dreaming of a better internet
sari and
dreaming of a better internet
Playful software often conjures up video games, but I don't mean that. Where I see the lack of play is in consumer software: design tools, social networks, dating apps, messengers. Borrowing from Brian Upton's The Aesthetics of Play , I'm talking about play that isn't segregated from ordinary life, “[play that's] embedded within ordinary life;... See more
XH • Internet Playgrounds
Decline of organic user engagement on Twitter due to fear, harassment, and rising content professionalization creating barriers to posting
TRANSCRIPT
You've been blogging a little bit. You mentioned at one point I assume you were there and saw it a deck that got passed around on Twitter Yeah pre Pre saying no one posting anymore The number of people posting is declining and declining and the theory was by 2030 if this trend continues there will be no new user-generated content. It was
... See moreIn an industry riddled with intense antagonism and high expectations, “Low Sodium” harkens back to what makes gaming so special: pure play .
Substack • The Rise of Low Sodium & Gentle Gaming
So perhaps that means changing the terms of the argument or goal. Perhaps, for the medium-term future at least, "winning" and replacing this enshittified monoculture (yes, I really need to read Cory's book), if it isn't possible, is more about cultivating a base layer, I don't know, some sort of mycelial network that's impossible to nuke out of
... See moreDan Hon • S16e08: Free-Range, Organic, and Natural; The Original Promise
A tradeoff occurs every time you get feedback. You become slightly more mainstream, slightly more aligned with the zeitgeist. You become marginally more of an exploiter than an explorer , standing on the shoulders of the giants who conceived the paradigm you’re striving to build upon. This is very effective when you want to align your work with... See more
Leber • The Feedback Tradeoff
I suspect we humans do better with constraints; the Internet stripped away the constraint of physical distribution, and now AI is removing the constraint of needing to actually produce content. That this is spoiling the Internet is perhaps the best hope for finding our way back to what is real. Let the virtual world be one of customized content for... See more
Stratechery by Ben Thompson • Regretful Accelerationism
Anyway, I don’t want to seem like I’m arguing that the internet of 2023 is “fine” or “healthy”--it’s obviously not. Rather, I’d like to make the case that the internet of 2010 (or wherever you would place the peak of “fun” internet) wasn’t particularly healthy or fine, either, and it’s easy to mistake a sense of ease and comfort under bad... See more
Max Read • Why the internet isn't fun anymore + A.I. and magic
this is something interesting…
a place where I can unearth the stories within the landscape as it is still unfolding. It is a place where I can dream of what could be…not only for myself but for the collective, the real world that I’m a part of