But whenever I stepped outside the bubble, things were very different. At non-tech parties, I’d have trouble explaining what it was I did. («So you, uh, have a web site?») Once I went far outside the city to have lunch with an author I respected. He asked about what I did, wanted me to explain it in great detail. He asked how many visitors we had. I told him and he sputtered. «I’ve spent fifteen years building an audience, and you’re telling me in a year you have a million visitors?» I assented.
Puzzled, he insisted I show him the site on his own computer, but he found it was just a simple as I described. (Simpler, even.) «So it’s just a list of links?» he said. «And you don’t even write them yourselves?» I nodded. «But there’s nothing to it!» he insisted. «Why is it so popular?»
Inside the bubble, nobody asks this inconvenient question. We just mumble things like «democratic news» or «social bookmarking» and everybody just assumes it all makes sense. But looking at this guy, I realized I had no actual justification. It was just a list of links. And we didn’t even write them ourselves.
Comentario completo: Raw Thought: The Aftermath
Vía: PJorge
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