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I don’t use a traditional email newsletter service. Instead, this blog offers an RSS feed that you can convert to email updates using a free RSS-to-email service.

Why RSS-to-email?

Traditional newsletter platforms track you, own your subscription data, and insert themselves between me and you. RSS is an open standard - you control how you receive updates, I don’t track you, and nobody’s building a profile on your reading habits.

Why not Substack?

They want to own the relationship with readers, not me. Substack takes 10% of paid subscriptions and makes it deliberately difficult to export your subscriber list in a usable format. They’re building a walled garden where they control discovery, recommendations, and increasingly, the reading experience itself. That’s great for Substack’s valuation, less great for writer independence.

It’s a platform play disguised as writer empowerment. Substack wants to be the destination, not the tool. They’re subsidizing certain writers, building social features, creating their own app - all the classic moves of a platform trying to achieve lock-in before monetizing aggressively. I’ve seen this playbook before, and it never ends well for the people creating the content.

I don’t want to be part of their growth strategy. Every writer on Substack is helping build network effects that primarily benefit Substack. They’re banking on writers bringing audiences that attract more writers that bring more audiences. Classic platform dynamics. I’d rather own my content on my own domain and let you choose how to consume it.

RSS is boring, open, and nobody owns it. That’s precisely why it’s good. No company can decide to change the algorithm, deprecate features, or pivot to video. It just works, forever, the same way, for everyone. Substack is exciting and well-funded. That’s precisely why it’s suspect.

If you want to support my writing, you can buy me a coffee on Ko-fi - I’d rather you send me a one-time donation than give Substack 10% forever. If you just want to read, RSS gives you more control over how and when you see it than any platform ever will.

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For RSS Purists

If you already use an RSS reader (and you should - they’re great), just add this feed:

https://keiron.xyz/blog/index.xml

Good RSS readers include:

Feedbin (paid, but excellent)
NewsBlur (free tier available)
Feedly (popular, free tier)
Miniflux (self-hosted, FOSS)
FreshRSS (self-hosted, FOSS)

What You’ll Get

You’ll receive the full text of each blog post as soon as it’s published. No tracking pixels, no analytics, no algorithmic timeline - just the posts, in chronological order, when they’re published.

Privacy

I don’t know who subscribes via RSS-to-email. I don’t collect email addresses, track open rates, or build profiles. The RSS-to-email service you choose will have your email, but I won’t. That’s by design.

If you want to unsubscribe, just use the unsubscribe link in the emails from whichever service you chose. I’ll never know.

Support This Blog

If you find my writing useful and want to say thanks, you can buy me a coffee on Ko-fi. It’s completely optional, but appreciated - and 100% more goes to me than would via Substack’s 10% cut.

Questions?

If you’re having trouble setting this up, feel free to reach out via Mastodon and I’ll do my best to help.