alt Hacker News> With RSS, you subscribe directly to websites, blogs, or news outlets, meaning there is no middleman algorithm deciding what you see.
This enters a failure mode very soon, especially because most people using RSS-like technologies would typically subscribe to more sources than they can typically read through. Like it or not, _the algorithm_ does serve the purpose in prioritizing and discovery. The trouble, IMO, is with the objectives for these recommendation and ranking algorithms.
A middleman/aggregator who is paid by subscribers would be incentivized for the users, a marketplace-like aggregator would always have trade-offs.
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This is already a problem with things like Mastodon - as soon as you subscribe to some more "spammy" accounts such as news outlets, all the other content is drowned out.
So yes, having kind of re-ranking _algorithm_ can be a good thing, whether we like it or not.
Didn't Bluesky solve this problem already by allowing anyone to publish their own algorithms?
I feel like user generated sorting algorithms would be a great fit for RSS. Power users would get an ability to tweak their feeds to their liking, while other users would have a lot to choose from