pay for digital social spaces

The mistake of the 1.0 platforms was to optimize for engagement—likes, clicks, and shares. This was a successful short-term growth strategy, but at the long-term cost of sustainability. For engagement includes not only joy but rage, not only mirth but sadness. Incentivizing these things creates hellishness, driving people to disengage, to become... See more

To have an impact on the world, a system needs to be deployed and funded. Open sourcing the sewage system won’t flush the toilet. Open sourcing a search engine doesn't create a search competitor.

Sometimes it can feel like the online spaces you spend time in are working against you, pushing you toward things that their owners value instead of what you value—and harnessing your energy to fuel the very things you hate. Like me, you probably know the feeling of spending too much time gorging on digital junk food, wasting precious moments of... See more

Centralised moderation isn't the only option that doesn't work. We also need to eliminate any option that doesn't have a credible mean of doing the work — and it's a lot of work, meaning that either someone needs to get paid or you need a lot of volunteers. And punting it to the users can never work.

It's almost like the equivalent of going to mom and pop shops, not relying on these bigger anomalies to dictate our spending habits and our viewing habits and our work habits. And I think that there's a future in this world where Patreons and OnlyFans and Substacks and all these things, we're going to start supporting each other

🧠 The puzzle of vanishing member dues - Part 2