Stellar Web Links

Links — connections between ideas — are the magic system of the Internet. They power the open web, enriching online writing. Generative AI is the parasitic dark magic counterpart to the link. What makes the Internet the Internet is the ability to hyperlink. Without it, you’re in a walled garden, and those have an admission fee: your self, proxied by the record of your entire online life.*

Hyperlinks deserve more recognition in light of all the ways their value has been sidelined and denied. From deliberate corporate link suppression to link-shy site cultures on social media to the dysfunctional state of deteriorating search engines, the web has changed a lot over the years since the days of early link-based web logs, and a familiarity with the importance of links can no longer be taken for granted. It needs to be expressly advocated. To that end, I present a link compilation in praise of links.