> Situated software isn't a technological strategy so much as an attitude about closeness of fit between software and its group of users, and a refusal to embrace scale, generality or completeness as unqualified virtues.
I read a paper about social media being the way it is because of it's scale above other factors[0]. There's something to be said for small, purpose built software networks that never intend on eating the world.
I wonder if the barriers to entry for building stuff like this is going down. Maybe there's still hope for a network of networks that looks more like this.
To ramble off the beaten path a little, it'a a bit unfortunate to me that this all has to be its own class of software. Ideally I'd love to see existing systems and software be better able to be resculpted and shaped by the users, to be flexed into new forms. Accessibility people in particular have a huge edge up here, with much more enriched views of whats on the screen/page, but generally it feels like software wants to be left alone, wants to be what it is (an ego). And that's never felt very "soft". Malleable Software / Malleable Systems would let us better situated our software to the time places and forms of use it finds itself in, would make software better embody the soft. Hoping for more. https://hn.algolia.com/?q=malleablehttps://www.inkandswitch.com/essay/malleable-software/https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44237881https://malleable.systems/https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22857551
Situated software ought be less of its own distinct class, and more what we can do with the many many soft malleable bits of software about us. Perhaps scripted, plugin-ed, or cooked or glued together via LLM help.
I read a paper about social media being the way it is because of it's scale above other factors[0]. There's something to be said for small, purpose built software networks that never intend on eating the world.
I wonder if the barriers to entry for building stuff like this is going down. Maybe there's still hope for a network of networks that looks more like this.
[0] - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2508.03385