RSS, still, after all these years. About 120 feeds in a reader that shows them oldest first and has no unread count.

The missing unread count matters more than anything else about it. There's no number to get to zero, so I read until the kettle boils and then I stop.

No unread count is underrated. The moment a reader shows me 1,204 I start skimming to make the number go down, which is doomscrolling with extra steps.

Exactly. A number turns reading into inbox triage. Mine just says 'nothing new since 9am' when I'm done, which is the nicest sentence any software has ever said to me.

The problem I keep hitting with RSS is that half the sites I care about don't have a feed any more, or have one that only gives you the first sentence.

Partial feeds are the worst of both worlds: you still have to click through, and now you're on the site with the autoplaying video.

I've started emailing authors to ask for full-text feeds. About a third said yes, which is a far better hit rate than I expected.