RSS is a great protocol in that it is simple to implement but it is a terrible protocol from the viewpoint of efficiency. The server gives you the N latest results, you might poll too quick and end up downloading the same file 200 times or you might poll too slow and there were 5N updates so you missed a whole lot.
With ActivityPub you can just ask “the last post I saw was X, show me what I missed?” and you just get it.
It seems like a slam dunk to publish something equivalent to RSS entries to ActivityPub but somehow people just don’t make connections like that, they just get hung up on the difference between RSS and Atom or JSON and XML whereas the protocol is so much more important.
My YOShInOn RSS reader looks like TikTok which means it collects thumbs up/thumbs down judgements from every item I look at. (Somehow people don’t get how revolutionary “thumbs down” is. If you had “thumbs down” that worked there would be no enshittification). I am thinking about making it be a Mastodon client.
With ActivityPub you can just ask “the last post I saw was X, show me what I missed?” and you just get it.
It seems like a slam dunk to publish something equivalent to RSS entries to ActivityPub but somehow people just don’t make connections like that, they just get hung up on the difference between RSS and Atom or JSON and XML whereas the protocol is so much more important.
My YOShInOn RSS reader looks like TikTok which means it collects thumbs up/thumbs down judgements from every item I look at. (Somehow people don’t get how revolutionary “thumbs down” is. If you had “thumbs down” that worked there would be no enshittification). I am thinking about making it be a Mastodon client.