In 2010, the Chronicle of Higher Education asked two dozen scholars “What will be the defining idea of the coming decade, and why?” I wrote that Facebook would end up having more users than the population of China, and that giant social networks, with their madding crowds, would provoke a reaction: Just as the global expansion of fast food begat the slow-food movement, the next decade will see a “slow information” counterrevolution focused on restoring individual thought and creativity. And here we are a decade later, and we’re still hoping for the same thing. Maybe next decade?

As in Slow Food—with its unhygienic soil, disorderly farmers’ markets, and inconvenient seasons—the annoyances of Slow Computing have become pleasures. With community-made software, there’s no one to blame but us, the community. We’re not perfect, but we’re working on it.