I did an interview with The Browser about fanfic, communal writing practices, and platforms—with just a dash of pessimism about the web there at the end:
I think overall, though, the modern web privileges scale above all other things, and that just doesn't work when it comes to fans. Tech folks want—need, actually, from a business perspective—to build platforms that will capture as many users as possible. That leads to a lot of lowest-common-denominator stuff—it's why fans, with unique interests and needs, often find themselves on these big sites just trying to make something work for them.
Part of me wants to say: I wish the web was less centralized, had more space for the long tail, didn't privilege getting as many users into one space as possible without a lot of regard for what happens when they're in there. But that also feels like an insurmountable ask, with the way things are trending, and I, like a lot of other fans, am left trying to use these imperfect tools on massive corporate sites because there's nothing else we can do in the meantime.
