Platforms don’t really die they deflate
July 2023
Does your voice still reverberate in a deflated echo chamber?
This is a quote from a Wired article called ‘A Tweet Before Dying’ by Paul Ford. It was written in November 2022 a month after Elon Musk acquired Twitter. Fast forward 7 months and things have snowballed with Twitter. There are also protests at Reddit and Meta is looking to take a advantage with release of Threads this week.
The article looks back further and calls the first period of the internet the Revolutionary web. A period from 1997 to 2022. In essence from Lady Diana’s death to the death of Queen Elizabeth II. Wrapping up a period of internet history with a nice royal bow. Albeit a morbid bow.
I wonder though if the election of Donald Trump in 2016 is a more accurate demarcation of the end of that first web. A period that shimmed in echo chambers and misinformation.
Ford’s Revolutionary web is a period of 25 years. Which makes it an adult now. All grown up and maybe starting to suffer from the human condition like the rest of us.