Email isn't ideal for content creators either. It costs money to deliver the content and delivery is not guaranteed. If has the knowledge and resources, or they have a heavily engaged audience, great, but that's not a pretty small group.

Add in the ever growing panopticon of privacy legislation (yes, that's an oxymoron) and doing anything with email has become onerous to sole and/or non-commercial operators (because email qualifies as PII.)

That said, email and RSS are fantastic. They work. For the most part you aren't paying a tax to the mega-platforms to reach your audience. Both should be supported and their use encouraged.