leave, I can just set up somewhere else. I can export my subscribers. The financial relationships are already just directly with me. And so that's a very powerful thing, the sort of escape hatch, where now if Ghost decides, you know, hey, maybe we're going to, I don't know, slap ads on everyone's newsletter without them agreeing to it, they now have this incentive on the other end, which is like, well, Molly and all the other people who publish with Ghost might not like that, and they might just leave, because they can.

16:35Whereas other services that have more of a locked-in relationship can make those decisions and take the gamble that, well, it's so hard to leave that people are probably just going to put up with it. And so that's one place where I do that. There are other services throughout the web that are similar, where I try to keep the intermediaries to a bare minimum. Yeah, I use Ghost myself, and I use Outpost. It's one of the things I actually like about Ghost is that you can build a company on top of it, and the company is just, hey, we'll provide some of those slick little features that you get from a sub stack or what have you, like following up with people if their credit cards expired or what have you.

17:22And it's also for giant babies like me who can't do code. I didn't vibe code it, I swear. But thinking of Substack, I've never seen a company go quite as weirdly as them. Putting aside all the obvious promotions of Nazis, it feels as if Substack has just turned into another dogshit social network. Yeah, I mean, Substack is a weird platform because they do in some ways have that similar ethos of your subscribers are subscribing to you, not to Substack. And so it's easy to leave to some extent. I used to be on Substack. I decided to leave. I exported all of my email contacts. I moved all of my content to a different website.

18:10And it went fairly smoothly. And that's always been a part of Substack's marketing. This is a very direct relationship. you'll be able to leave if you want. But I'm getting the impression increasingly that they're almost regretting that decision and that they are trying to install ways that lock people into the platform without effectively locking people in by trying to cut off their escape hatch, essentially. They could say, sorry, you can't export your email lists anymore, or we're going to make it really challenging for you to get, you know, move your content off the platform. And they haven't directly done that, but they are.

18:52They've got this following thing now. Well, that's what I was going to say is they are sort of trying to add in these new, you know, so-called features that make it very challenging for people to leave. So there's now followers, which are different from subscribers. And the idea is that, you know, if you attract followers, they may eventually convert into a subscriber, and that's very potentially valuable. But you can't take your followers with you. They have this sort of network and this almost short-form social media platform now where you publish these notes and those don't come with you when you leave.

19:31They do video now as well. They're increasingly encouraging people to use the Substack app, which is The idea then is that if you leave Substack, all of these people who've gotten used to reading on the Substack app will no longer find you and they won't get access to your writing because you're not there anymore. And so, you know, we see this sort of constant gravitational pull of inshittification, to use Cory Doctorow's word, where, you know, platforms increasingly are trying to keep people locked in so that they can then extract more value both from the publisher end and from the consumer end while making the experience worse for both.

20:17yeah and you're kind of seeing and you've mentioned this in your article as well publishers are moving towards the newsletter format as well it's like 2021 again i don't know if you do you remember in 2021 when you had like the atlantic and there was that weird side channel thing like all these people were like oh we're gonna build a community just gave up on that right but it's you're seeing everyone starting newsletters again it's just you made the point as words at this point it's just moving stuff into your inbox in a way that people probably don't necessarily want or at least find a little overwhelming.

20:47Yeah, so that is sort of the downside of this newsletter boom, which is that it's exhausting if you read a lot of newsletters, which I do, you know, to get, you know, if you follow 10 newsletter writers who are publishing maybe once a week, twice a week, something like that, then constantly throughout your workday or your weekend, you're getting, you know, a notification in your inbox at sort of a random time that you need to read this email, which maybe you're in the middle of something and it's not a good time for you to read. And so it's just sort of constantly lurking there waiting for you to read it.

21:23It's potentially edging out other more time-critical emails that you need to pay attention to. And it's just sort of this deluge of material. Whereas it used to be that you would go to the websites that you follow or open the physical newspaper that you receive in your mail and you could sit down and read the news with your morning coffee. And now it's more of a push relationship than a pull relationship. You're not going to read. You are being inundated with the reading. And so RSS is a really nice way, in my opinion, to handle that as a reader because now if I subscribe to your newsletter, I can turn off the email notifications but put the RSS feed in my feed reader.

22:15And then at my leisure, when I feel like reading my newsletters or going and catching up on the news or whatever it is that I'm reading, I can go do that and it's all in that one place. And my email inbox is safe to have just emails and all of the stuff that's more suited to that. It is funny. We kind of feel like everyone has built these obtuse and complex ways of delivering the news or selling the news or getting people news in different forms. And for the most part, the thing that keeps working is the thing from, what, 20, 30 years ago? Just like reading words on a page. It's funny as well because looking at this move back to newsletters, like I hate to give Neelai Patel any credit at all, but Google Zero is a real effect.

23:00I don't know if it's going to zero, but I'm still getting a ton from my newsletter. but it is funny to watch people try and get back to newsletters but it almost feels like they're just treating them as the same thing as a regular article rather than a unique way of delivering news which i guess it is but i feel like that the email format is not treated with any any necessary particular respect it's just almost become a dumping ground for these companies like it's just like hey i think i with washington post let's see if i still get them because i got really pissed off there was a point when i was getting four or five emails a day from the most letter card.

23:36And it's just, it's abuse on your inbox in the same way it abuses your feed and so on and so forth. Right. I think that's really true is that especially high volume publishers really need to grapple with the strategy when it comes to these types of relationships with subscribers, because, you know, it's one thing to publish 20 articles a day on, you know, WashingtonPost.com. That's not, you know, that's not a problem for anybody. In fact, people probably enjoy all of that choice. But getting 20 separate emails is not a viable way to have a respectful relationship with the people who have chosen to subscribe.

24:14And so I think that it is incredibly important to consider that if you're a publication that's thinking about creating a newsletter, is what do people actually have the appetite to read and how can we maintain a respectful relationship with these people who have chosen to receive this material. And my answer is 10 ,000 words. Just 10 ,000 words every week or so. No one ever emails me to say my stuff is too long. No one has ever complained about it. It's great.

24:57Parking shouldn't slow you down. ParkWiz gives every driver a shortcut. Book ahead, save up to 50%, and skip the hassle of circling the block. Park smarter, park faster. ParkWiz. Download the ParkWiz app today and save every time you park. Hey, it's Lunchbox from the Bobby Bones Show. Toyota is moving toward a more sustainable future by giving you the freedom to choose from a full lineup of hybrids, plug-in hybrids, regular gas, and 100 % electric vehicles. So pick from stylish cars like the Camry, Corolla, and Prius, as well as efficient and spacious SUVs like the RAV4 and Grand Highlander, all backed by Toyota's reputation for reliability.