Defining the Indie Web Positively

I shared an excellent quote on defining the independent web from a February 1, 2026 article by Khürt Williams titled The Indie Web Is Not Defined by Its Enemies:

The indie web is stronger when it is defined by what it does: people owning their publishing, people controlling their data, people connecting through open standards and handcrafted links. That identity does not require a villain. It stands on its own.

I agree with this quote on defining the indie web (for our purposes, I will use the term to refer to independent websites and not a specific movement). Mr. Williams wrote his article in response to a quote that he believes unnecessarily defined the indie web in part by what it exists in opposition to (note I am not addressing the specific debate in this article). He advocates for defining the indie web positively, focusing on why it is a good thing in and of itself without defining it even in part based on its real or imagined enemies.

Using The New Leaf Journal To Demonstrate the Point

I will use this humble perennially virid online magazine as an example to demonstrate the wisdom of the quote which inspired this article.

I generally prefer to let my work speak for itself and let other people decide whether it is worth their time to read what I put out, but were one to ask me to make the case for The New Leaf Journal, I would focus on discussing what I consider to be good things about my project. For example, I may tell people that I write about things I am interested in, and notwithstanding the occasional typo or error that flows from the fact I am not combing through everything as if I were publishing a book, I put some level of care into what I write and publish online. I may tout as a virtue of The New Leaf Journal that I cover many topics, meaning that while no one will be interested in everything I write, there should be something for everyone. I may add that I respect my readers by working to maintain a clean, privacy-friendly website, and I encourage readers to follow me directly via feeds, our weekly newsletter, or simply checking in on our home page. Perhaps I would sum things up by saying that The New Leaf Journal is a humane project: Created by a human being for human beings who enjoy reading, thinking, and sometimes even learning.

Regular readers will know that I have a generally negative view of what I would describe as inhumane content on the web, referring to those monstrosities that are created first and foremost for bots and algorithms (regardless of whether they are created by human beings or bots). I suppose I could promote The New Leaf Journal by insisting that it is better than those bad things like AI slop, internet listicles, or your average social media feed. But here I agree with Mr. Williams. Why would I define my project in terms of its enemies (used colloquially in this case). Perhaps someone who is desperately trying to break his or her social media dependency would appreciate such a definition, but it would likely fall flat with someone who is simply looking for good things to read online. The best case for The New Leaf Journal or any similar project on the web are the good things about it. If someone agrees with those good things, he or she can decide for him or herself whether spending time going through The New Leaf Journal archives is more fulfilling than spending that time on big tech social media.

The Case of Syndication Feeds (RSS, ATOM, and JSON)

Having just explained why I agree with Mr. Williams’ case for defining good things on the web positively and in terms of their own virtues instead of their enemies’ deficits, I now confess that I took the opposite approach in what remains our third most-visited article of all time.

Back on February 21, 2021, I published an article titled RSS as a Facebook Alternative. That article is significant in NLJ history. Back in February 2021, our NLJ was less than one year old and had much less traffic than it does today. RSS as a Facebook Alternative made page one of Hacker News, bringing a large number of people to the site.

(Aside: If you are not familiar with feeds and feed readers, see my quick and gentle introduction to understanding the concepts and tools. Once you are caught up, feel free to follow The New Leaf Journal and my other projects using a feed reader.)

My RSS vs Facebook essay was prompted by Facebook’s decision to block the sharing of news articles in Australia and the angst and lamentations that ensued. I argued that regardless of who was right or wrong in the standoff between Facebook and the Australian government, relying on Facebook for news is a bad idea for a number of reasons (I will not rehash my arguments here but you can see what I wrote back in 2021). I suggested feeds and feed readers, colloquially placing them under the banner of RSS, as an alternative to Facebook. That is, I made the case why using Facebook for news is subpar and encouraged people to curate their own collection of news feeds and peruse them in a news reader.

Taken together, I began by criticizing Facebook (and similar centralized social media platforms) and then introduced feeds and feed readers in terms of being an alternative to Facebook and similar media, notwithstanding the fact that feeds and feed readers pre-date all of the extant popular social media platforms. One could fairly say I did exactly what Mr. Williams cautioned against.

I agree with the arguments I presented back in 2021 on the merits, although I would write some of them differently today with the benefit of having read and thought about the relevant issues in the intervening five years. But the framing was not ideal. While I think that using a feed reader is the best way to follow writing and media online and far preferable to centralized portals such as social media, generalist search engines, and whatever “AI” tool is popular this week, feeds and feed readers do not need to be defined in terms of alternatives. Proponents of feeds and feed readers are far better-served making the positive case without defining them in terms of one service or another that many people may not use and may not even exist in its current form in perpetuity. After establishing the positive case, feed proponents have a basis to explain the many reasons it is at least worth considering using a feed reader in lieu of other more popular ways people find things to read, watch, or look at on the internet.

The Old School Case For Feeds and Feed Readers

RSS feeds (and related syndication formats) have been around for several decades. “Netscape … launched the first RSS specification on March 15, 1999” (Richard MacManus). Feeds have been around longer than the popular big tech social media options, and at least as long as the notable generalist search engines. Having just made the case for making the positive case for feed and feed readers without defining them in terms of social media, generalist search, large language model tools, or the like, I thought it would be worthwhile to put together a collection of passages from writers and bloggers doing just this in RSS’s relative early days, before smart phones, big tech social media, “AI” tools, and even Google were ubiquitous in the ways they are today. Note that I pulled up the sources I will use through a few searches in Marginalia Search and Wiby. This survey is nothing more than a little demonstration of concept.

2004: Lawrence Abrams’ RSS Introduction

Let us begin with a May 6, 2004 article aptly titled Introduction to RSS by Lawrence Abrams for Bleeping Computer. Right on point, Mr. Abrams posited his answer to the question Why would I want to use RSS?

To save you time and effort in finding the information and news that is specifically relevant to your interests. RSS allows you to subscribe to feeds that pertain to subjects that interest you. You can then have these feeds aggregated into one location, such as a web site or software application, where you can view it quickly and in an organized manner.

This is exactly the kind of argument I was getting at. Mr. Abrams did not define RSS feeds and readers in opposition to Google, Myspace, blogrolls and link directories, or saving your favorite websites as bookmarks in Internet Explorer or Firefox. Instead, he explained why one may want to consider using RSS feeds and readers based on the benefits they offer. While the way your average internet user uses the internet in 2026 is very different than it was in 2004, Mr. Abrams’ broad case for considering RSS is as on point today as it was back then.

2003: Giles Turnbull’s Case For Trying RSS

Next, let us look at a July 4, 2003 post by Giles Turnbull. Mr. Turnbull began by describing a problem:

THE problem with browsing the web is that there’s so much rubbish to avoid on your search for something useful. And then, having found your way past all the rubbish to something that you think is genuinely interesting, there’s the task of keeping track of it.

What Mr. Turnbull does here is distinct from my strategy in the RSS vs. Facebook essay. While we both begin with something we see as sub-par, Mr. Turnbull describes a general challenge of finding and following useful things on the internet rather than relying on a specific platform or company. He continued:

These days, however, that need not be such a problem. A simple technology called Rich Site Summary (or RSS) makes it very easy to keep track of interesting web sites.

He then introduces RSS as a solution to the challenges of staying on top of changes in useful websites. But why would you use RSS specifically? I present Mr. Turnbull’s arguments in list-form:

1. “It’s possible to browse and read pages through a specialised piece of software – called, simply, an RSS reader – without even starting up a web browser.”
2. “And since RSS is a very low bandwidth system, predominantly text, and is (to date) advertisement-free, browsing the web this way can be extremely fast and satisfying for people fed up with the endless bombardment of pop-up ads and annoying animated banners.”
3. “If you know the location or URL of that feed, you can tell your RSS reading software to “subscribe” to it – once it knows where to look for the file, it will keep checking it for changes every time you start the software.”
4. “Once you’ve collected RSS feed URLs for a couple of dozen of your favourite sites, you can find yourself spending a lot of time with your RSS reader.”

Mr. Turnbull touted RSS as a way to save your favorite sites and keep track of new articles or media on those sites. He focused specifically on using offline feed readers, presenting not having to open a web browser as a benefit in and of itself. While many people (including yours truly) primarily use browser-based feed readers and some feeds do not offer full text by default (which Mr. Turnbull noted in his 2003 article), his case for RSS, like that of Mr. Abrams’ supra, is still strong in the very different internet environment of 2026. I will note for fun that he recommended NetNewsWire Lite to Mac owners – NetNewsWire turned 23 on February 11, 2026 (I have never used it, however, since it is only for Mac and iOS).

2010: SEABEAN.com Shares Its Feeds

The last site I will examine is SEABEAN.com’s RSS feeds page. While SEABEAN.com was launched in 1998, its RSS page was last updated on March 27, 2010, and appears to have been added to the site by Paul Mikkelsen in 2010. Unlike the prior posts, Seabean’s RSS page first explains why one would want to follow it via RSS instead of using RSS generally, although it also addresses general benefits. I quote the “Why Subscribe?” section:

You can always see the RSS feeds, whether you have subscribed or not. The subscription causes your web browser to search for new RSS Feeds, automatically and as often as you’d like, and make them available to you without visiting the Seabean website… simply open your RSS Reader (or “Feed Aggregator”). The RSS Reader can be set to retain only as many as Feeds you’d like to see, eliminating overload or minimizing redundancy. It can also be set to play a sound when new info arrives!

Seabean explains that adding its feed to a feed reader makes it possible to stay on top of Seabean updates without needing to visit SEABEAN.com directly. That is indeed a core feature of using a feed reader. It adds that one can have as many feeds in a feed reader as desired, making it possible to control how many articles and posts to read or wade through.

Sea Beans?

For anyone curious, the SEABEAN.com What’s a Sea Bean? page explains that “Sea-beans (also known as drift seeds) are seeds and fruits that are carried to the ocean, often by freshwater streams and rivers, then drift with the ocean currents and (hopefully!) wash ashore.”

Conclusion

I try to make my small corner of the internet a place where people can sit down and enjoy reading something interesting (often with external links to interesting articles on the web like sea bean information sites) over coffee or tea. I sometimes use my site to promote ways that people can build their own digital homes, which covers both reading and viewing pleasant and useful things (indie web or otherwise) and adding their own voice to the world wide web.

I have written a good amount of criticism of negative trends on the internet, covering everything from social media algorithms, bad social media content, content for users rather than human beings, and even some friendly critiques of alternatives that I fear may miss the point. I will certainly continue to write what I hope is constructive criticism of contemporary tech. But Mr. Williams reminds us, we can and should define good things in terms of their own virtues instead of by referencing their real or imagined enemies. One need not make the case for independent websites by defining them in terms of opposition to Facebook, Instagram, X, Substack, Medium, WordPress.com, or anything else. Instead, one can explain why maintaining an independent site or following good independent sites (bearing in mind that being “indie” is not coextensive with being “good” any more than being “commercial” is coextensive with being “bad”) is worthwhile before evaluating alternatives. Similarly, the three links about feeds I shared from 2004, 2003, and 2010 all serve as examples of how one can make the positive case for using feeds and feed readers without saddling feeds with the burden of existing in opposition to big tech services. The best starting point for persuasion is making the positive case for what you are encouraging people to try or use.