HyperTexting sneak peak...

Hey 👋 I just stumbled upon your Phantom Obligation essay, via @kottke.org (!) no less, and I was practically hugging my laptop as I read through it. I've also been thinking about this problem for a long time and quietly building something that your post is emboldening me to share for the first time. 😬

I remember around the time NNW came out (still the 🐐 IMO) that that the hottest buzzword in tech wasn't "AI", it was "the Outlook-like interface". 🤣 It took me a few years of PM experience to understand why big companies and indie developers alike were making this choice: they were "meeting people where they were". It's the same reason so many startup pitches are simply "Uber for X" – they're bringing their product to market in a way that is familiar to mainstream users.

Anyway, that's a long way of saying that I've been exploring what that would look like today, and I kept landing on the social feed. The Facebook News Feed turns 20 this year! Even grandma knows how to scroll a feed at this point. But "the social feed-like interface" is more than just a departure from the three-column/inbox-style feed reader. It means taking inspiration from social media profiles, responses, mentions, video, discovery and even personalization while still embracing user privacy and the unique attributes of the open web that social media platforms ~~can't~~ refuse to give us. Most importantly, it means lowering the barrier to entry for publishing in addition to subscribing. A modern ~~RSS~~ news feed app should offer full read+write support.