IndieWeb Carnival Jan ’25 roundup
First of all, many thanks to everyone who contributed to this month’s IndieWeb carnival. The theme was ‘One the importance of friction’ and invited writings on how we might view friction, both on the web and elsewhere, not as a problem but as an integral part of a process. Sometimes the easiest way is not necessarily the best way. Views both in favour of and against this argument were welcome, because sometimes the answer lies in striking a balance.
The following are submissions I received, in the order in which I received them. If anybody’s submission is missing, please feel free to send me an e-mail and even give me a piece of your mind. I had a wonderful time reading all these contributions and I have no doubt everyone else will too—
Jeremy Cherfas Exploring how we listen to music, in Listen to what, Jeremy discusses past experiences with reducing friction and how being intentional with listening to music means reducing it further. I enjoyed this article even more when I looked at it backwards: in reducing friction on their terms, streaming services like Spotify cannot possibly cater to how we want to listen to music on our terms. The article also reminds me of the IndieWeb, of building our own tools and approaches, adding our friction if you will, to what we do our way.
Steve Ledlow In an essay titled Friction is a feature, Steve discusses how a familiarity with friction in life can generally make life itself easier and less overwhelming. In a particularly meditative paragraph Steve points out how ‘Friction transforms energy from form to form’ and without it life can be ‘small, empty, and unnecessarily fragile’. Rather than addressing any specific aspect, this is a piece on friction in life itself.
Joel Dueck Expanding upon a previous essay titled Friction in publishing Joel overviews the friction involved in various ways someone can set themselves up on the IndieWeb today. From setting up a CMS to writing individual HTML files, friction is everywhere but in different forms during different phases of your journey. I found myself nodding vigorously when Joel suggested webmentions can “quintuple your phase-one friction”. The comparisons to print publishing were interesting and took me to an area I have previously given little thought to. Throughout this essay is a sort of dance between opportunity, preference and availability, with friction the music in the background.
Fabian Holzer In Accidental complexities of the IndieWeb, Fabian discusses the interesting notion that in moving between tools and workflows we are “trading one kind of friction for another one”. I loved how the essay calls out the IndieWeb community reminding us that the IndieWeb principle that “UX and design is more important than protocols, formats, data models, schema is both valid and collectively neglected by the community”. This month’s theme, to me at least, was not only about recognising how the CorpoWeb is rebuking friction but also acknowledging that there is friction on the IndieWeb. Fabian’s is a great essay that discusses handling such essential complexities on our turf.
Daniel Savage In the personal narrative There is thrill in the friction Daniel describes friction through the ‘mysticism around [Gorillaz], a sense of the unknown that felt so different from the clean-cut, hyper-accessible pop’ of today. The article goes on to reflect on society’s evolving relationship with the music it listesns to and the artists behind that music, making keen observations on how there is friction in listening to as well as in discovering music but the friction takes a completely different form in each case.
Nick Simson Titled Friction and resistance, this brilliant essay takes a deep-dive into apps and our complex relationships with them, the parallels between our physical and digital lives, the erasure of friction on which the gig economy thrives albeit at much greater hidden costs—“The gig apps have a long history of sidestepping local and state efforts to regulate them, and relying on them seems to accelerate a race to the bottom”—and of course the IndieWeb itself. There are a lot of poignant discussions about a lot of different aspects of how we use technology today, connected by the thread of friction. This is a long essay and it will be more than worth your time reading it.
Tracy Durnell There are several important discussions in Sanding off friction from indie web connection that speak directly of the state of the IndieWeb today. “On the indie web, people are talking to each other from different places,” says Tracy, rightly pointing out that “if it feels like there’s no way to connect with others via the indie web, [people will] simply continue to migrate from silo to silo.” From social friction to audience control, from moderation to neighbourliness, Tracy’s categorical breakdown of things the the community can work on paints a roadmap for the future of the IndieWeb.
The IndieWeb Carnival requires that contributions to a theme be written during the month of the carnival, but Peter Molnar kindly pointed me to an interesting essay he had written addressing this theme back in 2018 called The internet that took over the internet that I simply had to mention here. The essay takes a keen-eyed look into the individuality and specialism that characterised the old-school web and how the IndieWeb is a descendent of that. Online content has become expendable, Peter says, and the way out “of the swamp of social media is for things to require a little effort.”
Manuel Moreale In a concise post titled On the importance of friction the ever-insightful Manu discusses the CorpoWeb’s obsession with erasing friction as being embodied by the Amazon Dash. In a world already moving faster than is compatible for humans, he suggests making life “slightly less immediate.”
Oscar Ryz Speaking of a very different kind of friction in his article On the importance of friction, Oscar reflects on the old days of safeguarding oneself on the landline or in public spaces, drawing parallels with the how human behaviour shifted with the advent of social media. I liked the observation that the CorpoWeb disguised our want of dopamine “as another natural instinct: connection.” This article takes a unique approach to friction, asking if the answer lies beyond the software.
Juha–Matti Santala Warning readers to Be careful with introducing AI into your notes Juhis discusses how counterintuitive it is to employ technology that promises to erase friction in notetaking. I really enjoyed this article because it speaks of a practice close to my own heart. Juhis describes the friction in thinking, interpreting and writing. This is a brilliant case for when friction is not part of the process, rather friction is the process, and this essay does a great job of showing the value in it.
Sadiq Saif Of course friction is not black and white, argues On the nature of friction, describing aspects of writing on a blog where negative, positive and neutral friction can be identified. The friction, though, argues Sadiq interestingly, might add joy to the process.
Nicolas Solerieu “Frictionless is the default product design motto” says Nico in On friction and texture, reflecting on how we are often so connected yet so disconnected from technologies today. Society has started trying to recapture some of that connection, through film photography or drip coffees, activities defined to some extent by their inherent friction. Nico draws a fantastic comparison between the evolution of digital textures on the IndieWeb and the friction of physical textures in ‘analogue perception’ in this deeply meaningful essay.