I like the feeling when someone comes up to me and says – knowing that I'm doing something mechanically – “did you know there's another way?”
That's what happened with Terry Godier. Even though we don't know each other. By complete chance, I came across a post on Mastodon by a user who praised his new RSS reader - "Current". An RSS reader? A new one? I couldn't remain indifferent. I immediately opened the app's profile page on the App Store and started looking for information about the author. Following the trail, I found his blog at terrygodier.com.
There I found four essays. One of them was titled “Phantom obligation”. And in it, I found this sentence:
Why do RSS readers look like email clients?
This essay is a kind of examination of conscience for the entire RSS reader development community, but also my own examination of conscience as a user of such programs. I realized that I had never thought about it before.
The presentation of the origins of the concept that RSS readers usually look like email clients is very interesting. I knew that the author of the essay wanted to break this canon. However, his interpretation of the change captivated me.
First, he argued that the unread message counter makes us feel guilty because instead of reading, we focus on achieving the goal of “inbox zero.” Then he presented a concept I had never encountered before, that of a river as a stream of information in an RSS reader.
The river. Content drifts upward like leaves on water. You dip in when you want. You step out when you're done. "Some things will pass you by. That's not a bug; that's the premise."
I must admit that the reference to nature captivated me, and I thought, “This is wonderful! How did he come up with this?” With each subsequent paragraph of Terry's story, my admiration for his bold paradigm shift grew.
It reminded me of the principles of the “slow life” movement as a counterpoint to the hustle and bustle of everyday life in highly developed countries, steeped in capitalism and corporate culture. I have always associated “slow life” with greater mindfulness, setting boundaries for oneself, and living life on one's own terms. I saw a similar vision in Terry's concept.
Information has a natural lifespan, and the interface should honor that. The river is what's here right now. You scroll through it, save what you want to keep, and let the rest go.
In an ideal world, I would read everything in my RSS reader from start to finish. But we know that an ideal world does not exist. Anyway, I wrote about my latest approach to using this tool a few days ago. I refer you to that text. I will not repeat myself.
Let's go back to the concept of a river. No matter which RSS reader I used, I always browsed only a part of the stream of news that flooded me every day. Then I looked for the magic “mark all as read” button. So why do I need a counter for unread articles?
„Current” has no unread count. Not because I forgot to add one, or because I thought it would look cleaner without it. There is no count because counting was the problem.
I have been using Reeder for some time now, which has largely done away with counters. The only one left is the one displayed and updated in real time while scrolling, which counts down from the top of the list how many newer articles there are. For me, this is a better solution than the classic inbox inspiration. That's why I like Terry's concept and the quotes below, which illustrate it perfectly:
Every interface is an argument about how you should feel.
There are no unread counts. Not “not yet”. Never. This is philosophical, not practical. An unread count would make Current a better RSS manager and a worse RSS reader. I chose reader.
The way Terry described the entire journey from the idea to the creation of the app, the questions he asked himself, how he analyzed the knowledge he gathered, how he challenged accepted norms and sought new solutions, is not only a testament to his work, but also, I believe, an inspiration for others - for us - to try to swim against the tide. Perhaps even a river. Or perhaps the sea. Perhaps this will be the beginning of broader changes in the virtual world, which we have become accustomed to without thinking about why it is the way it is.