There’s something in one of Nate’s Thoughts that speaks to the idea of introducing friction into social media, especially the sort which produces context in a way that, e.g., reflexive hitting a like button (or obsessively checking one’s likes count) doesn’t: “Context is something to be built and protected.”
We, each of us, are a lens through which a world can be seen. If that lens is fractured, scattered into dozens of tiny pieces, it’s not good for a whole lot.
At issue, then, for people remembering the old open web, thinking about the existing social web, or making the new indieweb is building tools and creating sites which allow and encourage users to build and protect context, rather than just produce “content”. Building and protecting takes, perhaps, more care, time, and attention than does merely producing.
Hence, we need more friction in the sites we make, to slow things down. To make place, not just space.