Notes on Scale + Quality

The web hasn’t had its artisanal moment.

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 industrialized farms with lit... See more

You can always trace a product’s flaws back to its motivations.

The web hasn’t had its artisanal moment. Right now, giant, ad-based networks created by six men that everyone begrudgingly uses with diminishing emotional returns, control the vast majority of the web.

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 industrialized farms with little regard for the environment or animals. And in response to that, we now have amazing artisanal and healthy food choices ... See more

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 industrialized farms with little regard for the environment or animals. And in response to that, we now have amazing artisanal and healthy food choices ... See more