Innis

Silver passed between two men who could see each other's faces in the morning light at Anathoth and that was the whole of the transaction. No platform taking its portion. No algorithm deciding visibility. Deed pressed into clay. Witnesses standing by. The simplicity wasn't a primitive thing. It was a complete thing, with nothing borrowed and nothing owed to anyone who hadn't been there.

Platforms arrived and told creators they were partners and for a while it was true, and then it wasn't, and then the platform owned the audience and the creator was someone the platform pointed the audience toward when it served the platform's purposes. What had looked like a stage was something else entirely.