FOMO is a feeling. But it’s also a business model—and increasingly, one of the more successful ones. Fear, in general, makes people much easier to separate from their money. It’s perfectly suited to this moment of ubiquitous grift, where everything feels like a lottery ticket or a multi-level marketing scheme.
It’s even more perfectly suited for “the age of AI,” which squeezes economic FOMO from both sides. AI could make you wildly rich (the first person to start a billion-dollar company with zero employees!) or leave you hopelessly destitute (part of the looming “permanent underclass”). Which one do you want to be? Smash that like button, sign up for my online course, and use my new AI-powered business platform!
People and blogs involved with and about the IndieWeb community, the fediverse, and/or the open web in general.
Summary punishment
In the latest issue of Matthias’s excellent Own Your Web series, he describes the recent betrayal by Google:
The search engine no longer says “here, go read what this person wrote.” It now says “here, I’ve already read it for you.” The contract is broken.
He’s absolute...
Cool to see Inkwell featured in the Own Your Web newsletter, along with posts from great bloggers like Ana Rodrigues, Dave Rupert, Jeffrey Zeldman, and others.
Just had a surprisingly good rescheduling experience with a healthcare provider. Text to confirm appointment. Reply with 2 to reschedule. Then it texted with available dates and times, press 1-3 to pick one. Done. No phone calls, no hold music.
The internet used to be* fun ("here’s a collection of articles")
Ben Werdmuller
• Ben Werdmuller
The user-tailored newsroom
Newsrooms typically treat publishing as a one-size-fits-all broadcast. What if they tailored their work to a reader's needs and interests?
I've written about Firefox many times over the last 20 years or so.
Ben Werdmuller
• Ben Werdmuller
It pays to reward curiosity more than looking smart
"Curiosity signals that ideas are welcome, not risky." Modeling it is a crucial part of leading a team.
Butterflies
I like to walk quickly. One of my childhood friends did, too. Whenever I reflect on the pace at which I walk, I think of the times when we tried to walk as fast as possible. My friend was much more athletic than I – with longer legs, too – so they often had the edge in walkin...
The end of responsive images - Piccalilli
Hallelujah! Support for sizes="auto" is finally landing in Firefox and Safari! Praise be!
HTML Video Poster Image: Enable Responsive Images and ALT Text for Poster by allowing a child IMG Element (with an optional Picture Element wrapper) to Control the Video Poster Image · Issue #10378 · whatwg/html
This is such a brilliant idea! Why not allow an img element inside video element in order to provide a responsive, accessible poster image?
Manuel Moreale — Everything Feed
• Manuel Moreale
Spending hard caps
I was catching up with some tech news yesterday and every time I read one of these “I woke up with a USD 18k bill in my Cloud account” articles, I am reminded about how fucking stupid—and predatory—this whole industry can be.
The ability to set hard spending caps should be r...
Own Your Web – Issue 18: Curators
Hi All! 🤗
The Latin word curare means “to take care of.” It’s the root of curator – a person whose work is not to create, but to care. To select, to arrange, to provide context. In a museum, the curator doesn’t paint the paintings. She decides which paintings belong in the s...
Went to see Project Hail Mary again, this time without Spanish subtitles. So good. 🍿
Had lunch today with Neal Smoller, our local pharmacy owner. Brilliant young guy who's totally energized by Claude Code.
New maestros in software
I wonder how many people are working on clones of existing software with an eye toward making a much more evolvable and customizable version with AI at the core of the model.
You can make the same software easily, with Claude's help, and if you think about the things users ...
Living the indie web life
Living the indie web life
In 2018, David and Chris recorded a podcast episode about the indie web in which the topic “living the indie web life” came up. As soon as I heard the phrase, I thought to myself: what does living the indie web life mean to me?
This evening I hosted an online Homebrew Websit...
Untitled
📗 Want to read The Meaning of Anxiety by Rollo May ISBN: 9780393350876
Please no drinks on ledge. At Palomino Coffee. ☕️
