The 'follow' button on the web probably should behave like a signal. Most buttons today work like this:

• click
• leave the website
• open another app/platform
• maybe subscribe there
• maybe come back

But what if following worked more like a connection state? So I started experimenting with a DirectFlow button ⊕ on my Kazakh language podcast website. Right now the button is in its simplest form:

After clicking the button, you are taken to the DirectFlow homepage, which immediately follows the podcast for you. But in the future, it will work like this:

Initial state:

Direct follow ⊕

After click:

Following...

Then:

Followed · View

No “open another app/platform” step. And finally, the stable connected state:

DirectFlow ✓

When you hover over it:

Unfollow · View

The website no longer feels separated from the web, where you can only follow it through some centralized app. The website itself becomes part of the subscription experience. The button will become a live interface with its own signals and actions. Like it becomes a tiny status widget representing the relationship between the user and the website.

The button dynamically uses the current page URL. Every time you click it, df will check all available flows on the website, follow the first one, and show other available options, like a comments flow. This will work on every page - at least that’s the idea for now. It means now the page itself becomes the subscription target. I think this is a very different mental model from the current web.

I would already like to add this button to this website, but the RSS feed here doesn’t contain enclosures yet, and as I mentioned earlier, df currently supports only those kinds of flows.