Remember websites? We used to have websites before we had “platforms.”

People used to create their own websites filled with the things that were important to them, and they were not filled with user-generated content to drive engagement. They were strange labors of love somewhere in between a magazine and a diary that people would visit obsessively for some reason.

The Internet is a communal space, it’s a place we go to observe each other and share with each other, but confusingly, it is not a “place” at all. It is a domain of the imagination.

The Internet is becoming less useful each day because of the way platforms are mediating our content experiences. But users built the Internet and will shape the course of its future. It is only by broadening our imaginations and defining what humanity actually needs out of the tools on the Internet that we can make it a place that is worthy of the talent and creativity of our species.