Matt Birchler on letting the internet run out:

In a world where we all struggle with how much we use our devices (let’s be real, we mean our phones), I think it’s kinda nice to have some places that just give up and tell us, “my dude, you’ve read it all, go do something else.”

I read this and nodded along, like most posts Matt publishes because it’s easy to agree with things you know to be true. It wasn’t until a few days later when that I realised just how prevalent, and desired, the endless feed is.

The loudest voices are often ones that scream for chronological timelines, but the reality is most users don’t want that. They want to be endlessly distracted at any moment. Both companies and the majority of users would like to have a constant stream of entertainment, there’s no reason to have an end really is there. An end of the feed would mean the user leaves, opens another app and continues to mindlessly scroll. That’s not good for the bottom line now, is it?

Like Matt, I too love an app that comes to an end. Sure, it might be frustrating when I need some entertainment, but it gives me pause to think if that is really what I want to be doing. Occasionally, that answer is yes, and there’s no shortage of places to go on the internet, but more often than not the answer is no. Even a small little pause causes most people to think about what they are doing and close the app. Hitting the end of the feed doesn’t always feel like a good thing, but it always is.