Software never had a soul

Software never had a soul

Ryo Lu recently wrote:

The web was the same. Personal sites were genuinely personal. Blogs felt like letters. Forums had regulars. You knew who made what. The internet had neighborhoods, and each one felt different.

Nothing was optimized for scale. Things were made by people who loved what they were making.

Somewhere along the way, we traded all of that for growth. A/B tests flattened the edges. Design systems standardized the personality out. Everything got faster, smoother, more consistent — and somehow less interesting. The quirks were removed because they didn't test well. The warmth got cut because it wasn't measurable. We optimized our way into a world of things that work perfectly and feel like nothing.

I've been turning this over in my head for a day or so, trying to pinpoint why it didn't sit well with me.

I think it's this: the narrative would have you believe that the personal web — replete with the kind of rococo and flourish that "doesn't scale" — is gone, and the mission falls on Us to bring it back. To me, this is the same kind of thinking that complains about how all the music on the radio today is overproduced poppy garbage, or that the only films coming out are high-budget, low-value, extended universe IP flicks. It is simply untrue, but the ease with which Ryo goes back and forth from talking about "software" to talking about "products" gives away the game.

I do not want my IDE to "have a soul". It is an IDE! I want it to be extremely efficient and ergonomic, and if that's at the expense of whimsy then good. I get whimsy from many other things in my life: I do not expect my OXO citrus press to contain delightful microinteractions, and Cursor (for which Ryo works) is closer to the business of making citrus presses than it is to the business of making delicious home-cooked meals.

Technology progresses at an exhilarating pace of monotonic improvement. It has never been faster, easier, or cheaper to build something unique and have it available for the entire world to see. Here are some examples I came up with in thirty seconds:

(blogroll.org has a great list of these, too.)

None of these are for companies. They are all personal websites, because the goal of a personal website is distinct from that of a corporate website — and technology has advanced such that the difference between the two is both meaningful and palpable. The personal web is not dead; it is thriving, and it is thriving precisely because the tools have gotten better, not in spite of it.

If you find yourself pining for yesteryear, remember that you do not need a time machine. You do not even need better or faster tools. You just need to really mean it.