8 ms·

The Slow Web

147 points by mozboz 12y ago

chewxy 12y ago
See also: http://theslowweb.com http://theslowweb.com (used to be at .org but I forgot to do some renewals last year)
dasil003 12y ago
I love the term and I love the idea. I consider the Slow Food movement to be one of the most important movements for true quality of life (at least as far as first-world problems go), and with the sort of always-on environment that typical white-collar workers experience in today's post-Twitter mobile world, I think tech can just as readily destroy people's lives as fast food does. This makes me sad because I've been instinctively drawn to tech for my entire life and I don't want to believe that we need to somehow forcibly detach from tech to lead balanced and sane lives. There is a way for tech to be enriching without stress or compulsion inducing. I'm totally behind The Slow Web and look forward to my own contributions in years to come.
- GuiA 12y ago
  > I consider the Slow Food movement to be one of the most important movements for true quality of life It's amusing that it has to be a "movement", because prior to a few decades ago everyone was part of the "slow food movement".
  - dasil003 12y ago
    I don't think it's amusing in the least. Have you looked around recently at people's diet and health? It's not just fast food, but convenience foods in general are huge business, and it's people largely bought into the marketing simply because they offer ever increasing taste and convenience. There are huge margins to be made by processing the same mono-culture grains into ever more refined and perfected addictive foodstuffs. Even government policy is shaped by this profit motive because who else is lobbying on farm policy? Food policy an America is a perfect example of where capitalism fails to take into account externalities, in this case the externality is health and wellbeing which has always been recognized as of paramount importance, but nevertheless remains difficult to quantify in economic terms due to the inherent complexities involved. Unless we stop and think critically about it, we are doomed to sacrifice our health to a huge money-making apparatus in exchange for a bit of well-engineered flavor. The status quo which most of of us have known for our entire lives is what necessitates a movement. Perhaps I'm taking your comment in the wrong spirit, but I think it's something that needs to be taken seriously by everyone living in industrialized countries.
    - ZenPro 12y ago
      Spoken truly like someone who has no idea what they are talking about. At present industrial countries spend between 9-11% of their annual income on foodstuffs and less than 5% of their time gathering said foodstuffs - the lowest in time/money expenditure for food in the history of the world.[1] If we die slightly earlier due to a possible rise in cardiovascular disease then it was a small price to pay for saving years in productive time. Also, fast food firms are an easy target but when pressed for an answer, the team at Freakonomics made a pretty good case that a McDonalds hamburger is possibly the greatest foodstuff when balanced between cost, speed, safety and bountifulness of nutrients.[2] The real problem with convenience food is not the nutritional content (which is perfectly adequate and superior to most diets across a historical timeline)is the unsustainable agricultural and water scarcity burden it places on the planet. [1]http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/06/08/154568945/what-america-spends-on-groceries http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/06/08/154568945/what-ame... [2]http://www.marketplace.org/topics/sustainability/freakonomics-radio/freakonomics-can-mcdouble-save-humanity http://www.marketplace.org/topics/sustainability/freakonomic...
      - aethertap 12y ago
        There's more to food than nutrition. The process of growing, preparing, and eating food has been a major source of social connection and "quality time," which is in my opinion the most significant value of slow food for well-being. You can get the nutrition you need with a pittance today in terms of economics, but as a society I think we've failed to fill the social gap that was left open by our liberation from the work of eating well. I'm not saying that the gap has to be filled by food (there are probably even better things we could do), just that the slow food movement is using it that way. Filling it with productive work as you describe certainly has economic value, but I think the cost in terms of happiness for some of us kills the reward.
        vdaniuk 12y ago
        Growing food was a major source of social connection in the same way uranium mines were. Preparing food was a major source of such "quality time" as peeling, flaying, cooking and serving food for a large family. Quality time, indeed.
GuiA 12y ago
For an example of a slow web social network, see Uncommon. I love it. http://uncommon.cc http://uncommon.cc
- Istof 12y ago
  that is literally a slow web... I bet they would pay Verizon to be even slower...
- rdrey 12y ago
  Looks like a very interesting social network. BUT the presentation of the homepage felt too slow. Revealing a few words at a time quickly lost its appeal.
notduncansmith 12y ago
I remember coming across this article some months ago, and reading a little more into it. The language used in a lot of writing around this "movement" makes it sound like we're in a constant state of panic thanks to all our notifications. Nothing wrong with trying to get the point across, but it feels a little extreme to me. The main takeaway (and it's a worthy one) is to respect your users and their time. Your app may be the most important thing in the world to you, but that doesn't mean that everyone using it wants to be instantly notified of every little event within it. Unless your app is responsible for mission-critical or time-sensitive stuff (messaging, etc), chances are your users don't need more than a weekly (or maybe daily) summary - and if they'd like to be notified via push, then make it an option that's off by default.
ruricolist 12y ago
In working on TBRSS, which is intended as a technical solution to the problem of the fast web, I have increasingly come to suspect that it is, in the social sense, much too late. There is an entire generation of people out there to whom twitchy connectivity is simply the norm, to whom the idea of not having a button to hit or a prompt to answer every few minutes is actually frightening.
georgio 12y ago
Another good one is http://slowerinternet.com http://slowerinternet.com
msutherl 12y ago
I maintain a collection of links around this idea here: http://x.are.na/geHSysW http://x.are.na/geHSysW
btbuildem 12y ago
FWIW, my rule of thumb to determine if something is "fast food": If you paid before you ate, it was fast food.
- randallsquared 12y ago
  So everything you make at home from ingredients purchased earlier is fast food? ;) I think some additional clauses may be required...
- tendom 12y ago
  I dunno, the whole fast casual movement seems to be catching on here. And most of the fast casual places are catering to people who want a fast meal but with real, fresh, non-processed ingredients. My rule would put a lot more focus on the existence of a drive through window and pre-processed ingredients.
  - ma2rten 12y ago
    I don't think those rules work. Many (nearly all ?) restaurants use some kind of pre-processed ingredients. And many fast-food places don't have a drive through window. In for instance Thailand the entire concept is even completely unheard of. My rule would be that it's large chain (or copy thereof), "system catering" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_catering http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_catering ) and the aforementioned pay before you eat rule.
programmer_babu 12y ago
Would anyone use an email service which delivers email and updates inbox at one specific time of the day and doesn't allow any alternatives? My friends found this idea ridiculous. But I'd love the peace of mind. I used to love writing letters and waiting for days for a reply.
- fiatjaf 12y ago
  That would be awesome, I think, for some types of people. Could be applied to social networks as well.
- ZoFreX 12y ago
  I actually like the sound of that idea.
- namenotrequired 12y ago
  I'd use it, do you know any? Are you creating one?
gbog 12y ago
Like the idea and the article, but was astonished by this: > daily things that improve your life in small but beneficial ways, like flossing, meditating, or tracking your weight Ok for meditating, maybe. But flossing? Tracking weight? I'd say obsession with hygiene and fitness is very detrimental to one's quality of life. I'd find hundreds more relevant ways to improve one's life in small steps: Eating good unprocessed food, Having an aimless walk once a week, Gardening, Reading books written more than 50 years ago, Listening to the music you like, etc. I don't know what to do with this remark. Maybe our Amercanized civilisation has an exagerated focus on body hygiene. Something that once saved lives (doctors and nurses washing hands often) became an obsession the makes many people miserable (brushing teeth trice a day, removing any form of pubic pilosity, flossing, weight-watching).
- ZoFreX 12y ago
  Obsession is unhealthy. Brushing your teeth twice a day is not. Some people struggle to get the basic important things done without reminders! Also: Tracking weight is far from "obsession". If you need to lose (or gain) weight, tracking is one of the simplest and most effective things you can start doing. You can't improve what you aren't measuring!
hellbreakslose 12y ago
comparing the web to food is like comparing an apple to an orange, you can't really compare them. I liked your article but hmm fast food - slow food? I guess in my mind is fast food or healthy food, a salad can be created faster than fast food but still its healthy. I don't get what you are trying to compare there. Fast food has the meaning that if you are bored you just go and in 2-3 mins you can have something to eat rather than spending the time to cook or pick the items you want to cook.
petercoolz 12y ago
While I was reading about the daily emails, I couldn't help but think that the slow web was just marketing speak for their chosen technical infrastructure. Ie. they run a midnight CRON job that parses all the emails because that's easy/cheap.
ThomPete 12y ago
I call this the slow feed movement :)
lilsunnybee 12y ago
Sorry but this article and "movement" are a bunch of bullshit. People have always been in control of when they look at their computers or phones. If all your apps are notifying you too much, fix it in the settings, or uninstall them. Is this really a real problem people have in their lives? If so just put away the phone and put some of that extra money towards making others lives better; there are lots of people that need it, that don't have the income or influence to solve those problems on their own. Have some perspective in how you spend your money!

147 points by mozboz 12y ago

See also: http://theslowweb.com http://theslowweb.com (used to be at .org but I forgot to do some renewals last year)

I love the term and I love the idea. I consider the Slow Food movement to be one of the most important movements for true quality of life (at least as far as first-world problems go), and with the sort of always-on environment that typical white-collar workers experience in today's post-Twitter mobile world, I think tech can just as readily destroy people's lives as fast food does. This makes me sad because I've been instinctively drawn to tech for my entire life and I don't want to believe that we need to somehow forcibly detach from tech to lead balanced and sane lives. There is a way for tech to be enriching without stress or compulsion inducing. I'm totally behind The Slow Web and look forward to my own contributions in years to come.

GuiA 12y ago
> I consider the Slow Food movement to be one of the most important movements for true quality of life It's amusing that it has to be a "movement", because prior to a few decades ago everyone was part of the "slow food movement".
- dasil003 12y ago
  I don't think it's amusing in the least. Have you looked around recently at people's diet and health? It's not just fast food, but convenience foods in general are huge business, and it's people largely bought into the marketing simply because they offer ever increasing taste and convenience. There are huge margins to be made by processing the same mono-culture grains into ever more refined and perfected addictive foodstuffs. Even government policy is shaped by this profit motive because who else is lobbying on farm policy? Food policy an America is a perfect example of where capitalism fails to take into account externalities, in this case the externality is health and wellbeing which has always been recognized as of paramount importance, but nevertheless remains difficult to quantify in economic terms due to the inherent complexities involved. Unless we stop and think critically about it, we are doomed to sacrifice our health to a huge money-making apparatus in exchange for a bit of well-engineered flavor. The status quo which most of of us have known for our entire lives is what necessitates a movement. Perhaps I'm taking your comment in the wrong spirit, but I think it's something that needs to be taken seriously by everyone living in industrialized countries.
  - ZenPro 12y ago
    Spoken truly like someone who has no idea what they are talking about. At present industrial countries spend between 9-11% of their annual income on foodstuffs and less than 5% of their time gathering said foodstuffs - the lowest in time/money expenditure for food in the history of the world.[1] If we die slightly earlier due to a possible rise in cardiovascular disease then it was a small price to pay for saving years in productive time. Also, fast food firms are an easy target but when pressed for an answer, the team at Freakonomics made a pretty good case that a McDonalds hamburger is possibly the greatest foodstuff when balanced between cost, speed, safety and bountifulness of nutrients.[2] The real problem with convenience food is not the nutritional content (which is perfectly adequate and superior to most diets across a historical timeline)is the unsustainable agricultural and water scarcity burden it places on the planet. [1]http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/06/08/154568945/what-america-spends-on-groceries http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/06/08/154568945/what-ame... [2]http://www.marketplace.org/topics/sustainability/freakonomics-radio/freakonomics-can-mcdouble-save-humanity http://www.marketplace.org/topics/sustainability/freakonomic...
    - aethertap 12y ago
      There's more to food than nutrition. The process of growing, preparing, and eating food has been a major source of social connection and "quality time," which is in my opinion the most significant value of slow food for well-being. You can get the nutrition you need with a pittance today in terms of economics, but as a society I think we've failed to fill the social gap that was left open by our liberation from the work of eating well. I'm not saying that the gap has to be filled by food (there are probably even better things we could do), just that the slow food movement is using it that way. Filling it with productive work as you describe certainly has economic value, but I think the cost in terms of happiness for some of us kills the reward.
      - vdaniuk 12y ago
        Growing food was a major source of social connection in the same way uranium mines were. Preparing food was a major source of such "quality time" as peeling, flaying, cooking and serving food for a large family. Quality time, indeed.

GuiA 12y ago

For an example of a slow web social network, see Uncommon. I love it. http://uncommon.cc http://uncommon.cc

Istof 12y ago
that is literally a slow web... I bet they would pay Verizon to be even slower...
rdrey 12y ago
Looks like a very interesting social network. BUT the presentation of the homepage felt too slow. Revealing a few words at a time quickly lost its appeal.

notduncansmith 12y ago

I remember coming across this article some months ago, and reading a little more into it. The language used in a lot of writing around this "movement" makes it sound like we're in a constant state of panic thanks to all our notifications. Nothing wrong with trying to get the point across, but it feels a little extreme to me. The main takeaway (and it's a worthy one) is to respect your users and their time. Your app may be the most important thing in the world to you, but that doesn't mean that everyone using it wants to be instantly notified of every little event within it. Unless your app is responsible for mission-critical or time-sensitive stuff (messaging, etc), chances are your users don't need more than a weekly (or maybe daily) summary - and if they'd like to be notified via push, then make it an option that's off by default.

ruricolist 12y ago

In working on TBRSS, which is intended as a technical solution to the problem of the fast web, I have increasingly come to suspect that it is, in the social sense, much too late. There is an entire generation of people out there to whom twitchy connectivity is simply the norm, to whom the idea of not having a button to hit or a prompt to answer every few minutes is actually frightening.

georgio 12y ago

Another good one is http://slowerinternet.com http://slowerinternet.com

msutherl 12y ago

I maintain a collection of links around this idea here: http://x.are.na/geHSysW http://x.are.na/geHSysW

btbuildem 12y ago

FWIW, my rule of thumb to determine if something is "fast food": If you paid before you ate, it was fast food.

randallsquared 12y ago
So everything you make at home from ingredients purchased earlier is fast food? ;) I think some additional clauses may be required...
tendom 12y ago
I dunno, the whole fast casual movement seems to be catching on here. And most of the fast casual places are catering to people who want a fast meal but with real, fresh, non-processed ingredients. My rule would put a lot more focus on the existence of a drive through window and pre-processed ingredients.
- ma2rten 12y ago
  I don't think those rules work. Many (nearly all ?) restaurants use some kind of pre-processed ingredients. And many fast-food places don't have a drive through window. In for instance Thailand the entire concept is even completely unheard of. My rule would be that it's large chain (or copy thereof), "system catering" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_catering http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_catering ) and the aforementioned pay before you eat rule.

programmer_babu 12y ago

Would anyone use an email service which delivers email and updates inbox at one specific time of the day and doesn't allow any alternatives? My friends found this idea ridiculous. But I'd love the peace of mind. I used to love writing letters and waiting for days for a reply.

fiatjaf 12y ago
That would be awesome, I think, for some types of people. Could be applied to social networks as well.
ZoFreX 12y ago
I actually like the sound of that idea.
namenotrequired 12y ago
I'd use it, do you know any? Are you creating one?

gbog 12y ago

Like the idea and the article, but was astonished by this: > daily things that improve your life in small but beneficial ways, like flossing, meditating, or tracking your weight Ok for meditating, maybe. But flossing? Tracking weight? I'd say obsession with hygiene and fitness is very detrimental to one's quality of life. I'd find hundreds more relevant ways to improve one's life in small steps: Eating good unprocessed food, Having an aimless walk once a week, Gardening, Reading books written more than 50 years ago, Listening to the music you like, etc. I don't know what to do with this remark. Maybe our Amercanized civilisation has an exagerated focus on body hygiene. Something that once saved lives (doctors and nurses washing hands often) became an obsession the makes many people miserable (brushing teeth trice a day, removing any form of pubic pilosity, flossing, weight-watching).

ZoFreX 12y ago
Obsession is unhealthy. Brushing your teeth twice a day is not. Some people struggle to get the basic important things done without reminders! Also: Tracking weight is far from "obsession". If you need to lose (or gain) weight, tracking is one of the simplest and most effective things you can start doing. You can't improve what you aren't measuring!

hellbreakslose 12y ago

comparing the web to food is like comparing an apple to an orange, you can't really compare them. I liked your article but hmm fast food - slow food? I guess in my mind is fast food or healthy food, a salad can be created faster than fast food but still its healthy. I don't get what you are trying to compare there. Fast food has the meaning that if you are bored you just go and in 2-3 mins you can have something to eat rather than spending the time to cook or pick the items you want to cook.

petercoolz 12y ago

While I was reading about the daily emails, I couldn't help but think that the slow web was just marketing speak for their chosen technical infrastructure. Ie. they run a midnight CRON job that parses all the emails because that's easy/cheap.

ThomPete 12y ago

I call this the slow feed movement :)

lilsunnybee 12y ago

Sorry but this article and "movement" are a bunch of bullshit. People have always been in control of when they look at their computers or phones. If all your apps are notifying you too much, fix it in the settings, or uninstall them. Is this really a real problem people have in their lives? If so just put away the phone and put some of that extra money towards making others lives better; there are lots of people that need it, that don't have the income or influence to solve those problems on their own. Have some perspective in how you spend your money!