Sensible decision to build my own RSS reader

For years, I used Inoreader and was perfectly happy with it. Then I moved to BazQux and, again, was perfectly content.

So naturally, the most reasonable next step was to build my own RSS reader.

As one does.

The principle part

BazQux is written in Haskell, which already gives it a kind of arcane forest-wizard energy. Its author is Russian. To be clear, I am not one of those people who thinks every citizen is personally responsible for the actions of their country's de-facto dictatorship. That would be idiotic.

But at the same time, I would rather not send money in that direction if I can avoid it. It's a matter of principle.

Please do not look too closely at where Europe, including us here in the Czech Republic, has historically gotten various strategically important things like gas and oil. Let’s live in a collective dellusion where there’s none of that flowing our direction.

I am tired of the modern internet

The other part was simpler: I am tired of the modern internet.

I miss the old web. I miss websites. I miss subscribing to people because I actually want to read what they make, not because some engagement engine decided to shovel sludge into my eyeballs.

I do not want algorithmic feeds. I do not want social-network feed-brain. I do not want infinite content pasteurized into a beige puree of "relevance."

I want RSS.

I want to subscribe to blogs, newsletters, creators, weird personal sites, and things made by humans I actually like.

The final straw: YouTube Shorts

The final straw was YouTube.

I noticed that a lot of what was flowing into my BazQux feed had effectively become "Shorts," which is a format I profoundly despise. I do not consider Shorts content. I consider them a hostile seizure of attention wearing the skin of content.

Tiny vertical pellets of anti-thought.

Absolutely not.

The only logical response: build a whole new thing

So I did what any calm and proportionate person would do: I made branding, a promo website, and started building my own RSS reader from scratch.

Naturally, the branding was the first thing to happen, because priorities are important and software development is best approached from the side, like a suspicious horse.

Blue Underlined, or Blue & Underlined, or whatever survives

The project is called Blue Underlined. Or maybe Blue & Underlined. Or maybe Blue underlined.

Even the name has that wonderfully reassuring "still in motion" quality.

It started with its own branding and visual identity, but then I reused styling from another one of my projects, Linka, my link shortener, and at that point the original branding more or less flew out the window at high speed.

So now the visual identity is somewhere between "intentionally nostalgic" and "the CSS won the argument."

Questionable technical choices, probably

Technically, this whole thing is also a terrific idea.

It is written in Go, a language I was not familiar with at all when I started. That means I am relying heavily on AI to guide me, while trying not to think too hard about whether that is visionary, reckless, or merely very funny.

Probably all three.

Still, Go should at least be fast, which is nice. Then I added htmx and Tailwind, because once you are making questionable choices, it is best to commit with confidence.

To be fair, maybe they are not questionable choices. Maybe I am just overthinking it. That would be a refreshing change.

What it is now

So what I have now is an RSS reader that is not really just an RSS reader.

It is opinionated. It has rough edges. I can see flaws everywhere. The branding is generic in the way only something personal can be.

But it is mine.

And that matters.

What it is trying to be

It is built around the idea that reading should feel deliberate again.

Subscribed, not injected. Chosen, not manipulated. Human, not optimized into paste.

Blue Underlined is open to people who want to give it a try, although registrations are individual and pending my approval. Not because I am trying to build some exclusive digital monastery, but because small, intentional things tend to stay better when you do not immediately throw the doors open and let the feed-goblins in.

The moral of the story

The internet was better when it was weirder, slower, more personal, and more blue underlined.

So I made something in that spirit.

Which, again, was clearly the most sensible possible decision.