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?
Yes, I tried both before going self hosted; and both try very hard to make your life difficult if you don’t subscribe. Actually I got hooked on RSS with Google Reader, which was a perfect, simple, free reader. It got shut down, because I guess it doesn’t make sense to provide that service for free.