new internet

I recognize these attempts, yet I know for a fact that the internet — this home and caretaker and teacher and friend will never return to its prior state. Everything only experiences infancy once. But in the same way you return to your hometown after years of absence and see it evolve and reconstitute itself, the vestiges of beauty on the web have... See more

I think we see a decline in the big "open sea" social networks, replaced increasingly by fragmented silos. I don't know what will happen to Twitter, but if Elon's shenanigans cause it to fail I don't think we'll ever see anything quite like it take its place:

Back in the 2000s, a lot of blogs were about blogs , about blogging. If that sounds exhaust­ingly meta, well, yes — but it was also SUPER generative. When the thing can describe itself, when it becomes the natural place to discuss and debate itself, I am telling you: some flywheel gets spinning, and powerful things start to happen.

There is no place for self-actualisation like the Internet. To put on and take off identities, personalities, interests, and styles with no cost at all and by simply lifting a pointer finger. This has generally been considered an advantage of the Internet. I’d argue it is not. It feeds an instinct that has been trained in us from marketing... See more

Because of the internet we don’t need to define our identity based on where we physically live, who we’re born to, or what we look like, as has been the case in human history until now.

Exploring the internet together should be like exploring a vast old library with your friends. Wandering down different shelves, skimming the pages that catch your eye, and occasionally one of you hollers in a whispering voice, "come check this out!"