Brent Simmons argues for fewer feed subscriptions. And he writes a feed reader for a living. This should tell you something. (via marco)

I do not agree at all. If it’s a meme, sure. Or if it’s about computers, Internet or movies — then it will probably show up everywhere in due time. Other topics though, they hardly ever gets passed around like that. If it’s about music then it must be something with bizarre amount of cred or something thats popular right now. And in general, people who write like gods are largely ignored and never really get their worth of attention.

The latest boing-boing post, the latest stats on a new cellphone, a cover of MGMT or a picture of the word Helvetica — those things gets shared around like a joint. But a new part of Chokeville? Or Dan Hill talks about cities and buildings? Or photos that don’t try too hard to look like fashion shoots?

Fewer feeds is great in theory, but things that are good outside of the normative “Internet geek stuff” will not pop up. Sadly.

Fewer feeds might however make you be able to read more and not have as much unread. So that’s a good thing about it. Because cool stuff unread in the feedpile is still missed even if it sits there and waits. Anyway. Trim down so that you might read it all but “[i]f it’s cool or interesting, you won’t miss it” is not true at all for most things.