you ever read an interesting blogpost and only after you reach the end realize it was designed to be distributed via email rather than atom|rss

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i really can’t imagine why people in the 2020s think email, a notoriously lacking format with a built‐in mechanism for being spammed with the inane thoughts of any passing stranger (or bot), is the best way to syndicate content now

and not, like, the significantly more modern and sophisticated technology of Having A Blog

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it’s not like email got better in any way!! email has only gotten worse!

@Lady There's a huge part of that ecosystem that is, for lack of a better word, cargo-culted. At least in the early 2010s, while blog posts were better for getting people to read the content (i.e. an RSS feed had a better open rate than an email list), an email list was better for sales conversion (i.e. of the people who opened the email or visited the site, those who opened an email were more likely to click a "buy this" button).

That translated to a lot of business coaches/consultants saying "you should have an email list in addition to your blog if you want to sell things", which translated to a lot of the people who heard that saying "you should have an email list, and also a blog" without explaining - or perhaps without knowing - the reasoning. Which translated to a lot of people setting up their blogs so that whatever they sent to their email list was duplicated to their blog, because it was easier that way. They don't know why they have an email list and also a blog, just that that's what they're supposed to do. :blobcatgooglyshrug:

@noelle i think email is also more parasocial, like, you're getting a letter addressed to you stuck in your inbox!! it feels personal!!

but it's not actually?? that personalization is a lie?? so it feels like it's taking advantage of the same sorts of tendencies leveraged by social media to trick people into getting invested

which really does not appeal to me at all

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