Internet layers: social media, the open web, RSS and email

Social media feeds

The platform decides what you read, and the feeds fill up with bots and the so-called AI slop, the flood of low-quality content churned out by machines. This is the so-called dark forest of the internet: it looks full of life, but the real people have gone quiet and hidden.

Layer 2 · The open web: my personal website

Layer 3 · What you choose to follow (the cozy web)

This layer is the so-called cozy web. It is called cozy because it feels like a small, familiar room rather than a public square: everything here reaches you only because you chose to follow it, never because an algorithm pushed it in front of you.

• Human filter, my list of blogs and articles written by real people
• RSS feed of my articles. RSS lets you follow any site that offers a feed in a reader of your choice, without an account or an algorithm.
• RSS feed of the Human filter
• Blogroll (OPML), a list of the blogs I recommend as one file you can import into your RSS reader in a single step
• Bluesky & Mastodon, the closest thing to the cozy web among social networks: both let you choose a chronological timeline of the people you follow, instead of an algorithmic feed
• My monthly newsletter, sent the first Sunday of the month (the form is at the bottom of this page)
• Email: mail@richardgolian.com

Below all the layers · Offline

This one is not a layer of the internet. Most of what I publish starts in this place.