A note on the history and future of media
An opening essay. What this site is for, and the shape of the thinking that follows.
Every medium begins as a hack. Print began as monks copying manuscripts more efficiently. Radio began as ship-to-shore telegraphy. The web began as academics linking papers. The thing that turns a hack into a medium is the moment people stop asking what is this for? and start asking what is this worth? 1
This site is where I keep that question, across forms, across decades, across the long arc that connects a movable-type workshop in Mainz to a model generating images at 30 frames per second on a phone.
- 1450
Movable type
Gutenberg in Mainz.
- 1895
Cinema
Lumière brothers project to a paying audience.
- 1920
Broadcast radio
KDKA Pittsburgh begins regular broadcasts.
- 1948
Network TV
The first sponsored prime-time schedule.
- 1993
The web
Mosaic ships; the browser is born.
- 2022
Generative AI
A model takes a prompt and renders an image.
- 2030
What comes next
Open.
A medium is a constraint
I think the best way to read the history of media is as a long argument about constraint. Every form has one. Print’s is the page, radio’s is the attention of an ear over time, cinema’s is the seat. The constraints aren’t limitations to be defeated; they’re the thing that gives the form its grammar.
What changes, what doesn’t
The technology changes constantly. The question, what is this worth?, does not.
Drag the slider above. The medium changed; the impulse, what is worth my attention right now?, did not.
What’s here
This site holds essays as I write them. Some are short, a paragraph that wouldn’t fit anywhere else. Some are long. They share a stance: that the future of media is best understood by people who take its history seriously, and the history of media is best understood by people who are willing to be surprised by its future.
If anything here is useful to you, you can reach me at daniel@true3d.com.