BETWEEN TWO WEBS

People neatly divide the internet into the shiny, big-box mainstream and the shady underbelly of deep web hax0rs. But there are infinite, overlapping communities of online practice that define a nuanced cultural reality. This massive in-between is the real furnace of creativity, not some mythologized group of visionaries and innovators at the top. Change is driven by the almost mundane pressure of everyday grassroots activity, and is sustained by the web’s rhizomatic resilience.

“The more niches for diversity of life and livelihoods in either kind of ecosystem, the greater its carrying capacity for life.”

— Jane Jacobs