I want to spend more time on the internet

I have always loved the internet.

It taught me what I enjoy most: building and shipping products.

It’s actually a combination of a lot of real-life experiences, failures and experiments in combination with the internet as a big source of information and communication.

When I was a teenager the internet was the best place to satisfy my curiosity and read about and discuss nerdy topics. 

I have to admit that, although I have been building things non-stop since the age of 12, I have also been a much more passive user, not being very active on Twitter, Stack Overflow or open source projects.

As I grew older and became more professional, I spent more and more time at local events. I still deeply value connecting with like-minded engineers, founders, and ambitious, interesting people. I enjoy discussing the challenges of our region, which JavaScript framework is the best (back in 2020), and how AI will change the world.

Despite all the discussions about the dead internet theory and how everyone should spend more time with their loved ones (with which I agree), I have come to the conclusion: I really need to spend more time on the internet!

In my internet-bubble there are a lot of insanely smart people who spend far too much time on their computers. For the past four years, a better model with new possibilities has been thrown at them every two weeks. They then all try to figure out what to do with it.  As soon as they’ve figured that out, an even more radical model is released. They discuss their findings in real time online.

The internet allows me to take part in this collective process of figuring-out-what-the-hell-to-do-with-this in real time.

At local meet-ups, I get the impression that 90 per cent of conversations are about topics that were current two months ago. It takes two months for these topics to reach the mainstream and for LinkedIn and traditional media outlets to catch wind of them.

In my opinion the internet is not dead! It still allows me to go after curiosity. It still allows me to connect with people I would not meet otherwise. And it still allows me to become better at building and shipping products.