The Revenge of the Home Page

Now digital-distribution infrastructure is crumbling, having become both ineffective for publishers and alienating for users. Social networks, already lackluster sources for news, are overwhelmed by misinformation and content generated by artificial intelligence. A.I.-driven search threatens to upend how articles get traffic from Google. Text-based media have given way to short-form videos of talking heads hosted on TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube. If that’s not how you prefer to take in information, you’re out of luck. Surrounded by dreck, the digital citizen is discovering that the best way to find what she used to get from social platforms is to type a URL into a browser bar and visit an individual site.

I think there are two really interesting ideas here. The first is bringing back hand-picked trusted aggregation on a landing page, which is a big focus of the Semafor interview. The 2nd is the idea of using the UI/UX language of social media in how you present the contents of a site and what it is focused on. Both lean into human curation, and both flow out of the idea that the current state of the web is not serving us well. I think we're seeing people develop new strategies around how to rebuild the web around us in a way that is more intrinsically human. I think this is fascinating as an opposing force against the way AI is shaping social media and big tech search.

Another good insight is that cultivating people to have a habit of returning to the homepage is important, for Defector 75% of all paid subscribers start their visit sequence with the homepage and that builds loyalty.

Also, I don't know how I wasn't aware of Arts & Letters Daily, but I'm subscribed now!