I predict that these people won’t stand for a universe where their email becomes ever more crowded just because of Elon Musk mucking up Twitter. The 10% of people who claim that email newsletters are their primary form of news consumption include among them the most anal, powerful, and high-net worth people in the country. We are just at peak newsletter via email delivery. Now, it’s less socially acceptable to tweet.Ĭontrary to what The New York Times has speculated, we are not at peak newsletter. Twitter could be their perfectly curated and controlled sandbox of content. You may recall them talking about how RSS readers were obsolete in a world of Twitter (after all, even Google killed Reader). There are two types of Inbox Zero people in this world: Those who do not read any news or shop online, and those who use a lot of Twitter. But now the mix includes Semafor, Puck, Punchbowl, more Axios Locals, and new ones on the horizon like Pluribis News. Two years ago, Substack was becoming a thing, but the newest spawn of DC beltway publications based on newsletter distribution had yet to break through. It is at this point that the most organized people in late capitalism will rise up about a very small matter and demand something better: An RSS for the people, open source, easily used, and not some weird niche version for podcasts or that uses AI. Left without a better way to quickly zoom in and zoom out on the state of the universe (also known as the world according to Twitter), I predict those people will reach a point of frustration in even their ability to manage email.
The difference, going into 2023, is that even the Inbox Zero people are going to have a reason to complain. But the appetite wasn’t strong enough yet.
Two years ago, Sara Watson boldly predicted in this space that we might see a return of the RSS reader, or something like it, recognizing that the world of constant email newsletters was simply impossible to maintain. With using Twitter becoming increasingly like smoking - a habit you can’t quit but know you should - there’s a chance that a better RSS reader will finally, finally take hold and scale.
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