weblin Blog

Essays on the web
as a place.

Eight long-form pieces on web architecture, presence, third places, and what kind of internet we could still build.

More essays · newest first
Essay 7 min read · Jun 29, 2026

AI chats vs. real co-presence on the web

An AI talks to a million people simultaneously, with the same attention you get. Co-presence works differently — and the difference isn't quality, it's structure.

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Essay 7 min read · Jun 15, 2026

Digital third places — between café and feed

Ray Oldenburg called them third places: anchors of social life beyond home and work. The web has feeds. Feeds aren't third places.

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Essay 7 min read · Jun 1, 2026

The quiet web: browsing without an algorithm

You think you choose what you see. You don't. There's another web underneath — quieter, chronological, and it has always been there.

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Essay 6 min read · May 4, 2026

Four promises no algorithm keeps

No algorithm, no ads, open source, you can leave. What each of these costs — and why we made them anyway.

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Press release 7 min read · Apr 30, 2026

Why online communities die — and what we built instead

Communities don't die because people stop caring — they die because they were built on borrowed ground.

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Essay 5 min read · Apr 29, 2026

The web used to be a place. We turned it into a channel.

Platforms didn't replace the web — they layered themselves on top of it, replacing the logic of place with the logic of a channel.

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Essay 6 min read · Apr 29, 2026

Doomscrolling isn't a user problem. It's a design decision.

Endless feed, engagement algorithm, push triggers — three design decisions that together produce what we tend to blame on ourselves.

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