“…if you really want to explode the possibilities of a mode of communication, you have to make it easier for amateurs to get in”

…if you really want to explode the possibilities of a mode of communication, you have to make it easier for amateurs to get in. There are more of them, and they have the time to try crazy stuff. When scientists and researchers created the web, many of them figured it would be for formal, professional communication. Then GeoCities came along, and everyday people barged online—creating sites for bands and fan fiction and diaries. They paved the path for blogging.

The people who made Internet content and the people who consumed it were the same, and that opened a space for breeding new ideas.

Clive Thompson, “Let Us Play”, Wired (September 2016), 38.