We’ve been talking a lot about Path lately, thanks to a privacy issue that caused Congress to nastrygram Apple, and Apple to change policy. And just like Path rectified its privacy problem, it’s got another impending fix I’m happy about.
Earlier this year, I wrote a story about how much I’ve been digging Path, largely because it has this great interface of intimacy. I feel that way because it revolves around people and relationships, not what’s elsewhere on the web. No games. No links to other places. And so when a recent update let tappable hyperlinks in the door, I was disappointed. It made Path feel less like a destination, and more like a launching point. And worse, I worried it would lead people to use it as a vehicle for self-promotion, rather than just relationships, as had been the case.
It turns out, Path’s CEO Dave Morin felt the same way I do. And just like it nuked the address book data it had stored, it also seems to be on the way to nuking links. Or at least making them less prominent.
“My cofounder Dustin [Mierau] and I are fiercely against links,” Morin told me via a Facebook message. “So, you don’t have to worry about anything there. The turning on of them was by a random engineer and we’re going to fix the whole problem in some other elegant way so that they are never ever in the forefront.”
“But, we aren’t sure what the better solution is yet. It’s just important to me that philosophically you know that we are focused on life, not the web. Links don’t exist in life.”
I’m really glad to hear it.