Tiny-Tiny-RSS VS Invidious

I just want to vent here a bit:

Feedly is the only app I ditched because I did not understand the interface. AT ALL. I tried multiple times, like really hard, over the course of 2-3 years, and all it delivered was a feeling of being insanely stupid.

I started my attempts around 2012 (kind of around Google killing Reader). I could not understand if that app even deliver that same functionality as Reader, could not understand if it allows to just add custom RSS url. I was not sure which title-description was an actual pair. I struggled to find article boundaries - I scrolled while reading and it suddenly just closed that and opened another unrelated thing. I struggled to use categories. I struggled to stabilize the layout - every week or so it switched from a list, to two-pane thumbnails, then some other weird view. I tried to set up my custom view but it just toyed with me. It took me an embarrassing amount of time to figure out how to actually browse my feeds by publish time (instead of some random metric app thrown them at me).

Dark theme just made it even harder - I had no idea what I'm looking at. I felt that I have more control over watching commercials on TV, than actually using Feedly.

It made me start hosting TinyTinyRSS [0] app on public internet for me and friends for many years. When I finally turned off tt-rss instance (due to my servers going down permanently) I came back to feedly... to just realize I don't even try to use it any more. A decade old frustration ended up with simply uninstalling.

[0] https://tt-rss.org/

> I want to host my own RSS server though and then maybe use a native reader to view it, like an RSS of RSS feeds.

I've been using Tiny Tiny RSS to do this for years. It works very well. https://tt-rss.org/

Tiny Tiny RSS (TT-RSS) https://tt-rss.org/ is a self-hosted, open-source RSS feed reader that provides a lightweight and customizable solution for managing and reading RSS feeds. It offers a simple web-based interface, allowing users to aggregate, organize, and access their favorite content from various sources in one centralized location. With its extensibility and robust feature set, TT-RSS offers a powerful tool for individuals who prefer to have full control over their RSS reading experience. As a dedicated programmer and avid user of Tiny Tiny RSS (TT-RSS), I can confidently say that it is an exceptional self-hosted, open-source RSS feed reader. With TT-RSS, I have the freedom to personalize and fine-tune my RSS reading experience to perfection. Its lightweight web-based interface offers a seamless way to aggregate, organize, and access all my favorite content from a multitude of sources. TT-RSS has become an indispensable tool in my daily routine, empowering me to stay informed, discover new insights, and effortlessly manage my RSS feeds with ease. If you're a fellow developer seeking a powerful, customizable RSS reader, TT-RSS is an absolute game-changer.

I would recommend Tiny Tiny RSS or FreshRSS as examples but you can use anything you want, there's plenty of them. Why would you want to pay for something like this?

Tiny Tiny RSS

Back when I was using Tiny Tiny RSS I've developed af_feedmod to download the article from the linked webpage so you'd end up with a full feed. This was later forked into FeedIron and seems to be somewhat popular by now.

TinyTinyRSS feed aggregator

Have you seen https://tt-rss.org/

Youtube seems to be doing some A/B testing with the comment system which has made proxies like Invidious and yt-dlp/Newpipe unable to load comments. There is a patch for Invidious [1] which solves this problem but it is not in master yet. I tested it on my own instance and it does solve the problem.

[1] https://github.com/iv-org/invidious/pull/4576

BTW, I don't understand the workaround: https://github.com/iv-org/invidious/pull/4552/files

Which was taken from here: https://github.com/LuanRT/YouTube.js/pull/624

Could anybody explain it to me?

Use a Youtube proxy like Invidious [1], problem solved and you get to subscribe to channels without telling the Beast about your interests. Add Sponsorblock (which supports Invidious) to get rid of any in-stream advertising which remains and you'll be transported back to those hallowed times of yore when men were men, women were women and advertising was something you found in newspapers. Youtube will try to make this harder just like Xitter is trying to make it harder to use proxies like Nitter [2].

[1] https://github.com/iv-org/invidious

[2] https://github.com/zedeus/nitter

Going to drop this here for others who haven't heard of it https://invidious.io/

Now, how do we fix this? YouTube's ad model sucks. Their algorithm sucks. Their front page sucks. They've captured a bunch of creators though so often YouTube is the only place you can find someone.

I want those creators to benefit from me viewing their videos. I want the fact that I view a video and like it to help other people find that video in their recommendations. I want an algorithm that shows me things that are interesting and relevant not one that promotes the spammiest and most ad heavy videos that barely have anything to do with my watch history.

Having an alternative front end is nice but I don't want to rob YouTube of the money they spend on hosting the videos.

So, how do we do this?

Peer to peer fails when there is little interest in something or when most people leech and it sucks for archiving old content.

Hosting it all in one place is super expensive and hard for a small group to manage without turning into YouTube.

Maybe we could find a way for the creators to host their own content and get paid when people view it while being part of a large federated network for easy discoverability?

Please list any projects you know of, I'm sure there are a lot of people here who would be willing to contribute or donate.

Sometimes a half-solution will do, like Invidious or Piped.

[0] https://invidious.io/

[1] https://github.com/TeamPiped/Piped

Invidious