dreaming of a better internet

I’m personally hopeful for a “de-globalized” internet of the future—one where we’re all a bit more siloed off from each other, like we are in real life. Think of little internet neighborhoods. This is my hope, if for no other reason than our mental health. We just can’t seem to handle an internet more broad than that, spiritually speaking.

The first thing I’ve come to learn is that pursuing something as open-ended as internet reform requires intentional scoping and goal-setting. The New Internet was never a single thing. It was fractured and messily connected from the jump. This messiness was used as feedstock to accelerate its consolidation under what became the crypto industry. It... See more

Above all, people need agency. They need to feel in control. Sometimes, that means designing for subversive behavior. I mean, isn't the most fun often had when you're breaking rules? But this is enormously difficult in software, where you must design almost everythingfrom scratch. Unlike life, you don't get a common repertoire of actions for free –... See more

Many of us yearn for a way to be fully online without all of the mindlessness, passivity and addiction that often entraps us. Some of us oscillate between fully online and fully offline in a sort of mad dance to establish what feels right. Others have lost hope that it’s possible to engage in a way that feels true and alive, and have resigned to... See more

"We choose to build a second brain because it lets us garden our thinking over days, months, and years. Where social media is compulsive, tools for thought are reflective. Where social media is here and now, tools for thought dwell in the long now. Tools for thought slowly build compounding momentum through low, slow feedback loops that point us in

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We want to create a space which is much more creatively charged. We want Tumblr to be like going to a music show or a museum. You’re going to see some stuff that you haven’t seen before, you’re going to discover new stuff, and you’re also going to leave creatively charged. That’s not a mindset which is as conducive to advertising, but I do think

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