These are the most important essays I’ve read that have shaped my understanding of the online world. Inspired by this list.
| Essay Title | Author | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| The Tyranny of Structurelessness | Jo Freeman | Contrary to what we would like to believe, there is no such thing as a structureless group. Any group of people of whatever nature that comes together for any length of time for any purpose will inevitably structure itself in some fashion. |
| I Hate the News | Aaron Swartz | Reading the mainstream news doesn’t give us any benefits because we can’t act on it. We’re made to feel helpless. We’re better off reading a book. |
| A Group is Its Own Worst Enemy | Clay Shirky | Groups behave both as groups and as individuals, meaning that groups online are constantly in conflict with each other and themselves. |
| The Web is a Customer Service Medium | Paul Ford | “Why Wasn’t I Consulted” is an important question to ask when being online |
| I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately | Alice E. Marwick, danah Boyd | We have different contexts depending on which people we spend time with. The internet has erased that. |
| Reflections on the programming life | Ellen Ullman | What programming is like at the micro level |
| The Anaconda and the Chandelier | Perry Link | Why the threat of surveillance is scarier than actual surveillance |
| In Praise of the Flaneur | Bijan Stephen | Walking purposelessly around the internet is no longer an option |
| Woods+ | Paul Ford | It’s about Google+, but even more. |
| The Submarine | Paul Graham | How marketing and newspapers work |
| How Apple and Amazon Security Flaws Led to my Epic Hacking | Mat Honan | On Apple IDs and digital identity |