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WHY FEEDS ARE STUPID
====================


A feed is useful for one job: showing a changing sequence of things.

The mistake was allowing that one interface to become the default mental model
for the whole Internet.

Feeds flatten context. A ten-year project and a ten-second joke can occupy the
same rectangle. Older material sinks. Navigation becomes chronology plus
recommendation. The visitor is encouraged to continue forward rather than move
sideways, dig deeper, compare, discover a hidden room, or understand how the
pieces relate.

The result is an Internet that often feels huge and strangely small at the same
time. There is more media than ever, but much of it arrives through the same few
shapes: card, post, reel, story, short, comment, recommendation.

A website can contain a feed. The problem starts when every website becomes one.

A healthy Web should contain catalogs, labyrinths, atlases, manuals, shrines,
clubs, archives, experiments, games, fake operating systems, radio stations,
interactive fiction, academic references, neighborhood pages, arguments,
personal museums, bad jokes and things nobody has named yet.

The feed is a tool.

It is a terrible civilization.
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