# The early starts for work have been leaving me very tired and I've not written much over the past week or so. Even the blog has slowed down.
Consequently, I didn't expect much when I sat down with the iPad last night yet, from nowhere, managed to get down about 700 words towards the book. It might not seem like much but when your mind just wants to be empty that's quite an achievement.
I'm not sure if it is just the tiredness, however. I began a post on the way home yesterday about Tim Berners-Lee's warning for the web and Michael McCallister's follow up but found myself writing the same things I've said numerous times before.
Michael writes that saving the web requires a social movement and that "the value and benefits of the decentralized web have not been communicated to enough people" but even were this communication to happen I don't see many acting upon it.
Social networks have taken over because they are easy. Yes, addiction keeps people there but the ease with which they can be used is the real clincher. Until setting up your own website or blog, maintaining it and, perhaps more importantly, using it to talk to others, is as easy as creating a profile on a social network the open web will be at a loss.
Even with that ease I question how many people actually want to be a part of the open, decentralised web.
It's not the technology but the experience that matters and, although many are becoming frustrated with how the networks operate, there is nothing out there to match that experience for the masses.
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# Eli linked to an interesting post by Manuel Moreale which details how he has set up the MacOS mail app as a minimal email client.
I have three mail accounts (two for my domains and an iCloud.com address) but invariably use the "All Inboxes" mailbox. Having drastically reduced the amount of email that I receive by unsubscribing from a lot of things it is pretty easy to manage and I always try to keep as close to Inbox Zero as I can.
Manuel's minimal setup for the mail app, therefore, really appealed to me so I've followed his guide (with a few changes to the buttons on the toolbar) and it's almost like making the Mac mail app function like an iOS app except that mails open in a new window rather than take control of the current one.
It's interesting to see at least some of us inside the loop discussing how much people outside don't really want to come in. They either don't see the value, or balk at the lack of 'socialness', or just find it too difficult to operate in this space. I'm never sure if that's a good thing or bad...