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I keep having the conversation that it’s often hard for people to imagine creating things on the web that *aren’t* trying to be a startup. Folks have forgotten that we can create just to create, same as most folks write in a journal aren’t trying to be bestselling authors.
A few things to follow up here: I’m not advocating professional creators shouldn’t be paid for their work; I’m saying labors of love need not become high-growth startups. Also, it should be as common to make the web as a labor of love as it is to write someone a song or a poem.
I think an entire generation has been raised without regularly encountering the idea that the web can be a creative medium, used to express the full range of human interests and desires, and that these expressions are separate from the goals of building fast-growing companies.
In fact, in a web with more personal expression, we’d find *more* support for making artists’ work sustainable, and for creating more human-scale organizations to support that creativity. How many apps or sites do you use each day that were made by people you know?
This is absolutely a big factor. And it’s not that people can’t/shouldn’t get paid for their work, just that even that requirement doesn’t necessitate trying to fit into the startup template.
(Another good articulation of this constraint.)
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