Here’s something that appears slightly unsettling to me these days.
Recently I unsubscribed from a bunch of email-newsletters from Tech sites (which used to end up in my inbox at a regular interval) - and instead switched over to an RSS reader (Feeder from F-Droid), and added the feeds from as many of those Tech sites in my reader as I could.
My whole point for doing this was to ensure that I follow stuff on my own terms - and also I get all the feed in one place (one app) instead of those newsletter emails taking me to their individual Tech Sites.
And in spite of being old school, I always thought RSS to be cool tech, just like Radio!
Some of the tech sites I subscribed for newsletter are Android Authority, Ars Technica, Gizmodo, Digital Trends, Engadget, TechCrunch, TechRadar, PC World, Mashable,… You get the idea.
What I am noticing is that most of the feeds from these sites are blatantly “Promotional” in nature - e.g.
- “The best robot vacuums for hardwood will keep those floors looking spiffy”
“The best home security camera ahead of Prime Day”
“Get a Microsoft Office lifetime license for/an all time low price”
“The best T-Mobile deals of October 2023”
“Best early October Prime day tech deals”*
…and don’t get me started about ExpressVPN sponsored posts…
Unsurprisingly, I do see that almost all of them carry sponsored/affiliated links.
Seriously ?? I can’t focus on just the tech news, and avoid these promotional BS ?
Would love to hear if anyone else experienced this, and any workaround there might be.
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Definitely noticed this as well. Wish I could filter out articles by certain keywords/phrases that pop up a lot. I know that’s an option for some of the paid rss readers, but it should be a pretty simple feature from a code perspective, so I don’t want to pay for it. It might drive me to actually learn how to compile my own app. I also want to get rid of any sports news from my local newspaper cause it seems like 50% of what they put out is professional, college, and even high-school sports
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Nothing suspicious, that’s just how the bigger outlets work. There’s news and info about upcoming products or developments, but there’s also a myriad of articles to grab viewers, sell ads, and drive traffic. These stories range from sponsored articles about the latest microfibre cloths to clean your TV to how you set up family sharing or charge your new iPhone.
Most also have sections for RSS. Like Ars. They have feeds for their site, or sub sections like only Apple or Google products, etc.
Check to make sure you are subbed to the right sections you’re interested in.