Beyond customization: build tools that grow with us | thesephist.com

At Ink & Switch, we believe that software should be extensible in an easy, everyday manner. We believe users want to automate, customize, or even make their own tools without much ceremony. History offers us some great examples.

The need for "10x" improvements on products falls away because there's so little switching cost between applications - the underlying data stays the same. Every experience can be constantly improving, with iterations coming from anyone rather than only the original creator or company. The web becomes more composable, with more builders.

A common argument against moldability is the increased cost of maintaining integrations or modifications that exist on top of a perpetually changing piece of software. This is a real issue, as evidenced by the fragility of plugin ecosystems such as those of the free content management system, Wordpress. However, this points to the fact that there a... See more

Today’s software apps are like appliances: we can only use the capabilities exactly as programmed by the developer. What if we, and all computer users, could reach in and modify our favorite apps? Or even create new apps on the fly according to our needs in the moment?

Take the humble “document” as an example. For decades, document editing programs like word processors effectively emulated a printed sheet of paper, onto which the user typed with an emulated typewriter. Other software tools like spreadsheets did better, managing to escape complete skeuomorphism in favor of an infinite canvas. Notion is another goo... See more

When you try to make something that solves everything, you obsess over questions of power: how to make something that is omnipotent and everlasting. But when you make something that does one thing well, the questions are much more personal: does it solve my problem? and for how long? and who for? and where will it push the space around it? I want t... See more

it’s perhaps better to learn through doing small and easily discarded projects that don’t lock us into one tool path. We’ll accrue tools and knowledge along the way, and those tools will better reflect our interests in the thing itself.