Andrew Keen was right—yet, there’s still room for optimism.

I recently received a call from an old friend, Juliano Spyer (Juca), who is an excellent conversationalist, writer, and anthropologist. I’ve had the chance to hang out with him several times in S?o Paulo and London. He’s such a fantastic person to talk to, always full of exciting stories. One of the key lessons I’ve learned from Juca is how to effectively share your thoughts on the web.

Most people might be surprised to learn that I used to be shy and nervous when speaking in front of audiences. That changed after working with Juca and other talented people at Talk2. While we worked together, Juca led a project called Talk Show, a podcast where we interviewed “digital” personalities. It was recorded live on Twitter, using clever hacks to capture Skype calls, broadcast them, and handle questions—something easily done with apps today.

Many of those episodes are lost now—it’s been over 15 years! But I managed to recover a quote from an episode where Juca interviewed Andrew Keen.

At the time, Andrew was promoting his book The Cult of the Amateur, which critiques the impact of user-generated content on society. You can still listen to the entire episode (skip the first five minutes if you don’t understand Portuguese), but I want to share a specific quote about the web and business models:

“Clay Shirky and I are friends, and it’s interesting because many people think we disagree on most things. We agree on most things. He’s right. And he’s coming closer to my position. Because the assumption three or four or five years ago was that old media would die and be painlessly replaced by new media—this massive seismic shift from newspapers to bloggers, from the movie or television business to YouTubers. And that hasn’t happened. In my book, I argued that the old was dying, but nothing new was replacing it. And that’s even truer today. Old media is in crisis. Still, no viable business models exist to build new media companies.”

Clay Shirky’s point, which Andrew referenced, relates to the idea of value generated by communities. Shirky argues that:

“the absence of a business model actually allowed the creation of a value that the presence of a business model prevented.”

It’s fascinating to reflect on how this conversation has aged. We now face different risks and benefits, many of which we couldn’t have imagined back in 2009. I was always optimistic about the web, so I was leaning on Shirky's side. But now, in reflection, I can see that Keen was spot on. Erosion of quality, misinformation and the cultural devaluation -- all the things he was concerned in 2007 became incontestable aspects of using the web in 2024.

On top of that, the reckless use of our personal data for profit, and the complete inability of opting out of the algorithmic recommendations... It's hard to keep the optimism. But we keep swimming.

I still see writing and sharing great content as a way to be generous with the web community you serve. Over time, it creates value that isn’t necessarily tied to financial metrics. And I believe it's also a personal statement: we share, because we (still) can. And everyone should be nurturing their own web properties. It's a small part of this idea of Rewilding the Internet and core to the philosophy of the Indieweb.

I do it because I believe in fostering serendipity and human connection. Because I still inspired by the cluetrain manifesto. Conversations are still essentially a human thing and that we can and should nurture.

Sometimes, it feels like sending a message in a bottle—unsure of where it will land or who it will reach. But when it does find its way, the connections that form are invaluable.

This post was originally published on my blog: Weeknotes #43