“What have you done that’s so great? Do you create anything or just criticize others work and belittle their motivations?”
—Steve Jobs, from this alleged email exchange with Gawker Media reporter Ryan Tate.
I’m honestly not sure if this email conversation really happened or if this is just a continuation of Gawker’s obvious battle with Apple, but if it is, Steve Jobs has perfectly summed up my thoughts on the current status of the internet.
I’ve reached the point where I no longer read the comments sections of blog, I ignore 95% of the posts on my Facebook feed, and the amount of blogs I read has significantly decreased in recent months. Just go pick a random YouTube video and read through some of the comments. You’ll find negativity. You’ll find arguing. You’ll find personal attacks. (Not to mention, poor grammar, bad spelling, and sentences that even my young cousins could correct). It’s terrible. It seems you can’t produce original content online anymore without someone coming out of the cracks to criticize and argue.
It’s easy to criticize from the sidelines. It’s far easier to criticize and complain and protest and argue than it is to create something original.
Don’t like the way Apple is controls their app store? Don’t use it. Or better yet, get a team together and build a new platform. Don’t like a cause some organization stands for? Don’t protest, tell us what you stand for. If you don’t like the way something is done, change it. Make it better. Do something about it. Make something original. Do something that makes you and those around you happier. But don’t just sit around criticizing. Because that’s annoying and doesn’t make anything better.
I recently rediscovered this quote from John Gruber about why his site doesn’t allow comments:
I wanted to write a site for someone it’s meant for. That reader I write for is a second version of me. I’m writing for him. He’s interested in the exact same things I’m interested in; he reads the exact same websites I read. I want him to like this website so much that he reads it from the top to the bottom, and he reads everything. Every single word. The copyright statement, what software I use, he’s read it all.If I turn comments on, that goes away. It’s not that I don’t like sites with comments on, but when you read a site with comments it automatically puts you, the reader, in a defensive mode where you’re saying, “what’s good in this comment thread? What can I skim?”
It’s totally egotistical. I want Daring Fireball to be a site that you can’t skim if you’re in the target audience for it. You say, “Oh, a new article from John. I need to read it,” and your deadlines go whizzing by because you have to read what I wrote.
If I turn comments on I feel like it’s two different directions. You get to the end of my article and you’re like, “let’s see if there’s anything interesting. Let’s see if there’s any names I know.” That’s really it. Sometimes a design decision is what you don’t put in, as opposed to what you put in.
I love this for so many reasons. First of all, this sums up perfectly how I approach writing for this blog. I write for myself and hope their are other people out there who like the same things I like, obsess over the same things I obsess over, and read the same things I read. I want every single thing I post here to be relevant to this hypothetical person. Posting has slowed recently as I’m becoming much more particular about offering only the highest of quality content here.
Just last month, I officially turned comments off which made this quote all the more relevant. The general state of the internet has truly hit a new low and I don’t want that carrying over to this space. I think this site is better off for it.
