Software for one community at a time

Most software asks a community to adapt. Pick one of these categories. Use this format. Organize your people the way the product expects. Sometimes that's fine. Sometimes the thing that makes a group special is exactly what doesn't fit.

I learned this running sports leagues. A team, a person joining alone, and a few friends who want to play together aren't the same thing. Treating them as identical registration problems misses the social reason they're signing up in the first place.

Now I'm interested in taking that idea down to an even smaller scale. One club. One group of friends. One series of evenings. AI makes it more practical to build bespoke community software for people whose needs would never justify a product built for everybody.

Media Club is my example. It doesn't need every possible feature or a plan to become something enormous. It needs to suit the people in the room and the books, films, albums, and shows we want to share.

Smallness lets you be specific. An invitation can have the group's personality. A choice can reflect its tastes. A ritual can make sense to these people without needing to explain itself to everyone else.

The test isn't how much time people spend using the software. It's whether the software helps them have a better time together. Sometimes the best thing an app can do is finish its job and get out of the way.