This is a brain ballon I’ve been mulling over for some time, and I’d like some feedback on it. I’m looking for a good news aggregator. All the ones I’ve found haven’t really met my standards, because they’re usually filled with clickbait headlines and either filled with articles from less reputable publications or quality ones hidden behind a paywall. If you know of an app or service that doesn’t do that, let me know.

Every morning, I’d want to get an email with links to articles and op-eds. An RSS feed would be ok, but the number 15 showing up on my RSS icon would probably turn me off reading all of them. There would be 10–15 links, with critical, reasoned analysis from various points on the political spectrum — think a more centrist, higher quality, Drudge Report. A service like this could make money by charging a couple dollars a month for what’s guaranteed to be high quality journalism, an amount that I’d probably pay. But there’s two issues I see with this.

First, you’d need to get the news organizations and reporters on board. There would have be some deal made with the publication to get them to put their content on this platform, similar to how Spotify/Netflix handle music and TV. Individual reporters could get paid by the frequency that the curation algorithm (we’ll get there) selected their articles/op-eds for distribution.

The second issue is about the curation of the news. Most of the time, algorithms end up suggesting articles that keep in line with the user’s worldview, which causes thought bubbles and isn’t particularly healthy when it comes to engaging and understanding other perspectives. Invariably, this also pushes the quality of articles down, so now they have sensationalist headlines for clicks and tend to lack in-depth analysis. Solution: an algorithm that consistently generates/scrapes together worthy pieces from all sides. Easier said than done, but that would be the 10x improvement.

This isn’t limited to politics — this service could offer different packages, sending out different emails for sports, entertainment, music, show biz, etc. There exist things similar to this, but I haven’t seen any of them be particularly successful while still giving me the quality of content that I want.

Do you think it’s worth exploring by someone? Would you pay for this service? What delivery format would be best for you? Did I miss something? Any other thoughts or questions? Let me know what you think.