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As if 2019 wasn’t already a tumultuous year for media, 2020 has just delivered its first major casualty–The Outline, part of the Bustle Digital Group, has all but shuttered its doors, with the company citing COVID-19 as the main culprit. The site’s archives will be maintained, but new content is longer on the docket as writers and editors have all been relieved of their positions.
While it’s compelling to blame the site’s demise solely on this recent global pandemic, it is more so an indictment of a recurring pattern in digital media–conglomerates think they can innovate themselves out of the perilous space they’re in, and in the process end up digging themselves a hole they can’t climb out of. The Outline started out as this peppy, vibrant-looking website with a mobile-focused design whose methods of navigation were so novel, that it alienated even the most tech-savvy–needless to say, its first days were not devoid of trouble.
The Outline eventually fell back in line, but most of the hype around the site’s launch had already died down–if anything, it laid bare what happens when the penchant for inventiveness supplants a concrete vision of how digital…
