Inspiration

Slow Internet was partly inspired by previous work by other thinkers:

Rebecca Blood discussed fast and slow pace on the web in 2010 and highlighted a passage by Jim Emerson where he explicitly uses the term “Slow Internet”.

Anil Dash has pushed for an inclusive, constructive, positive Internet for more than 20 years, especially concerning open technologies, and has written extensively on how to reclaim such an Internet in the face of the constant threat of corporate ideals, for example, in this piece from 2012.

Nicole Wong wondered in 2018 whether it’s time for a “slow food movement for the internet” and also discussed how personalisation and engagement have overtaken relevance as a primary goal in the context of search engines and similar services.

Nitasha Tiku wrote about the prospects of a “slow web” in 2019, also covering various proponents of such ideas and the possible struggles of shifting the economic model of the web from the dominant ad-based one. It’s a good overview of thoughts that were further explored when conceiving Slow Internet.

Maciej Cegłowski has written and spoken extensively for over ten years on the pitfalls of the venture capital mindset that dominates the current web, particularly about the importance of funding your services via paying users rather than anything else. This is a sustainable, real value kind of thinking that we like.