I know that the irregular frequency of this newsletter is part of its charm, but if there’s one thing I learned from Enlace Permanente, it’s that you like to get the email right on time, on the same day at the same hour (so you can read it whenever it’s convenient for you, if you ever do), and I… would like that, too. But it doesn’t always happen.
It’s not that I’m going to start with excuses (like, “I only write when I’m on a train headed to Madrid”—which is 100% true for the last two editions)—but today I’m going to talk a little bit, using links, about that huge gap that usually exists between what we’d like, what we do, and what actually happens. In the world of the web, that is. You haven’t gotten the wrong email.
🌐 The old Internet is still around
The link I’d like you to read this week is this short article by Tyler Gaw titled “The Old Internet is Still Here.” Blogs are still around. RSS feed readers are still around. There are forums for all kinds of niches just waiting to be discovered—without being recommended by an AI or a “For You” tab on a “social” network.
Years of streams and feeds have gotten us used to expecting constant updates. Content delivered straight to our eyes. Content delivered at a dizzying pace. And each new update is better than the last. Why go looking for content when the content can come to you? Part of what made the “old” Internet so great was the process of discovery. There were no streams or feeds. (…) But the Good Internet is still here.
There were no infinite scrolls either, like the ones Aza Raskin introduced—and which he constantly regrets (you can read the story in Retina, an article by Carmen Torres Narváez).
It’s a fact that we’ve become complacent. But while on a personal level this might simply be a case of “I want it, but not that much,” on a professional level it’s quite dangerous. In recent weeks, we’ve seen how tools that were supposed to be the future of who-knows-what—or the “disruptive” whatever, like the virtual reality component of Meta’s metaverse or OpenAI’sSora app —have, overnight, ceased to exist. Just like so many other promises of an incredible future from Big Tech.
Now, in hindsight, obviously everyone knew it wasn't going to work, but there are always people who believed in it (or who really pushed for it) who get left behind, and that's a shame.
It's not as if we in the web community have much to be proud of. John Gruber writes in “Your Frustration Is the Product”:
People are spending less and less time online because the experiences on websites are getting worse and worse, but publishers are trying—almost literally—to dig themselves out of the hole by adding more and more reader-hostile crap that’s driving people away.
This relates to the dismal experiences of media outlets that should be setting the standard, but I think it applies in general.
"That's all well and good," you might say, "but people need to make money and all that, right?" I know. I'm not here to offer any magic solutions (at least not yet). I am, however, here with a few small ideas—and who knows (at this point) what will come of them. Fernando Tellado has been explaining to us recently about the x402 payment protocol and how to integrate it into WordPress.
x402 is an open protocol for native Internet payments that uses the HTTP status code 402 (Payment Required) to enable servers and clients (including AI agents) to automatically negotiate and process payments within HTTP requests themselves.
If this sounds like something I've tried to bring up before, two things: first, thanks for being the only one who listened to me; second, we already tried this with Coil and Web Monetization, which shut down in March 2023. In this Agnic AI article, they explain how they’ve learned from the shortcomings of that proposal and how x402 is different and better. Is it enough to be a solution to something? Not yet.
🧐 Extra links, I'm rambling...
- In keeping with the subtitle, Jeffrey Zeldman writes this interesting and brief reflection: “The Courage to Stop”
Now anyone can generate words. A prompt and a few seconds are all it takes to write paragraphs, pages, or even a manifesto. The machine never runs out of steam. Which means that words themselves have lost their meaning. Volume has turned into silence. The strange thing—the difficult thing—is knowing when enough has been said.
- And also on the topic of artificial intelligence, texts, and—in this case—meetings, here’s something very interesting that Lucas Radke shares on his blog: “AI Reads My Meetings. I Take More Notes Than Ever”
Here’s the mistake people often make with AI in meetings. The transcript records what was said, but not what really matters. A 60-minute meeting generates pages of text. The AI summary lists the topics discussed and the agreements reached, but it leaves out the moment when someone hesitated before agreeing to a timeline, the offhand comment that revealed the team’s true priority, and what wasn’t said when it should have been.
🧙♂️ Published thanks to...
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I know, I know, there's a lot to talk about in the WordPress world with the delay of version 7.0, WordCamp Asia, the discussions on Slack… But we'll save that for the next issue.
By the way, the schedule (what a lineup!) for WordCamp Europe in Krakow this June has been released, and I think it's about time you got excited and came to the event because it's going to be amazing. Here's the schedule. Here are the tickets. And here's what you can see in the city during a couple of days' visit.
I'd be really happy if we could run into each other there.
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