Make the Internet Beautiful.

I went looking for an emoji. That should take about five seconds.

Instead, there’s a page full of ads, a bunch of stuff I didn’t ask for, and somewhere in the middle, the thing I came to copy. You know the experience. A simple job becomes a small ordeal.

The internet is full of useful things like this. Tools for fixing text, formatting a headline, comparing two drafts, or figuring out a running pace. Good ideas that people need, buried under clutter.

I keep thinking: someone should make a better version.

Then I built Aristotle, a writing app. Working with AI made the distance between “I wish this existed” and something I could actually use much shorter. It also made me realize how many of these small annoyances I could do something about.

So that’s the project. Find useful corners of the internet that deserve an upgrade. Pick the ones I understand. Build a version I’d want to use. Put it out there.

What I mean by beautiful

I care about how things look. The type, the spacing, the little details that make a tool feel like someone gave a damn.

I also care about whether it works. Can you find what you need? Does the button do what you expect? Can you use it on your phone, with a keyboard, without squinting? Does it help you finish what you came to do?

A beautiful tool respects your attention. You should feel that in every part of it.

A few principles

1. Start with an actual annoyance.

   I want to make things I have a reason to use. A small, familiar problem is a perfectly good place to start.

2. Make the useful part easy to reach.

   Let people try the thing. Keep setup, interruptions, and unnecessary decisions out of their way.

3. Make it better in a way you can feel.

   Fewer steps. Clearer defaults. An edit you can undo. A result you can copy. Good design earns its place by making the job easier.

4. Give it some personality.

   Small tools can have taste, humor, and a point of view. I want these to feel like someone made them on purpose.

5. Use AI deliberately.

   AI helps me build. Each tool still needs a reason for anything I put inside it. Sometimes a button and a little math are all the intelligence required.

6. Keep the scope small enough to care for.

   Launch, use it, listen, fix it. A growing pile of neglected experiments would defeat the point.

One little corner at a time

I’m starting with writing tools and everyday utilities, the things I already reach for. Aristotle is the first example of the instinct behind this project. The Headline Formatter takes on something smaller: paste a headline, pick a case, and copy. Text Fixer cleans up the mess that comes along when you copy text from a PDF, email, or list.

I haven’t figured out every tool or every business decision. These principles are how I’ll choose what to build and whether it’s worth keeping.

For now, I have a list of annoyances, a way to build, and a fairly stubborn belief that the things we use every day can be better.

I’d like to make my little corner of the internet a place worth spending time.

Marcus Andrews