TL;DR I’ve soft-launched a new service called ByeDoom. Read more about it below!

As I hear more and more people in my life share that they want to fully ditch social media, I’m obviously delighted.

That said, I (shockingly) have some thoughts…

First, for those going cold turkey and cutting it entirely out of their lives, just remember that “social media” is in no way the same as the wild, still-amazing overall Internet. Staying connected and informed remains more important than ever. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Second, for those that just can’t quit Zuck, Elon and the the whole merry gang, I get it. Change takes time. It took people years to tiptoe into “social media” and it’ll take just as long to get them back out again. I’m as guilty as anyone for shaming people about their personal digital choices, but I do fully understand that FOMO is a hard drug to kick, and burning all bridges makes it pretty hard to stay connected to the people and institutions you care about.

✨ If only we had some magical way to stay on top of updates across lots of sources without having to “follow” them through social media services! ✨

Oh right, we do, and we’ve had it for decades. It’s a standard called RSS (Really Simple Syndication), and it’s a powerful way to follow lots of different sources that you pick all in one place, without ceding control to giant social media companies and their horrid, culture-destroying algorithms.

There was a brief and glorious period in the ’00s when services like the beloved Google Reader made this simple and great, but since its demise, “social media” has largely filled the gap, and the rest (regrettably) is history.

And yet…

RSS (and its associated variant standards) never went anywhere. Do many websites no longer even showcase their feed links? Sure. Did social media services slowly but surely start killing their RSS offerings. Yep.

Life, however, found a way, and as the tide has turned against social media, an awesome crop of RSS-style apps and services has emerged.

All you need to get started is to pick an offering that looks good to you (I’ve listed just a few below), then start giving it your feeds.

The trick, however, has been getting those feeds without having to hunt around, or in some cases, trying to figure out a solution for services that no longer offer them (looking angrily at you specifically, Meta and X). Sure there are heavy duty options (with most areas paid) like RSS.app, but what could you send around to help friends and family escape the pit of despair?

That’s where I come in, with a new service I’ve just launched called ByeDoom.

Add any public Instagram profile, YouTube channel or X account to quickly get an RSS feed for your favorite reader. As a bonus, you can add any website URL to quickly grab any existing feed as well.

I’m gating it to a small set of testers to get started and help gauge costs (tips always welcome), but do feel free to drop me a note if you’d like to kick the tires.

No more algorithms, just stay on top of exactly who and what you want to follow.

Some recommended readers to try out with ByeDoom:

• Tapestry (iOS and Mac)
• Reeder (iOS and Mac)
• Current (iOS and Mac)
• Feedly
• Feedbin

Oh, and if you want more great starter feeds to stack your deck, you can’t go wrong with any of the following:

• 404 Media
• Boing Boing
• Stream Team
• Daring Fireball
• Kottke.org
• Hagfish
• Jaclyn Frances
• The Atlantic
• Too Much Kyle (cough)
• The Old SwitchAroo

Here’s to helping people kick those algorithms to the curb and start saying “bye” to doom(scrolling)! 🤝