Here's something that appears slightly unsettling to me these days.
Recently I unsubscribed from a bunch of email-newsletters from Tech sites (which used to end up in my inbox at a regular interval) - and instead switched over to an RSS reader (Feeder from F-Droid), and added the feeds from as many of those Tech sites in my reader as I could.
My whole point for doing this was to ensure that I follow stuff on my own terms - and also I get all the feed in one place (one app) instead of those newsletter emails taking me to their individual Tech Sites.
And in spite of being old school, I always thought RSS to be cool tech, just like Radio!
Some of the tech sites I subscribed for newsletter are Android Authority, Ars Technica, Gizmodo, Digital Trends, Engadget, TechCrunch, TechRadar, PC World, Mashable,… You get the idea.
What I am noticing is that most of the feeds from these sites are blatantly "Promotional" in nature - e.g.
"The best robot vacuums for hardwood will keep those floors looking spiffy"
"The best home security camera ahead of Prime Day"
"Get a Microsoft Office lifetime license for/an all time low price"
"The best T-Mobile deals of October 2023"
"Best early October Prime day tech deals"
…and don't get me started about ExpressVPN sponsored posts…
Unsurprisingly, I do see that almost all of them carry sponsored/affiliated links.
Seriously ?? I can't focus on just the tech news, and avoid these promotional BS ?
Would love to hear if anyone else experienced this, and any workaround there might be.
It's called "contextual commerce." Article about a product has a link to said product; if you click and make a purchase, the news site makes a little money. Thus, incentivizing the new site to publish more and more articles about products.