The title is quite clickbaity, but this is a rather wonderful retelling of web history on how Content Management Systems may have stifled a lot of the web’s early creativity.
Also, there’s this provocation: we like to rail against algorithmic sorting …but what if the reverse-chronological feed was itself the first algorithm?
Start a blog. Start one because the practice of writing at length, for an audience you respect, about things that matter to you, is itself valuable. Start one because owning your own platform is a form of independence that becomes more important as centralized platforms become less trustworthy. Start one because the format shapes the thought, and this format is good for thinking.
See, I’ve always compared that building pressure of need-to-blog to being constipated (which makes the resultant blog post like having a very satisfying bowel movement), but maybe Brad’s analogy is better. Maybe.
Ah, the circle of life!
I always enjoy reading Jay’s newsletter, but this was a particularly fun trip down memory lane.
There’s a link to an old post by Jeff Atwood who said:
A blog without comments is not a blog.
That was responding to an old post of mine where I declared:
Comments should be disabled 90% of the time.
That blog-to-blog conversation took place almost twenty years ago.
I still enjoy blog-to-blog conversations today.
Rob has redesigned his site and it’s looking gorgeous.
I really like the categories he’s got for his blog.
This line-up just gets better and better! You’ll want to be in Brighton on March 12th, 2026.
Some handpicked highlights from my blog.
The web is what we make it.
Write for yourself.
Marginalia and annotations on the web.