One of the reasons I chose Twitter for identity for my apps, a decision made in 2014, is that I hoped that a developer community would grow up around Twitter. I hoped that Twitter would take a chance on co-promoting products. It could still happen, but it seems unlikely now.

I had excellent experience with Apple in this in the 80s when their platform needed apps, and they empowered Mike Boich and Guy Kawasaki, et al, to help us deliver, and we, and a lot of other developers did. It was a win-win.

Nothing like that has happened since then, as far as I know. You can try to raise VC money, but that means you become a platform and lock users in, and ultimately sell out and your product disappears. If you want real longevity there is no answer now beyond 1-in-a-million luck.

I'm at a personal crossroads. FeedLand is an excellent product, ground-breaking, imho just what we need. I'd like to continue adding features and fixing bugs and working with users and other developers. But over time as we get more users, my job increasingly becomes administrative and gruntwork. Taking me far away from my personal strengths.

It could be so much better than it is. I have always believed that the web was the ultimate writers platform. But if every means of distribution requires that you use their writing tools, it can't come close to its potential.

Here's a paragraph from a recent piece. I think it concisely explains what's wrong with our world, and how we'll now when it's working properly. It's short, just one sentence.

• We'll know it's working if most people feel their best place to write is their blog, where the editing tools work just as they like them to, and there are no boundaries to where those ideas can be published.

You could substitute blog for any other word you like. The point is writers shouldn't be forced to write in a tiny little box, some of them that don't allow titles and others that require them. Some that allow them to edit and others that don't. We should always be able to link to other stories, and enclose a podcast. Simple styling, bold and italic, standard features of our writing tools since 1984, should be present in all our publishing environments. And publishing should never require the writer to become a clerk.

It should be easy because it can be easy.

We had all this before the web. It's so ironic that with the business models that evolved on the web, which should have been so transformative for writers, that we had to give all this up. And what did we get in return? As far as I can see -- nothing.