[timf]

The author is pointing out that someone who clicks an RSS/Atom link and gets a page of gibberish is not going to understand all that XML, and they will likely just go back to the site confused.

Instead, you can have a readable page with a message like the one in the post: "This is an RSS feed. Subscribe by copying the URL from the address bar into your newsreader. Visit About Feeds to learn more and get started. It’s free."

[manuelmoreale]

I can see some value in redirecting people towards a page that explain what RSS is. Not entire sure about the first part about letting people know how to subscribe to an rss feed because people who decide to use an RSS reader probably know already how to use it since it's a somewhat technical tool but still, probably doesn't hurt to provide extra info.