Or why it does not work for my reading habits.

I recently started using Current to read the various people I’m subscribed to. I had some problems with the way Net News Wire works and it had some nice ideas about how reading on the web (via RSS feeds) should work.

With Net News Wire it had felt like I was always drowning and for most of the Hacker News feed just marking it all as read after a while. It is a heavy feed - there are maybe 100 odd posts in a day. It always felt like I was rushing to reach Inbox Zero.

Current’s mental model worked in a different way. It purported to show a feed which would adjust in time showing you things that you wanted to read. Things that you did not read would go away in time based on what it was - so news feed would go away from the river quickly, while those by people who posted less often would stay in the river for longer.

I gave it a try.

I have been using it exclusively for a couple of months now.

But it has never felt like home. Too often I find myself trying to find an old post by a writer and there’s no place for me to find those posts.

The main problem though is the feed. It feels like I don’t control it. If I want to read stuff from The Verge, there is the voices feed, but not the main feed. And I don’t control it. I have found pieces from Daring Fireball that never make it to the feed.

That irritates me. I want in control of what I read. Not this thing that decides it based on whatever. Even though I love the idea of reading whenever I want to and not being told hey, you’re behind - 50 unread posts or whatever.

It’s weird - because I paid for current. It feels weird wanting to go back to Net News Wire. Like admitting defeat - like it’s my problem somehow.

Current does a lot of things pretty well. But it just does not sit well with my mental model of things. I think in folders. I miss that - basically.