Friction as a form of appreciation

Every blog on Pika comes with an already built-in and hassle-free feature that I find amazing in its quirkiness and simplicity: guestbooks. Do you remember the days when people used to write little notes, drawings and messages for people they cared about? And whose joy at receiving these messages meant something? Remember paper? Yeah, those types of guestbooks. This just popped into my mind because one of those old-school friendship books is right next to me. The kids brought it home from school. Actually, there are two of them. One wasn’t filled out and returned for so long that it dates back to kindergarten. Oopsie. 🫢 As I looked at the drawings and scribbles in these books, I pondered why this modern-day digital equivalent, which the lovely people at Good Enough came up with, holds such a special appeal for me. I guess their basic idea for this was a spin-off from a different idea: a little thermal printer that allowed you to send them short messages online.1 A precursor to the…