Archive
Sep 26, 2025
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10 min read
There is no online safety without anonymity
Last week, I said we need real-world identity online. This week, I rebut myself. Nobody said this Internet thing was going to be easy.
Sep 19, 2025
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8 min read
If an account is not a person, then you don’t have to treat it with respect
Free, anonymous online accounts let bad guys proliferate and platforms pretend we are disposable. Real-world identity requirements could help us reclaim our digital selves.
Sep 12, 2025
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9 min read
Can we protect the Internet without revealing our real-world identities?
Free, anonymous online accounts are a cornerstone of the Internet. Fraud and child safety fears are putting that principle to the test.
Sep 5, 2025
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9 min read
Account Terminations Are Easy, But Unjust
Violate a policy, lose your account. Simple, right? A tactic born to handle mass fraud has ended up hurting real people who are dependent on platforms for community and storage.
Aug 29, 2025
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10 min read
Summer Field Trip 3: Of Platforms And People
It’s the super-sized finale of our trilogy: everything gets bigger, true motives are revealed, and hope returns to the galaxy.
Aug 22, 2025
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8 min read
Summer Field Trip 2: Publishers and Middlemen (The Dark Middle Episode)
How the rise of the Internet unleashed sharks, short-term thinking, and shady practices.
Aug 15, 2025
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6 min read
Summer Field Trip Part 1: Sell-Side Superhero Spectacular
Join me for an IMAX-sized epic of online advertising. Perverse incentives! Corporate culture clashes! Ad blockers! It’s all here, for three weeks only.
Aug 8, 2025
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7 min read
Five classic business books about tech failures to read after you finish “Yield”
Get your schadenfreude fix (and some useful insights) from the blunders of a previous generation of tech leaders.
Aug 6, 2025
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6 min read
Bonus issue: I’m in a book! "Yield" by Ari Paparo, about Google’s ad business
From Project Wolf to the “spaghetti football,” Ari tells a gripping story previously known only to insiders. Plus jokes!
Aug 1, 2025
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7 min read
Thoughts on Casey Newton and TrustCon: corporate incentives, conflating bad and illegal
Casey Newton of Platformer wrote about TrustCon and got a lot of feedback. I am adding two things that I think the conversation missed.
