If you are a webmaster on the indie web you should seriously consider using RSS for your site. As a web surfer you get all the benefits of subscribing to RSS feeds. Here are a few reasons why.

It decentralises the content you receive. Don't wade through posts that are picked by large, faceless mega-corp ™ algorithms. Get updates from real people.

No need to register an account to receive notifications, and you can remove any feeds you don't want to see anymore. You are in control.

No advertisements mixed in between articles.

RSS was prolific during the early web. Embracing it is to embrace the true spirit of the early web.

Get notified when any of your favourite sites have new content, just by opening your feed reader, all in one place.

Of course you can still visit your favourite indie sites like usual. And when you add feeds to your own site you will likely start subscribing to other indie sites that you frequent.

Getting started ...

Creating an RSS feed from scratch
a quick and easy way to get started.
RSS 2.0 Specification
the source of truth, it has everything you need.

As a webmaster

Your <link>'s should be full, not relative.
Don't: /my-post.html
Do: https://flotsam.neocities.org/my-post.html

Add a /favicon.ico to your site. Feed readers pick it up to style your feed in their reader :]

Enable Auto discovery. This allows people to subscribe by pasting your website address into their feed reader.

Dates follow a specific format (rfc2822) to ensure all apps can read them the same. The easiest way is to copy a previous date and alter it. Below are two example dates. The -0400 and 1100 are timezone offsets, change it to match yours.
Fri, 14 Jul 2023 10:30:00 -0400
Fri, 14 Jul 2023 15:00:00 1100

Put a RSS badge on your site that links to your feed.

Validate your feed after you publish to make sure it works.

As a web surfer

For the average web surfer to subscribe to a feed you use a feed reader.

Some readers are online web-based, these usually require you to register an account. Personally I prefer using desktop or mobile applications, as these don't require accounts. There are also browser extensions feed readers, I don't use these so I can't recommend any.

List of feed readers:

RSS Guard: This is the one I use. It's cross-platform and open-source, can integrate with online feed aggregators or use the "local account" method to keep everything on your PC.
RSSOwl: Another cross-platform feed reader, you will need install the Java runtime.
Liferea: Another open-source feed reader, this one is for GNU / Linux only.
Duck Search for more readers