Mail subscription vs RSS

I read an article yesterday about how much better e-mail subscriptions are compared to RSS. For some reason it seems like the author thinks it’s easier to overflow yourself with news in an RSS-reader than in your mail inbox.

But seriously, what is the difference? Why would it be smarter to use your mail inbox for both your mail and your news? Because I can only come up with negative thoughts about this:

  1. It’s harder to manage mail subscriptions, since your subscription is stored on another server. If you want to unsubscribe or edit your subscription, you have to either log in to a website or send a special mail back (which sometimes doesn’t work). In an RSS-reader, you just press “Unsubscribe” and you’re done, since what you’re subscribing is stored locally.
  2. I don’t trust anyone. How can I be sure that my e-mail won’t get filled with spam after I subscribe to your website?
  3. Why would I save time by using only my mail-application, instead of having my news in a news-reader (a.k.a. RSS-reader)? Isn’t it much easier to just ignore Google Reader when you’re at work but still have to use your mail. To have a special e-mail for work doesn’t count, because that would be the same thing as having another application for RSS.
  4. The article says “news readers breed disinterest”… But wouldn’t it be the same thing with my mail-application? Suddenly I maybe ignore the important mail to?
  5. The article also says that with e-mail subscriptions you don’t need the RSS-icon everywhere on your website. Well, a subscription form takes up much more space, since the RSS-icon shows up in the address-bar in all modern web browsers (so you don’t have to include it in your website if you don’t want to).

I think I’ll stick with my RSS reader.