What are the digital coffee shops?
The internet and urban planning have seemingly followed the same bumpy path. In The Life & Death of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs explores what makes a healthy and vibrant city. Her ideal street has shops on the first floor, housing above, and a dynamic streetscape largely illegal in most cities due to zoning practices. The type of neighborhood she outlines only exists in a few key spots in the U.S. It is quite challenging to find a home where you can walk to a corner bodega and pick up the essentials. We have instead run towards single-family housing and an urban design focused on vehicles. Supporting locally owned businesses is a constant topic, yet most of us buy the bulk of our necessities from a few large corporations.
Coffee shops, restaurants, bars, and breweries are great examples of the little guy still being able to compete and thrive. Corner bodegas are harder to come by, but many folks have a local coffee shop where they are a regular.
The internet has taken a not-so-different path, and we are starting to see a shift back to a weirder, more localized internet. The big players remain, and there is more pushback to them now. We all seem to be a little over the giants.
What are the online equivalents of your local coffee shop? Where are the places you hang out and support that aren’t the big box stores?
Here are a couple of my local spots:
Kottke.org - A daily visit for me - I have been a supporter and will be a supporter of his work
Swiss-miss.com - A weekly stop - thoughtful and beautiful
Overcast - I use the app daily - focused and wonderful
Ugmonk - Simple well designed products
Is there space for unique small ideas that create a vibrant and goofy internet culture that is healthy? Can many folks make a living doing goofy things on the internet and not rely on the uncomfortable selling of data and advertising? What little internet business are you dreaming up? I am not talking about the dreams that include VC money and massive scaling. Are there small, slow businesses that can sustain small teams or individuals?