

Ask HN:  Why do people use email newsletters instead of RSS? - csense

A number of websites I&#x27;ve seen on HN over the past few years ask users to sign up for an email newsletter for updates.<p>What advantages does an email newsletter have that aren&#x27;t shared by a simple blog or RSS feed?
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snoonan
Almost no one uses RSS and it's bad for business. Regarding usage, we have
60k+ newsletter subscribers and maybe a few hundred RSS readers. Regarding
business, I can't converse with you directly over RSS, so it has almost no
business value as an interactive medium and customer outreach tool.

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jaredsohn
More people use e-mail, once people have signed up there's a pretty good
chance that they'll see messages going forward (for RSS or a blog, they might
stop checking), you get some kind of id for each user (and sometimes the
domain name can indicate what company they work for.)

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sealless
Ask 100 people on the street "What is an RSS feed?" That should give you your
answer.

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fuj
Do you want the harsh true?

... .... Step out of your bubble and you will see no one uses RSS

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NameNickHN
Believe it or not but RSS is still an obscure technology for most people.

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filipedeschamps
Email is a default feature.

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csense
No it's not. Setting up an SMTP server is really complicated [1]. But most
blogging frameworks come with built-in support for Atom/RSS.

[1]
[http://flurdy.com/docs/postfix/index.html](http://flurdy.com/docs/postfix/index.html)

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jaxn
This is an indication that you are too focused on the convenience of the
publisher. The convenience of the reader is more important to most of us
wanting to get a message out.

