iRSS > ACTIVITYPUB null (FALSE) 0 i null (FALSE) 0 i2024-03-08 null (FALSE) 0 i null (FALSE) 0 iRSS is better than ActivityPub[footnote]I feel like this statement needs a few null (FALSE) 0 iclarifications and caveats, but my hot take looks spicier if I bury them in a null (FALSE) 0 ifootnote! null (FALSE) 0 i* By RSS, I mean whichever pull-based basic HTTP you like, be that Atom, JSON null (FALSE) 0 iFeed, h-entry, or even just properly-marked-up HTML5: did you know that the null (FALSE) 0 i
element is intended to be suitable for syndication use? null (FALSE) 0 i* Obviously I appreciate that RSS and ActivityPub are different tools for null (FALSE) 0 idifferent jobs, and there are doubtless use-cases for which ActivityPub is null (FALSE) 0 iclearly the superior solution. null (FALSE) 0 i* I certainly don't object to services providing both RSS and ActivityPub as null (FALSE) 0 isyndication options, like Mastodon does, where both might be good choices. null (FALSE) 0 i null (FALSE) 0 i[/footnote]. null (FALSE) 0 i null (FALSE) 0 IPhotograph of a boxing match, but with the heads of the competitors replaced with the ActivityPub and RSS logos (and "AP" or "RSS" written on their clothes, respectively). RSS is delivering a powerful uppercut to ActivityPub. /2024/03/rss-vs-ap-boxing.jpg danq.me 70 i null (FALSE) 0 iWhen I subscribe to content, I want: null (FALSE) 0 i* Resilient failsafes. ActivityPub has many points-of-failure. A notification null (FALSE) 0 imight fail to complete transmission as a result of downtime, faults, or null (FALSE) 0 inetwork conditions, and the receiving server might never know. A feed reader, null (FALSE) 0 iconversely, can tell you that an address 404'd or the server was down. null (FALSE) 0 i* Retroactive access. Once you fix the problem above... you still don't get null (FALSE) 0 ithe message you missed: it's probably gone forever - there's no retroactive null (FALSE) 0 iaccess. The same is true when your ActivityPub server connects with a peer for null (FALSE) 0 ithe first time: you only ever get new content after that point. RSS, on the null (FALSE) 0 iother hand, provides some number of "recent" items the moment you first null (FALSE) 0 isubscribe. null (FALSE) 0 i* Simple subscriptions. RSS can be served from a statically-hosted single null (FALSE) 0 ifile, which makes it suitable to deploy anywhere as well as consume using null (FALSE) 0 ianything. It can be read, after a fashion, in anything from Lynx upwards. null (FALSE) 0 i null (FALSE) 0 iRSS ticks all these boxes. If I can choose between RSS and ActivityPub to null (FALSE) 0 isubscribe to your content, and I don't need a real-time update, I'm probably null (FALSE) 0 igoing to choose RSS. null (FALSE) 0 i null (FALSE) 0 iAbout a month later, Matthias Pfefferle wrote a great post that makes a good null (FALSE) 0 i"next stop" if you're on a deep dive... null (FALSE) 0 i null (FALSE) 0 iLINKS null (FALSE) 0 i null (FALSE) 0 hJSON Feed URL:https://www.jsonfeed.org/ (FALSE) 0 hH-entry URL:http://microformats.org/wiki/h-entry (FALSE) 0 hThe
element is intended to be suitable for syndication use URL:https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/sections.html#the-article-element (FALSE) 0 hSubscription options for DanQ.me, which includes RSS and (via Mastodon) ActivityPub. URL:https://danq.me/blog/subscribe/ (FALSE) 0 hMatthias Pfefferle wrote a great post that makes a good "next stop" URL:https://notiz.blog/2024/04/26/activitypub-the-evolution-of-rss/ (FALSE) 0 .