Tara McMullin

Better design is warranted, but it is not enough if the goal is risk reduction. Risk reduction requires socialization, education, and enough agency to build experience. Moreover, if we think that people will still get hurt, we should be creating digital patrols who are there to pick people up when they are hurt.

Successful platforms do not just discover what consumers want — they produce the consumers and the forms of consumer desire that they need.

Because here is the thing: every bit of communication to a group of people is ripe for misunderstanding. But the true delusion exists when we pretend like it isn’t. Even if we have been on the other side of the dynamic many times before, misunderstanding things.

And if communities are spaces for belonging, cohorts are spaces for becoming.

American economy creates new jobs through organizing waste which is at best harmless and at worst poisonous and destructive.

Ultimately, Agreements are a collective wish we make about how we might be in the same space together. That space could be a classroom, a sports team, a club, a conference, committees or boards, an organizing group. They reflect what we need to participate while feeling joyful, trusted, and brave.

But they also can be flimsy as hell.

The problem, in other words, isn't intermediation – it's power . The thing that distinguishes a useful intermediary from an enshittified bully is power . Intermediaries gain power when our governments stop enforcing competition law. This lets intermediaries buy each other up and corner markets. Once they've formed cozy cartels, they can capture... See more

Knowing your site will survive for decades to come gives you the mental wherewithal to tackle long-term tasks like gathering information for years, and such persistence can be useful⁠⁠19⁠—if one holds onto every glimmer of genius for years, then even the dullest person may look a bit like a genius himself⁠⁠20⁠.