silo

If we take the metaphor of the wood wide web seriously, it’s hard not to see an analogy here to the context collapse endemic to social media. A few corporations control the lion’s share of public cloud infrastructure, and monopolistic ISPs exploit everyday users. Tech and social media giants have clear-cut the web, privileging high-value crops—vira... See more

platforms have risen to become the monolithic, centrally-managed household names that we are so familiar with—where we comfortably upload our memories and fantasies, our arguments and aspirations.

Artisanal software

In a speech delivered years ago, Ev Williams used agriculture as a metaphor to understand what’s possible on the Internet.

Agriculture was a tremendous invention – it got people fed and freed them to do many things. But agriculture – taken to the extreme in the pursuit of profit leads to a sick and obese population and industrial... See more

In web2, basically anyone who posts any form of content surrenders it to a continuous feedback loop wherein the platform not only owns and controls your data—it also earns a vast majority of the revenue from what you’ve created.

If our primary urge when we go online is to avoid remaining static, why should our content be siloed within the enclosed walls of a proprietary platform?

I evoke the term 'handmade web' to suggest slowness and smallness as forms of resistance. In today's highly commercialised web of multinational corporations, proprietary applications, read-only devices, search algorithms, Content Management Systems, WYSIWYG editors, and digital publishers it becomes an increasingly radical act to hand-code and self... See more

The web is what we make it