For the uninitiated, web syndication in this context refers to the retrieval of my posts via the RSS feeds you see. If you don’t exactly know what is it still (you should have a rough idea at least), you ought to go and learn more about modern web technologies. In brief, web feeds allow you to download news articles; blog posts; site updates etc. into a feed reader, like Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird, Google Feed Reader or the like. And it just gives you the pure content, nothing else. No distractions from flashy ads and screwed-up page layouts (usually). Thus in one solution you get your articles stored and sorted out according to their origin site (instead of newsletters which you must manually sort into mail folders); email privacy and ease of management and distraction-free reading.
To all who understood that, or the rest who already know what I’m talking about, or use it even (on my blog or not), this lamentation’s dedicated to you.
Certainly, web feeds do get rid of all the distractions of a normal website. You need not waste bandwidth downloading CSS files; JS files and a million and twelve background images. Fast, pure, efficient, brutal. Technological. Simple. Industrialist. Scientific. You get to see where you wanted to read, after all. That is like the main reason you follow the site, ain’t it?
BUT NO! What if, the site author NEVER meant all the CSS; JS and background images as distractions? They could be distractions to YOU, but ART to HIM! They were meant to be savoured together with the rest of the text, the blog posts. A grand scheme of things. A holistic picture. An overall experience.
Oh well, that’s how I see it anyway. Why else would I spend time into making the header and loading image, customizing the theme and installing the many plugins in The Staccato Slur, if it was not meant for your dear enjoyment, my readers; the appreciators of my work? Sure, it might not be van Gogh to you, or that you might already be bored of seeing the same thing all the time, but hey, it’s part of the grand design. It’s like, erm… Ordering fine dining, takeaway please. Reading a book, using Kindle. Dating a girl, straight to the bed. Okay maybe not. Horribly bad assumptions there.
Yes okay, you get the idea. Every time you are there, doing the same thing as you did before, seeing the same thing you would have seen for ages, that is there. Whatever attracted you to it in the first place; the novelty of the very first.
The atmosphere, the façade!
Alright. Why in spite all these then do I still give my readers the option of subscribing to The Staccato Slur via RSS? I could easily disable it via my WordPress Admin console.
Here is what I think, my part of the deal. If you fancy feeds and cannot bear to part with the convenience it brings, sure, go ahead and use it on The Staccato Slur. No issue, only if you would come back, once in a while, to see the site in its entirety… Kinda like going for a live concert for your favourite band for once, instead of just listening to their MP3s and watching their DVDs, eh? Oh, and when other people ask you about The Staccato Slur, be sure to direct them to the main site first. Don’t just forward articles from the feed! Deal?
Ah well, by the way, I do use feeds as well, if you wonder. 
But purely for data/news sites and updates, technical stuff about WordPress and Linux that doesn’t usually have an aesthetical element to its content layout. Distractions, that is. 
Heh, but I do go to the website every now and then to see if they have changed the layout to something more pleasant, and of course, to bask in the non-design of things. The whole experience, still, even if its of a mediocre aesthetic.