zineware
Small, scrappy software with something to say.
Let’s face it: “Software as an art practice” sounds pointless in a world that’s literally on fire. When fascist ideologues are moving from /pol/ into the white house, can an ephemeral software project really change anything? The short answer is no—not by itself. But here’s the thing: refusing capitalism’s demands on code is still a potent, necessary act. Not a final revolution, but a spark that can fan bigger flames.
The mainstream tech industry thrives on illusions of permanence, propping up massive infrastructures to collect data and grow profits. We’re told every app must chase scale. Every line of code is supposed to nudge you into endless engagement, plus a subscription fee on top. This logic, repeated ad nauseam, distracts us from how the entire system is built on extraction—of resources, labor, attention. It all depends on the myth that software is "intangible."
Zineware defies that myth. It says software is a real, tangible thing. It runs on computers that use real resources. It's written by real people that eat food and walk to the bus. And like those people, it doesn’t have to be polished to infinity or optimized to a market logic that demands it last until the end of time. Sometimes, code can exist for its own sake—a purposeful but short-lived statement. No illusions of living forever. No promise to capture a user base. Just a piece of digital self-expression that has the audacity to end, leaving nothing behind except the memory of its impact.
Isn’t that just a Pretty Distraction?
Yes, ephemeral code can look like a distraction—a drop in an ocean of crisis, especially when we consider that the hardware it runs on is still born of exploitative supply chains. No, Zineware won’t single-handedly dismantle Big Tech’s empire or end climate chaos. But neither does a night of wheat pasting topple regimes. Sometimes, the role of art (or ephemeral code) is to remind us another way is possible, however modest or incomplete that reminder may be.
There’s nothing wrong with naming the ethical contradictions in all digital endeavors; we should be calling out how servers rely on environmentally harmful power grids, or how cheap electronics are born of the war industry and built with exploitative labor. Zineware doesn’t get a free pass. But acknowledging these problems doesn’t mean we have to keep building monstrous platforms that leech time and labor from our communities. It doesn't mean that we can't harness breakthroughs of the last century to counter destructive algorithms. If anything, the tensions make ephemeral software all the more urgent—we need to pry open new conceptual spaces that don’t revolve around corporate extraction. We need software designed to run on salvaged hardware, rather than demanding upgrades.
One ephemeral app can become a conversation piece, a rallying cry, or an open invitation for others to make something similarly raw, unmonetized, and unafraid. It doesn’t claim to tear down oppressive systems all on its own; it’s part of a broader reimagining. People who dabble in ephemeral code might soon question the entire data-mining framework that Silicon Valley thrives on. Maybe they’ll reject it outright. That’s how revolutionary thinking often starts: with a small step away from the expected norms.
You can’t measure ephemeral software’s worth by how long it lives on your server racks or how many revenue streams it opens. Its power lies in its statement, in the friction it creates against the standard logic of infinite updates and expansions. It challenges the assumption that bigger and longer is always better. That alone is a dagger pointed at the heart of the tech industry’s unstoppable-growth myth.