relief

I've been exploring Geminispace for approximately two days now, and words cannot express how relieved I feel when I get here.

My recent switch from the "five websites each showing screenshots of the other four" to the small Web produced a similar effect, but at a smaller scale. This one feels legitimately peaceful.

The small Web is full of interesting stuff to see and explore. Geminispace lets me think.

I know I have years of experience and a head full of interesting information (though I can't vouch for the size of its audience). I write for a living, and I also write because I get itchy and start climbing walls if I don't. So I trust that, in time, I'll manage to build a capsule that's worth visiting.

I want to do so. This feels like a space where my contributions matter because I'm making them. Not because they "drive engagement" or whatever the hell I've been wasting my professional life on back on the corporate Web.

Speaking of: I was reading a piece on "website obesity" today:

https://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.html

This piece suggests, among other things, that there's an "ad revenue" bubble coming. That online ads, like so much of tech, can't actually generate enough revenue to sustain themselves currently - the ecosystem is propped up by venture capital. (See also: LLMs.)

It was written nearly ten years ago, but I can't help wondering if the recent hyper-enshittification of Google Search is a sign of that oncoming burst. Why else would Google need to push so hard over the course of just a couple years to double the time we spend on their site, to get ever sneakier at hiding their ad links, and to implement "AI search" so that we don't leave the site unless it's to follow an ad link?

For a moment, I actually considered making the argument that now is exactly the wrong time to fire your content writers and SEO specialists, because the worse Google gets, the more people will migrate to search engines that still respond to those tactics.

...Then I remembered I have nowhere left to post that argument. I deleted my Wordpress, Medium, Substack, and LinkedIn accounts. On purpose. (I do have a three-page Neocities site holding my portfolio, resume, and professional contact information, but I have no desire to Blog Professionally anymore.)

I didn't mean to drag all this into my capsule, but this is what happens when one gets into a quiet place. All the Stuff comes out and gets sorted.

Tl;dr I'm still figuring it out. All of it. And it's such a relief to do.