Unfinished Business

On sharing versus releasing:

Before social media, and even the internet, things were released; they weren’t shared beforehand. But sharing has been firmly established as the New Normal, and sharing is now synonymous with releasing.

In the auto industry, new car models would typically be released in the fall, and in the summer months in Motor Trend, car manufacturers would “share” a photo of the new models on the test track, with the grille concealed. But they don't do it anymore because the designs are immediately shared.

Most of it has to do with the advent of social media, which is the main impetus for sharing/releasing. Even if you share a sample of a work in progress, it has essentially been released, with all subsequent work in a provisional state, i.e. the shared sample might not be the same sample once the ‘final’ version is released as it has been modified many times. If you believe that nothing is ever finished on the internet, sharing has no impact on the release. As Kevin Kelly said, “The internet is a big copy machine," with original content creators also continuously copying and revising. Even Montaigne did it in the 16th century in the Essais.