'You Can Absolutely Have an RSS Dependent Website in 2026'
At one point I did have a Subscribe button up, and enough people clicked it that the cost of actually sending those emails started to resemble a real bill. Sending thousands of emails when you have no ads, no sponsors, and no monetization strategy beyond “I guess people will just… read it?” doesn’t make a lot of financial sense.
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But the bigger reason — the one I actually care about — is that I didn’t want a database full of email addresses sitting under my control if I could possibly avoid it.
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The people who use RSS really use RSS. They’re not trend-chasers. They’re the type who still have a working bookmark toolbar. They are, in the best possible sense, your people.
I had the same strategy of no ads, no sponsors, and no monetisation when I was using Ghost (Pro) and, yes, that resembled a real bill of US$348 a year (because I had to have a custom theme). That fee also covered membership management, database security, and email distribution, so it wasn’t just hosting and a CMS.
When I switched to Astro, I dropped my free membership, membership-only pages, and newsletter, effectively going RSS only. And Atom. And JSON feed. It can be done.
RSS just isn’t as easy to explain as email is to people that are new to the format.