A Detailed Explanation of RSS3: Positioning, Economic and Governance Models, Team and Investors, etc

Written by: PING

Original Title: "Ancient Poetry Re-sung, RSS3 and the Unfinished Internet Ideal"

"Aggregated applications will evolve into the core of the internet economy, allowing businesses and individuals to control their personal data online while enjoying the advantages of a scaled network." ------ Kevin Werbach

This text is a prediction made by technology commentator Kevin Werbach in 1999, when people believed that the future of the internet hinged on aggregated protocols like RSS. Individuals would be able to retain their own data while easily and decentralizedly connecting with each other, aggregating information from different sources to replace one-stop services.

However, the actual historical development is well known; the internet took another direction, with users quickly gravitating towards centralized yet almost barrier-free online services. This led to a situation where nearly everyone in the world joined the internet, but also resulted in today's data and information landscape being monopolized by a few tech giants.

As for the RSS programs that could aggregate information from different sources based on user subscription preferences, they were launched in 1999 and, while they flourished across the web in the early 2000s, they gradually declined due to user and developer experiences falling short and a lack of business models. After the rise of social media in 2010, many media outlets "declared RSS dead," and it slowly faded from public view.

What Werbach mentioned may have been an early prediction, but it was not distorted. The ideal of an aggregated network did not die with the temporary victory of Web2 services. After years of silence, the combination of blockchain technology and the ideals of WEB3 has made a comeback, once again standing at the forefront of internet technology development, challenging the tech platform giants that manipulate information, and attempting to reclaim users' autonomy and openness over their data.

A simple, direct, and highly modular WEB3 information flow protocol, RSS3, was born to ignite this revolution.

What is RSS?

Before further analyzing RSS3, let's briefly review the basics and simple history of RSS, which will help us understand what problems RSS3, derived from RSS, aims to solve.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, a very simple aggregation. In general, it is an easy-to-use open-source program that allows users to actively subscribe to content. Web content developers simply need to add an RSS program, and users can subscribe to different blogs, news media, and other web content according to their preferences. The RSS program can automatically and instantaneously aggregate the latest content for users without any platform review.

But why did decentralized RSS lose to centralized content platforms?

RSS was once widely popular due to the openness of the open-source program itself. However, as centralized content service platform giants rapidly expanded and gained more data and users, the consistent open-source specifications of RSS could not meet the individual development needs of developers. Coupled with divisions and splits within the open-source community, it gradually became unable to compete with centralized platforms. These data-closed tech giants also began to gradually refuse to comply with RSS's open technical specifications, adopting their own technical specifications to expand the competitive advantage of closed platforms.

In addition to competition from centralized platforms, RSS's decline also stemmed from its own issues. Firstly, it emphasized consistent specifications, developed slowly, and provided a poor user experience with a certain entry barrier.

On the other hand, RSS itself lacked any business model, resulting in insufficient capital investment and less proactive development and updates. Furthermore, while traditional RSS does not take ownership of data, publishers cannot track subscriber data at all, which has led commercial publishers to turn to centralized network services that can provide data tracking services.

RSS and Social Media Platforms

What truly dealt a fatal blow to RSS may have been the emergence of social media.

Social media not only satisfied the core function of RSS—allowing users to actively subscribe to and aggregate information from different sources based on their preferences—but also created social interaction content that RSS programs could not fulfill, establishing a platform for information production and aggregation with a lower entry barrier and more immediate interaction.

As the number of platform users increased, the information content provided by social media platforms was no longer simply a chronological sorting of different sources like RSS. Instead, it leveraged vast user data combined with algorithms to infer user-preferred content, while also meeting the needs of information review and advertisers, allowing algorithms to filter information for platform users.

Whether users actually need algorithms is still a contentious issue, but users have never had the option to refuse their data being sold or to opt out of using algorithms.

The opaque information recommendations and data sales of various centralized platforms have not changed due to public opinion events like the "Cambridge Analytica data scandal." Instead, as the growth of new users slowed, platforms became more rampant in launching schemes that harm the interests of existing users to maintain high business growth.

To some extent, social media did indeed satisfy the core functions of RSS while providing additional services, thus completely eliminating the demand for RSS. Today, under the prevalence of Web2 platform algorithms, social media is unable to obtain the basic functions of RSS, aggregating information content that users actively subscribe to. This basic function of autonomous information aggregation is absent from the internet.

Born on the shoulders of RSS, RSS3 has ushered in a new historical opportunity in the WEB3 era.

Do you need centralized platforms to use algorithms to filter information for you?

RSS3: RSS in the Web3 Era

What is RSS3?

As co-founder DIYgod stated, the "RSS" in RSS3 pays homage to history (RSS), while the "3" represents Web3.

An RSS for the WEB3 era, takes up the baton of openness and freedom.

RSS3 allows users to control content ownership and subscription rights, aggregating and presenting content in a way that does not rely on centralized platforms, and achieving decentralization at the storage level, giving users control over content.

RSS3 will gradually upgrade through multiple modular projects, such as mapping WEB2.0 content to RSS3 with RE:ID; personalized homepages with Web3 Pass, and Revery, which can aggregate content and subscription mechanisms.

Overall, this is a gradual "To 3" process:

First step, attempt to map user-generated content from centralized platforms to RSS3, breaking free from WEB2 platforms' absolute control over content;

Second step, aggregate information into an independent portal;

Third step, build a decentralized content network that can subscribe to and relate to each other.

Facing Data Value and User Autonomy

RSS3 enables users to store data on a decentralized network, with complete ownership of information and private keys held by users. It also combines the advantages of traditional RSS's scalable decentralized network, effectively scaling and aggregating information based on user preferences and choices.

Unlike traditional RSS, which overlooked the commercial potential of information aggregation, RSS3 acknowledges data value and is expected to enable users to effectively utilize their personal network data to generate additional economic value.

Reshaping Web2's Social Functions with Web3 Decentralization Spirit

Unlike traditional RSS, which declined due to insufficient social interaction functions, RSS3 reshapes Web2's social functions with the spirit of Web3 decentralization.

At the simplest level, we might imagine RSS3 as a Twitter or Facebook without censors or algorithmic filtering, where whatever information users subscribe to will appear in the information aggregation application.

RSS3 certainly goes beyond this; for example, its information aggregation scope targets the entire internet. As long as there are centralized or decentralized applications that support RSS3, RSS3 can automatically aggregate information according to user preferences and publish it to the RSS3 feed.

Modular Applications

• RE:ID Mapping Web2 Applications

Content from Web2 can be mapped directly to RSS3 through RE:ID, escaping the constraints of algorithm-driven platforms. However, currently, only the relatively open Twitter among centralized social platforms supports this feature.

• Web3 Pass: Building Personal Profiles on Web3

RSS3 imitates the personal pages commonly found on Web2 social platforms, allowing users to freely set RNS domain names with Web3 Pass, edit personal profiles, and showcase their activities on the decentralized network, such as NFT collections.

• Revery RSS3 Feed Reader

Revery is the RSS3 Feed reader that can subscribe to and track different users and addresses. Currently, RSS3 is closely collaborating with multiple decentralized applications, such as Mask/Arweave/Mirror, and is expected to provide tracking subscription services for related applications in the future.

On January 13, 2022, RSS3 reached a cooperation agreement with the WEB2 social product Jike APP, and RSS3 has supported content indexing for Jike APP, which can be viewed in its ecological product REVERY.

All of this is not achieved overnight but is a gradual development process. It is worth noting that these are all open-source DEMOs, allowing developers to freely fork (develop) and create their own on-chain homepages or on-chain readers.

Currently, more than ten applications, including Mask Network, Showme, Revery, Cheers Bio, InGroup, and Flowns, are using RSS3 to distribute information.

Openness is WEB3.

Economic and Governance Model

Blockchain technology not only makes a decentralized information aggregation protocol possible but also introduces a self-sufficient effective economic model and sufficient economic incentives, viewing open-source communities and users as stakeholders in the project, acknowledging the value of user data and encouraging contributions from non-shareholder members with adequate economic incentives.

According to the white paper, the RSS3 DAO is designed to manage all affairs related to RSS3 and its network, with its governance token named RSS3.

According to the latest disclosed information, a total of 1 billion $RSS3 tokens will be issued, all generated at genesis, with no additional mining mechanism. Apart from public offerings and airdrop rewards, most tokens will immediately enter a lock-up and gradual release period of one to five years, with the distribution details as follows:

Community (64%)

5% for public sale. Unlocks immediately after LBP ends. 10% for early rewards. 2% will be airdropped to existing users of the RSS3 ecosystem one month after LBP ends, with the remainder having a 12-month linear unlock as rewards for stakeholders (such as active users, ecosystem application developers, and testnet node operators). 2% for partner projects and organizations. 12 months lock-up, followed by 36 months of linear unlocking. 47% managed by RSS3DAO for future development, including initial liquidity pools on Uniswap coming from this. There will be a 12-month lock-up restriction before a 48-month linear unlock.

Seed Round Investors (4.6%)

Their $RSS3 cost is 0.04 USD, with a 12-month lock-up, followed by a 24-month linear unlock.

Private Placement Round (10%)

Their $RSS3 cost ranges from 0.06 USD to 0.15 USD, with a 12-month lock-up, followed by an 18-month linear unlock.

Natural Selection Labs (5%)

Natural Selection Labs is the company that initiated the RSS3 project, and it will be granted 5% of all tokens, with a 12-month lock-up period followed by a 24-month linear unlock.

Team (15%)

Current and future staff of RSS3 will be allocated about 15% of all tokens, which will undergo a 12-month lock-up period followed by a 36-month linear unlock.

Advisors (1%)

Given to those who helped during the initial stages of the RSS3 project, with a 12-month linear unlock.

As a governance token, RSS3 will be used to govern the following matters:

1. Selecting operators for overall indexing and service nodes
2. Deciding the number of RSS3 archives at each service node
3. Generating distributed key shard thresholds
4. Subgroup scaling
5. Module upgrades
6. Epoch cycle for each round
7. How to utilize treasury assets
8. Incentive management

Team and Investors

The development team behind the RSS3 project, Natural Selection Labs, is a distributed organization similar to an open-source community, with a certain hacktivism flavor.

According to previous media reports, founder Joshua claims to have initially worked on RSS-related tasks in 2018, during which he discovered the famous RSS project RSSHub on GitHub, but it did not create much of a stir at that time.

In the second half of 2020, Joshua recalled RSSHub and hoped to "take its essence and discard its dross," and contacted its creator DIYgod. With the help of Mask Network founder Suji, Natural Selection Labs completed seed round financing. Additionally, Joshua stated that Suji was also the first to suggest changing the project name (previously "AIR") to "RSS3."

DIYgod is an open-source guru who has garnered over 43,000 stars (favorites) on GitHub. Currently, all 11 visible team members on GitHub have records of making technical contributions to the project. Even though their actual identities are unknown, from the perspective of "Talk is cheap, Show me the code," the team's development capabilities are trustworthy.

In June 2021, RSS3 completed its seed round investment, with participation from Sky9 Capital, Mask Network, ByteDave, Hash Global, Chen Yuetian, Liang Xinjun, SPT Capital, and Variable Capital, raising several million dollars.

In December 2021, RSS3 announced the completion of a new round of financing, led by CoinShares Ventures, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Dragonfly Capital, Mask Network, HashKey Group, Arweave, Dapper Labs, Youbi Capital, Headline VC, Formless Capital, imToken Ventures, and former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan, among other well-known investment institutions and investors.

Conclusion

As a foundational infrastructure program for Web3.0, RSS3 can be seen as a result of the combination of open-source communities and blockchain technology. The new economic model and technical tools significantly address the economic incentive and development issues faced by open-source programs like RSS, allowing users to retain complete data ownership.

RSS3 introduces a more social aspect, widely incorporating information aggregation from multiple centralized/decentralized applications. The development team possesses strong programming skills and ideals, recently receiving support from several top venture capital and ecosystem funds. The platform itself is non-rent-seeking and highly compatible, with modular planning.

Currently, in addition to Ethereum, RSS3 collaborates with and supports public chains such as Arweave, Polygon, BSC, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Flow, and xDAI.

However, the initial high entry barrier of RSS, limited to a niche of heavy computer technology users, and the inferior user experience compared to centralized platforms may still require the RSS3 development community to invest more effort in optimization to fully realize its potential to completely replace centralized information platforms.