“Yancey Strickler, a co-founder of Kickstarter, on the internet retreating to safe spaces – well, safer spaces: Podcasts are another example. There, meaning isn’t just expressed through language, but also through intonation and interaction. Podcasts are where a bad joke can still be followed by a self-aware and self-deprecating save. It’s a more forgiving space for communication than the internet at large. Dark forests like newsletters and podcasts are growing areas of activity. As are other dark forests, like Slack channels, private Instagrams, invite-only message boards, text groups, Snapchat, WeChat, and on and on. This is where Facebook is pivoting with Groups (and trying to redefine what the word “privacy” means in the process). Obviously, the various spaces mentioned above are wildly different, but it is interesting to try to bucket them all together into this trend. And it is something that resonates with me about newsletters…”