“You’re not bad with technology. Technology got bad at being finished.”

Terry always writes lovely visual essays that are thought provoking. This one has continued to live rent-free in my head for awhile now. I aspire to build the type of software which his essay explores. You can see it in my projects like The Brutalist Report or even this very site.

Software that does its one job and then shuts up. No engagement loops. No notifications. No perpetual relationship. A reliable tool you reach for, use, and forget about.

I find there’s a beauty to it and is increasingly rare in the modern world.

But there’s a paradox about this: Quiet software can’t shout about itself.

The very qualities that make it worth having are exactly the qualities that render it invisible in a world wired for noise. So the alternatives to the attention hungry software will always be the underdog, passed hand to hand, one quiet recommendation at a time.

I think I’m okay with that. Let’s go find the quiet things in our life and hold onto them. And when you can’t find them, build them.