Essays
Against the endless feed
Finite pages create a stopping place—and make attention feel like our own again.
The end of a page is a small but meaningful promise. It tells us that the material has a shape, that somebody decided where it begins and ends, and that we can finish it.
An endless feed makes a different promise: there will always be more. The interface removes the point at which we might naturally look up, change our minds, or leave. What appears to be abundance is often the absence of an ending.
The dignity of an edge
Edges help us understand things. A book has covers. A record has a final track. A walk has a turning point. These limits do not diminish the experience; they give it contour.
Digital spaces can have edges too. Pagination, archives, editions, and quiet empty states are not nostalgic decorations. They are ways of returning agency to the reader.
A humane interface does not merely make entry easy. It makes leaving possible.
The web does not need to behave like paper, but it can remember what paper knows: attention deepens when the container has a shape.