We’re asked to use tools to build our own spaces, to freely express ourselves, and then commanded to fit within a preset palette determined by a social network. Yet as soon as one standard becomes dominant, it seems to lose its grip. There is no teleological arc for digital platforms; they don’t move in one direction toward perfection, the way hard drives have been able to store more and more data over time. Instead, it is cyclical, swinging between different strategies of centralization and decentralization like a pendulum.
