Honestly delighted that this still exists. Like others, I used to leave my computer running overnight to render. Dating myself, but it was a big deal in the BBS scene in the UK in the early nineties - so many files and techniques being swapped.
In addition to what's already described, ActivityPub allows for access control. It's completely possible to have feeds for paid readers, personalized feeds, etc, in a way that RSS doesn't really support.
Yes, but it's a kludge: 404 has specific, secret RSS feeds for subscribers that contain full-text copy. With ActivityPub each recipient can have personalized content through the same link, and even for free subscribers, the publisher has a better view on who is actually subscribing.
If you look at the history of American city design, you'll find that it's not free market demand that has brought us to this point, but pretty heavy lobbying and more from the automotive industry (which also has seeded this idea that public transit is inherently inferior). Elon Musk is also guilty of this by seeding the hyperloop idea in order to try and stop efforts around high speed rail. Public transit really works when it's done well, and benefits everybody. If we actually design and invest in it well, it will be used.
I made an open source social networking platform that was used by non-profits like Oxfam and Greenpeace to train aid workers; the Canadian government as an intranet; the Spanish anti-austerity movement as an organizing platform; universities like Stanford and Harvard to teach; and Fortune 500 companies as a social intranet.
I had no idea what I was doing at the start. I'm very, very lucky that it worked out the way it did.
Totally fair! This is an experiment - we'll see what comes out in the wash. The biggest impact I'm hoping for is to encourage more sites to remove their "share to Twitter" buttons.
> Totally fair! This is an experiment - we'll see what comes out in the wash. The biggest impact I'm hoping for is to encourage more sites to remove their "share to Twitter" buttons.
My bet is that your reason for building this widget ("The biggest impact I'm hoping for is to encourage more sites to remove their 'share to Twitter' buttons") is misaligned with what web owners want (publicity, exposure, discoverability, engagement) which you get by using the largest megaphone. X
I'm not sure if the goal is to not let people post on Twitter/X, but rather to not have a webpage with a share to Twitter button, to FB button, to Mastodon button, etc, but to have one button and when you click it, opens up the full list.
I see it almost as a way to do the share menu that mobile phones have. I tested the Share Openly button on my phone and it not only opened Threads and Bluesky much faster than the share menu on my version of iOS, it also added not just the URL but the title as well.
In all seriousness, I think it's true that those buttons mostly are useful as reminders that you can post / share elsewhere. Which is another reason why moving on from the "share to Twitter" / "share to Facebook" paradigm from 2009 is probably a good idea. There's a whole open social web out there that people need to be encouraged to explore.
