July 4 link dump

A July 4 link dump by an unnamed editor compiles essays on the indie web's comeback, SoftBank's AI investments, the Slate Truck EV, and more. The collection highlights a survey finding that 60% of U.S. consumers say 'AI' in brand messaging is a turnoff, and discusses the shift of political power toward firms that make machines.

The Internet needs more You https://arunrocks.com/the-internet-needs-more-you/ by Arun Ravindran. The indie web is slowly staging a comeback. People are returning to personal sites, RSS readers, and hand-curated blogrolls — not out of nostalgia, but because the algorithmic feed has failed them. SoftBank’s untitled AI goose game — eggs do not lay eggs https://pivot-to-ai.com/2026/06/26/softbanks-untitled-ai-goose-game-eggs-do-not-lay-eggs/ by David Gerard. SoftBank was also the main backer of WeWork, which was almost as stupid as OpenAI. WeWork’s 2019 stock market offering failed spectacularly and SoftBank’s investment went down 90%. WeWork still exists in 2026, but it’s a lot smaller. As well as the spectacular messes, SoftBank has a pile of quietly successful portfolio companies — like ARM, which designs the chips in all the phones, and makes a bundle. These pay for the messes. I drove the Slate Truck — there’s more to it than EV minimalism https://www.theverge.com/transportation/955454/slate-truck-ev-price-drive-specs-minimalism by Rani Molla. The vehicle runs counter to a broader trend in the auto industry sometimes referred to as trimflation — the push to increase margins by bundling vehicles with more technology and luxury features. War by Other Means https://www.palladiummag.com/2026/06/23/war-by-other-means/ by John Severini. Combined with recent and forthcoming improvements to industrial automation, all signs point toward governments relying on a much smaller pool of human capital for labor and war. Accordingly, this means that a fundamental source of political power has begun to shift from the people toward the firms that make those machines. Those firms, though, have labor forces. So the importance of labor/management issues goes up, too? There is minimal downside to switching to open models https://www.marble.onl/posts/cancel claude.html by Andrew Marble. A thought-provoking comparison of desktop Linux to open AI models. And yes, we still need open-source/Eurostack CAD. Sixty percent of US consumers say ‘AI’ in brand messaging is a turnoff, survey finds https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/16/sixty-percent-of-u-s-consumers-say-ai-in-brand-messaging-is-a-turnoff-survey-finds/ by Sarah Perez. If people knew how much “AI” investment is there to implement surveillance and price discrimination/surveillance pricing, IMHO the “AI” boom would be even less popular. You Should Make Cross Views https://moultano.wordpress.com/2025/02/24/you-should-make-cross-views/ by Ryan Moulton. All you need is two pictures taken from two different positions shifted horizontally. Improvements to Web for AI Should Benefit All Users https://cloudfour.com/thinks/improvements-to-web-for-ai-should-benefit-all-users/ by Jason Grigsby. When a site’s actions are hard for an AI agent to use, that is a gap in the page’s own semantics, and we should first seek to close it in the platform’s shared layers HTML and ARIA , where the user, assistive technology, and agents all benefit. The Costco theory of the internet https://www.joanwestenberg.com/the-costco-theory-of-the-internet/ by JA Westenberg. But who is left who’s trusted enough to be the curator? The Future of Everything is Lies, I Guess https://aphyr.com/posts/411-the-future-of-everything-is-lies-i-guess by Kyle Kingsbury. Long series on how LLMs change things.