I see a lot of options for self-hosting RSS subscriptions and I don’t actually understand what they are for. The very nature of RSS is that it tracks and connects to online content. It seems like having a home server track and download the content just so that you can download it on another device from your server instead of the original servers a bit redundant. Also, it seems like the clients are more limited, since it has ro connect to your personal host, as opposed to the many RSS readers available.
Sorry if this is a stupid question, but I genuinely don’t get it. What am I missing?
Telemetry is one reason.
Not having to worry about the service shutting down (Google Reader) is another.
Synced read status is a common one as well.
You may also use it in combination with another service to create RSS feeds for sites that dont have one.
Honestly having it not just get killed like Google Reader is a big chunk of the userbase.
I was devastated when Google Reader shut down. I switched to another service after that and it shut down not long after that. Maybe a year or so.
I would have paid for that service at the time.