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In many ways it’s hard to remember, the but internet didn’t used to be as social as it is now. There was a time, not too long ago, where Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, etc. didn’t exist, or at least had very little traction in our daily lives.

Last week, as I found myself needing to make a final push on some work—in particular, a large update to the very blogging platform this post is published on (more on that later)—I noticed, and became increasingly annoyed with my proclivity toward CRS. What is “CRS”, you ask? It’s what I’ve dubbed Constant-Refresh-Syndrome—and I had it bad.

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I’ll start out by saying this: excuse my ignorance. This is not a topic I’ve studied to any extent or have any sort of professional expertise in. I’m simply making some observations and drawing some conclusions in hopes that someone (maybe you) will respond and enlighten or correct me if necessary.

Every so often I hear the argument that journalism is dying. It usually goes something like this:

• The newspaper industry is struggling. People are reading less newsprint and the internet is forcing publishers to give news away for free.
• Network TV (and therefore Network News) is struggling because of the internet and because consumers have too much choice in cable/satellite, and, of course, the internet.
• Because of these factors and declines in ad revenue tied to readership/viewership, real professional journalism is dying.

Coupled with what I’ll call the “journalism is dying” argument is usually a very grim picture of the future of democracy in our country. That argument usually goes something like this:

• An informed electorate makes for a healthy democracy
• A healthy journalism industry leads to an informed democracy.
• The journalism industry is in decline and therefore democracy is in trouble.

I call bullshit.

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In theory, the Internet is the great democratizer. I can publish or create art as a relative nobody and share it with the world. But in practice, this is an ideal. The internet is not the great democratizer in a final sense, it just provides more opportunities for exposure in the art and creative and intellectual spaces than we’ve ever had before.

The idea that all good work, all good art, all good thoughts always rise to the top is idealistic.

The idea that all good work, all good art, all good thoughts always rise to the top is idealistic. It’s a good ideal, but when this idea is presented as fact, it’s naive. We are limited by time, culture, attention spans, and yes, even still influenced by celebrity/popularity.

So what? Other than my displeasure when ideals get presented as absolutes, I posted this as a reminder to you (and to myself) to do something very simple: support the things you love. Those artists, content producers, projects, non-profits, that you enjoy would love to have their stuff introduced to one new person that’s never been exposed to it before today.

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As is my morning habit, I’m writing this while sitting in my favorite local coffee shop in downtown Boulder, sipping Sencha green tea. It’s a typical morning, lots of regulars and a few newbies, but the biggest change is a new policy in the shop: a $5 minimum on credit card purchases.

They’ve run their numbers and found that it would be less costly to take cash, up-sell customers, or even potentially turn a customer away than to run a credit card for under $5.

They’ve run their numbers and found that it would be less costly to take cash, up-sell customers, or even potentially turn a customer away than to run a credit card for under $5. Why? Because of the merchant fees associated with processing credit cards.

In 2008, the most recent number I could find, a subset of these fees (the interchange fee) added up to $48 billion dollars in the United States alone. That doesn’t include all of the other merchant account fees that can vary widely depending on your merchant agreement.

To me, that’s an astounding number that business owners (and, ultimately, consumers) are paying. And, with regard to internet sales, here’s the catch: you can’t take cash over a website. There is no option B.

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I’ll say this up front: I sincerely (and selfishly) wish I had written and posted this months ago. I posed the following argument to a friend not long after I had become hooked on Twitter, and frankly, had I written about it then, I would’ve looked like a genius at the outset of the fix replies debacle. Instead, you’ll have to take my argument for what it may (or may not) be worth now:

Twitter will feature-add itself out of existence.

Huh? Let me explain: Twitter is brilliant because of its simplicity and the way it lends itself to being an open and public messaging/broadcasting platform. These basic tenents are what differentiated it and helped it become what it is today among a host of other more “traditional” social network sites.

I would go so far as to say that the ultimate genius of Twitter is its lack of features.

I would go so far as to say that the ultimate genius of Twitter is its lack of features. There are no groups, there are no sub-sets or tiers of users. No special treatment. Up until Twitter “fixed confusing replies” (as they originally put it), everyone saw what everyone else wrote (unless they chose not to). You are valuable to people on Twitter if they listen to you and find value in what you say. On some level, Twitter stumbled into what it is today. It would be hard to come up with a more simple structure for a social network if you tried. Simplicity is the genius of Twitter. But there is a problem…

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