Terry Godier
I spent last night subscribing to all of the public feeds on Sourcefeed. A few folks even sent me their private feeds (thank you!)
I got emotional reading those posts. There’s a lot of earnest writing in there, a lot of living happening in those words. People choosing to log their day, share their music preferences, write about various news beats, post frog pictures, all sorts of things.
Sitting with it, there are two primary feelings. I’m overwhelmed with gratitude and honor — that people trust the little utility I built enough to be sincere about using it, that I’m trusted with hanging onto their words and delivering them to whomever they intend to read them.
Writing this, I feel something else. I’m angry at the extractive bastards who own a platform and then treat the people who write there like shit. Taking their words as collateral to run ads against. Deciding whether anyone sees what they wrote based on whether it’ll keep someone else scrolling. Manufacturing the anxious return to doomscroll more.
Enough. We’ve all had enough of that. I hope a thousand other sites pop up where the deal is just the deal: words written by people, delivered to whomever they intend to read them. Where creation isn’t a means to anything else. It is the thing.