What was exciting in 2009—this pairing of reverse-chronological content with the expectation that the web’s traditional and social media would be real-time— feels like a burden in 2013.

The early indications were when people started tossing around ideas like digital sabbaths and talking about FOMO (fear of missing out). But it was easy to think this was a niche feeling only for the media class and its associated hipsters across the country.

[…]

I am not joking when I say: it is easier to read Ulysses than it is to read the Internet. Because at least Ulysses has an end, an edge. Ulysses can be finished. The Internet is never finished. 

It’s hard to know when changes are happening. As someone who spends all day on the Internet, I would say that I sense it. But the evidence I can present to you is partial, incomplete, suggestive more than authoritative. In that vein, I would say that nowness is not going away, but the bundle of ideas that formed the metaphor of the The Stream is pulling apart.

via 2013: The Year ‘the Stream’ Crested – Alexis C. Madrigal – The Atlantic.