Brian Barrett, for Wired:

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication (or Rich Site Summary) and it was first stitched into the tapestry of the open web around the turn of the millennium. Its aim is straightforward: to make it easy to track updates to the content of a given website in a standardized format.

In practice, and for your purposes, that means it can give you a comprehensive, regularly updated look at all of the content your favorite sites publish throughout the day. Think of it as the ultimate aggregator; every morsel from every source you care about, fed directly to you […]

I first started using RSS heavily back in 2008 or so and have been using it on a daily basis since then. That’s over a decade now (or close to it, depending if my memory serves me correctly).

RSS is one of the foundations of the web. It allows us an extremely simple way to follow posts on a website without actually remembering to check for new content. Or even visiting that site. It also allows us to read just the words of our favourite writers, on sites with many other wordsmiths, without having to wade through ever single post. RSS is a timesaver. It makes life easier. It works on extremely slow internet connections. It’s automatic.

RSS is wonderful.