Every once in a while, someone asks me if they can get notified by email when I post something on this blog. There are several solid email notification solutions for WordPress that charge a fee — but I can’t justify spending any more than I already do on this website. And all the email notification solutions I’ve found take time to set up and maintain — but I’d rather spend the limited amount of time I have on writing blog posts rather than on maintaining an email list.
These days, most of the web is devoted to making money. Websites are either trying to promote a business or a nonprofit, or websites are trying to show you advertisements. Those people who make money from their websites — by showing you ads, or by promoting goods or services, or by soliciting donations for a nonprofit — are more likely to have a marketing budget and staff time they can devote to their website. But on this website, it’s just me, with no marketing budget.
I wish RSS were still a viable option for reading blogs, but it’s not. I guess your only option is to check this site regularly for new posts.
But even if there are no email notifications here, there are no ads, either. And no gobbling up your personal data and selling it….
RSS is alive and well — that’s how I saw this post. : )
My favorite (after some trial and error) is NetNewsWire: https://netnewswire.com — free and open source for macOS and iOS. And there are many others.
Check out Feedly as a replacement for rss feeds.
I use the rss feed. But also my husband and I have subscribe by mail set up on our free WordPress blogs
Thanks, everyone, for the great ideas!
Michael, I didn’t know about netnewswire.com — looks really good, and surely there are equivalents for Windows and Android.
Robert, I had mistakenly thought that Feedly had gone under — instead, they’ve improved their service.
LdeG, I love the subscribe by email service offered by WordPress.com, which is simple and straightforward — alas, for self-hosted sites like this one, it’s more complicated. (P.S.: Will we see another post on your blog soon?)
I, too, saw this by RSS and chuckled. I use the Feedbro extension in Firefox.