My all-time favorite quote about hypertext is attributed to the late Yuri Rubinsky:"The trouble with hypertext, is that it always takes you somewhere relevant."

Web content writing as it is typically taught has become industrial - formulaic, hobbled by commercial aims and returns, and shaped as mass communication to mass audiences. The industry watchword is Don'tMakeMeThink. The one-to-many stylistic conventions of writing of Clarity, Brevity, and Sincerity have been imported unthinkingly. As a result, the web has not moved much. Hypertext is not being used to address the potential it has.

But web content writing does not need to follow mass communication models of writing of one-to-many. The web is a publishing platform that can stand outside of mass comm interests as a many-to-many network. It can be a one-to-one medium, where writers (professionals, amateurs, others) can address readers individually, and where writers can take alternative approaches to their work, think of audiences in alternative ways, employ the affordances of web writing in ways that challenge both themselves and readers.