the-web-is-a-stream. A nice piece of visual imagery from this analogy is that of standing in the middle of a river. The current simply rushes past, giving one just enough time to consider a thought, before replacing it with the next.

We see this on Twitter, which is a spammy platform to begin with. It is an endless stream of catchy content with the goal to keep you looking for just a while longer. As I was talking to a TikTok influencer at one of my events, he said

To keep people hooked on your video, something must happen every two seconds- whether that’s a new sentence, a change in camera angle or some kind of visual stimulation

At the end of the day, social media and most web2 platforms are the Attention Economy. They are built to democratize access to attention, and enable individuals and organizations to express themselves. web2 is a publisher’s web.

What web2 doesn’t do well is help people communicate complex ideas and thoughts. While the web has massively improved our ability to reach and communicate with one another (the-marginal-cost-to-distribute-is-low), it has not improved our ability to make sense of the world together.

If we cannot agree on fundamentals like value and meaning, then no wonder the connected internet feels like a series of disconnected voices yelling straight past one another. If the systems that we have built don’t facilitate collective thought, then it is impossible to feel like we’re being listened to even if what we’re saying is heard by everyone.