Zines and scales
(Alternative title: “Help! I’m caught in the metaverse with the rest of the world and I want out!“)
Robin Sloan writes in his latest zine (link available by request) about a solution for the dismal state of e-books In 2025. Main points being to find a balance between e-books being infinitely copyable without DRM and hopelessly restricted in transferability by DRM. While a physical book can be transferred by simply passing the physical object on to another person (even passively by simply leaving the book behind in the physical world), e-books are limited by DRM or the sorry state of e-book software (shoutout to Apple for Books.app on iOS natively reading .epub files without complaints. Simple links to HTTP download of .epub files suffice for freely distributable books on that platform at least.)
Robin Sloan’s zine includes a QR-code with a personalised link to an e-book that can be accessed exactly 100 times and with limitations on the geographical spread of access. This idea of limiting digital goods artificially (although Robin Sloan argues that the unlimited nature of digital media is also artificial in itself, nothing inherent about being able to infinitely copy files) fits into a bigger investigation into the effects of limiting scale. Kevin Kelly has written about 1,000 true fans in opposition to thinking that a million fans is required to be sustainable, Craig Mod has previously touched on limiting the size of his membership program, and Robin Sloan creatively experiments both with changing the limits of digital media as to fit into a human world.
This idea of scaling down digital media to a more human-scale seems like part of the solution. It’s a tantalising prospect to find a way out of the modern crisis of social media (we can call it that, right?) without having to abandon the internet fully. To me, the internet of my childhood — prior to mass social media, limited to forums the size of only tiny cities — seemed to work better. Was that only a feeling? Is this just a feeling of my own personal Eternal September, feeling sadness of the world that I grew up with has passed away? I do not know and in some respects I do not care. Something is not working and global scale might be one of the culprits.
Questions remain: If scale is limited, how do we discover new content? Are we back to distribution through blog rolls and sharing of bookmarks in group chats? Will that narrow down or broaden our perspectives on the world as a whole?
(Originally written October 2025; lightly amended February 2026)