#postplatform

The next decade of the Internet is likely to yield more cloistered digital spaces that seek to correct the ills of Big Social Media. The looming “post-platform” era, as it is already being called, will consist of smaller online communities connecting through group texts, Reddit forums, Discord servers, and e-mail newsletters. It won’t run on public spectacle like the Web we’ve become accustomed to; virality may no longer be the goal. But it may at least offer a less exploitative mode of existing online. In a way, it will resemble an earlier version of the Internet, operating on a tried-and-true principle: friends are more trustworthy than strangers.