We paid for the development of full text RSS feeds for Ghost-based publishers. Now we can offer them to our paid subscribers, and other Ghost sites can use the service too.

Our friends Anil Dash and Ernie Smith have recently written passionately and persuasively about the importance of RSS to the open web, and about how a technology that turns 25 years old this month remains both subversive and quite versatile. RSS-based distribution underpins a podcasting ecosystem that has allowed for shows to be distributed not just on Apple Podcasts but on Spotify, Google Podcasts, Pocket Casts, Overcast, and whatever other podcast player you might want to listen on. “Being able to say, ‘wherever you get your podcasts’ is a radical statement,” Dash wrote. “Because what it represents is the triumph of exactly the kind of technology that's supposed to be impossible: open, empowering tech that's not owned by any one company, that can't be controlled by any one company, and that allows people to have ownership over their work and their relationship with their audience.”

RSS has empowered podcasters, but that it needs a “creator economy rethink” for text.