Some futures are worth building. And.... some aren't. Worth Building is a project about which ones. Below is what has happened so far, most recent first.
161 sites. 156 of them answer at their own address (I checked each one on 31 Aug 2026). 2 are built and waiting for a domain. 179 domains point here. 7 came down. Nothing has happened outside the websites yet.
If you'd rather look than read, these are done:
All 161, with what state each is in, are in the index.
31 Aug 2026
- stilltaught.com went up. Did it survive long enough that strangers still explain it?
- sureyoumadeit.com went up. An AI detector, 98.7% sure, shown the history of every site here until it gives up. Show me the prompt.
- theworthbuildingexchange.com went up. Things that should exist, and what they are waiting for.
- whatisyouridea.com went up. A human relay. You answer the last person's question on camera, then ask the next one yours.
- worthbuildingleonida.com went up. Ten minutes of excellent investigative work on evidence that never existed.
- meaningfulsoftware.com: The essay about meaningful software is deleted; the site asks for some instead. What do you keep doing by hand? Something annoying, embarrassingly small, unfundable. How often? And the question that carries the whole idea: if software fixed it, what would you do instead? A real form (api/handmade keeps and mails every answer), then: Got it. The five invented specimens, both comparison tables, Metric-ware(tm), the grain, the serif and the winking ending are gone. MADE SO FAR: nothing yet, honestly. The first one will appear with its date.
- worthbuildingleonida.com: In the end, one artifact: a screenshot of the case network itself, whole, and the copyright. Nothing explains it.
- stilltaught.com: The harsher test, met as institutional debris rather than art direction. No title, no premise: the page opens inside a university's ugly courseware, BUS 417, Autumn 2086, week 6, The Last Ad Agency, with its impossible reading list. Then an ordinary PowerPoint slide from a 2074 lecture; a book's contents page from a 2033 course reader, where the World's Largest Marketing Campaign sits between De Beers and Patagonia and is never assigned again; and a Times-set final examination from June 2051 on the Forever Bulb. Four artifacts, four systems, nothing shared. Two questions on the grey between them, and your answer appears, unannounced, as question 4 on the exam, 25 marks. The site will eventually have to pass its own test.
- theworthbuildingexchange.com: A real exchange from day one, of requests rather than securities. Four listings that are true: the Forever Bulb wants a manufacturer, the Last Ad Agency a first client, the Public Memory something worth saving, What Is Your Idea one legal wall. 0 completed trades, $0 exchanged, and the first entry in the record is the domain itself: $11.08 plus the $0.20 ICANN fee. Rule 3: listings close when the thing no longer needs the exchange.
- thelastadagency.com: The door is left open. The fine print now says TLAD is not currently an operating advertising agency, instead of declaring it fiction forever. 'Suppose they did it.' stands before the kettle's year-three result; the Case label is gone; 'Customers preferred.'; and the brief is two questions, with your own sentence returned as the recommendation.
- saidwithoutasking.com: Reality did the setup. OpenAI announced a $1bn ChatGPT ads business and said, itself, that ads are separate from answers and do not influence them. So the dark AI panel, the serif, the ranked shortlist, the glowing empty slot and the Shackleton explanation are all gone. What remains is the seam, shown plain on white: a sponsored kettle with its commercial furniture, you can buy this; an ordinary answer that simply names a kettle, you can't buy this; said without asking; the announcement as the only source.
- exitless.org: The story has its ending back. On the 2084 morning one last email arrives, name your price, any number, done by Friday. Nobody replies. There is no number. The 'another' link is gone; on a phone every offer and ledger is readable whole, and the first offer waits until you are inside the story.
- thelastadagency.com: The agency finally looks expensive. A custom inflated white TLAD(tm) wordmark on studio red, the headline set like an outdoor ad and cropped at the screen's edge; then the deck: a poster (CLIENTS WANTED), a strategy that collapses into ordinary advice, the media plan struck through to an enormous $0, a real kettle standing in for the case, and a brief that is two questions across a table. All that production, recommending you stop buying advertising.
- hundredyearcompany.org: The heroic serif institution becomes an internal document: CAPITAL DECISION, FORM 17-C, on pale-green ledger stock. Circle a review horizon in ballpoint; watch 'use the cheaper component, saves $4.2M' age into 740,000 failures nobody remembers choosing; still approve? The stamp lands. Then the blank form for a decision of your own. File copy, retain 100 years.
- thelongoffice.org: The century institution takes off its costume. No seals, no invented stewards; a slider first (how far ahead are you working?), a wall planner that runs to 2126, and eight real projects that already live beyond careers: the Sagrada Família, the seed vaults, Onkalo, Cologne's 632 years, Ise rebuilt every twenty since 690, the pitch drop, the Future Library. Nobody here is expected to finish this.
- thepublicmemory.org: The archive becomes a lost-property counter. Real unclaimed items with their records: a great-aunt's pound-cake recipe card, 1970s bus timetables, a 1975 Greyhound schedule, a Childs menu, an answering machine with its two cassettes, GeoCities, the BBS text files. The fading gallery is gone. What should not disappear? Keep it.
- theforeverbulb.com: On a phone the page opens on the Centennial Light itself, not a filament cropped to a line.
- theforeverbulb.com: Someone has started trying to sell you one. A real filament photographed through the glass, 100,000 HOURS across a yellow band, a specification sheet marked proposed, the actual Centennial Light burning since 1901 with its sources, the Phoebus convention as a document. BUY ONE: we don't make it yet; if you manufacture lightbulbs, write. The drawn bulb, the engraved plate and its six jokes are gone.
- pictureofabanana.com: Kill the museum, keep the banana. The first half is a consulting deck, ten flawless engagements in ten kinds of fruit. The second half is a banana: buy one, keep it on your desk, come back tomorrow. Nothing about the banana is simulated any more. It waits for real photographs of a real one.
- sureyoumadeit.com: An AI detector far too pleased with itself. 98.7%, high confidence, one enormous button: show me the prompt. Then the real history of one site after another is fed to it until it says FINE. Every line of evidence is a line that was actually written here.
- unthanked.org: Rebuilt twice as inspection records, once with a mechanical room drawn around them and once plain; put back both times. The memorial stays. A thanks now lights green.
- nobodyknowsyet.com: The list becomes a progression: famous, then unalike, then recognised late, ignored, ordinary-looking, early; then the explanations run out, then the names, then the captions. Someone in here may change something. Nobody knows who yet.
- storieslast.org: Koko is the site. No heading; you walk in on something already playing: seventeen photographs, a caption at the foot of each, and none of them is her, because every photograph of Koko is owned and the film says so. Then the tape stops, the screen goes broadcast blue, and the twelve questions become a recorder: someone you love is still here. Sound only, kept only on your device. The beige ledger and the cut-out card are gone.
- wanttomakeachange.org: The page is a kitchen timer. Wind it, start it, and the step you wrote is printed enormous in the needle's red; at 0:00 the whole page rings red. The cream, the serif and the footpath are gone.
- Decided: the fix for the LLM look is not white, black and Arial; that is a costume too. The design comes from the medium the thing actually lives in.
- whoownsthistheinternet.com went up. A land registry for the internet.
- whoownsthistheinternet.com came down later the same day.
- This page: The public record of the work, not an introduction to an idea. A door first; then the days.
- nobodyknowsyet.com: Throw away the apparatus. Hundreds of people, no instrument; the person is the page.
- worldslargestmarketingcampaign.com: Don't show the campaign. Show the traces an enormous campaign would leave in the world, and mark which ones are real.
- thehostmakestheroom.com: Two photographs and nothing else.
- exitless.org: Fifty-five years of one company declining to be bought: three offers, three refusals, and what it cost.
- adamandevecapital.com: A funding desk on the day something begins.
- atimetobealive.com: The photograph is fitted whole; the browser's Back leaves the site.
- leftforus.org: I have the domain and no direction I believe in, so nothing is built.
- Checked every site myself, at its own address. 156 of 161 answered.
- I could use help with these. hello@worthbuilding.org.
- I need good scans of Beethoven's conversation books, and to know whether we can legally put them on beethovensears.com. If you know the Berlin archives better than I do, write.
- I'm not completely happy with my source for the Eurovision 2019 running order, especially the order the juries were called in. If you know, tell me. It's for thehostmakestheroom.com.
- Somewhere legal to screw a small brass plaque to a bench. It says What is your idea? and a web address. Also: someone willing to record the first question at whatisyouridea.com.
- Boring industrial companies that have quietly made themselves hard or impossible to sell. Especially with the actual trust documents. For exitless.org.
- Unused advertising space. A billboard face that is dark tonight, an unsold page, a 404, a receipt footer. And, eventually, a photograph of one of our lines somewhere in the world. worldslargestmarketingcampaign.com.
- People history nearly forgot who did something extraordinary, with a source and a picture we are allowed to use. For nobodyknowsyet.com.
- If you have already done one of the things these sites argue for (paid a maintainer, apologised without a but, kept the old thing running) tell me what happened and when. Not a plan.
- Things I keep coming back to: I want one of these on a real park bench. I still haven't found the company that can't be bought. The funding one bothers me; there ought to be a way to give money to something before it knows how to defend itself. And the ridiculous one: make Worth Building impossible not to run into.
- Nothing has happened outside the websites yet. When somebody screws a plaque to a bench or pays a maintainer because of something here, it goes on this page with the date and a photograph.
30 Aug 2026
- highereducationindex.org went up. 1,520 colleges, compared on what they cost and what they return. No brochure.
- whathappensifitworks.com went up. Everyone plans for failure. Suppose it works. Then what? Five times.
- atimetobealive.com: Throw away the canvas, keep the photographs. One real room, a bay window over the sea; the glass, the fruit bowl and the window can be entered.
- ourcollectivejourney.org: The essay about connection is gone (it stays in history); a table.
- keeplooking.org: The career questionnaire is gone; photographs from real places, one at a time.
- goodthingstaketime.org: The simulated seedling is gone; twelve real things that took their time, one a day.
- wouldyouchooseitagain.com: The audit with five preset things is gone; the visitor names the things.
- mindsnotmodels.com: The essay and the spec sheet are gone; one instrument about authorship.
- keepwonderalive.org: The essay about wonder is gone; one instrument.
- vangoghspaintings.com: The auction catalogue is gone; the paintings hang on one wall at their real sizes.
- themeaningoftheinternet.com: The document loses confidence as it gets closer to the answer.
- ownedbythemodels.com: Rebuilt in the shape of a real agency's site, measured from one. A Hebrew version went up and came off the same day.
- exitless.org: A company that keeps opening the next morning. A number, a decline button, a bigger number.
- buyitback.org: A serious acquisition machine that does not say who is buying.
- yourfaceisstillworking.com: The browser becomes a mirror.
- howmanynos.com: A question, a number, the word no.
- dontbestrict.com: A real, boring web form.
- Decided: white, black and a system font are a costume too. Each site becomes what its thing naturally is.
- Decided: colour has to have a job. Green is the mark's; a satellite is not green because we are.
29 Aug 2026
- 16 sites went up.
- Twenty-odd sites lose their costume: the kickers, the labels, the paperwork, the reference to the other site. De-LLM'd, not redesigned.
- thewheelofemotions.com: Keep the wheel, remove the instrument.
- foodyoucanname.com: Back to the earlier version. Trust the interaction it already had.
- worldssmallesttransformer.com: Stop getting between the visitor and the astonishing thing.
- makelearningfunagain.com: Redrawn and made to teach; a minigame you can actually play on a phone.
- theoldestlight.com: The universe does the visual design.
- ownityourself.org: A website that deliberately makes itself second.
- wisdomoverspeed.org: A machine for one question: does this decision deserve more time.
- gettoknowyourself.org: A falsifiable claim about yourself, and life answers.
- fossarchives.com: An archive beginning in front of you, not an archive imagined.
- nonsynthetic.org: A habit of looking, not a certification system.
- slowcomputing.org: Restarted from zero.
- writegoodbooks.org: The manners of a book, not the costume.
- trustbydefault.org: The visitor is trusted with something real.
- humanebuilders.com: Recognition, not a field guide.
- humaneinfrastructure.org: The site is humane to you.
- listentoyourhe.art: The actual thing. You may call it broken; it keeps beating anyway.
- informedintimacy.org: The website gets impatient. On the seventh click it says STOP; two more: seriously, go talk to them.
- purposeisweird.com: Rebuilt as the keep-asking-why instrument.
- teslasinventions.com: Rebuilt around inheritance, not the patent count.
- stillwantit.com: Sleep is the whole operating metaphor.
- thelastequation.org: Rebuilt under one rule: nothing exists merely to look convincing.
- unsortedkids.org: The machine stops sorting. Then only: one classroom.
- davincisworks.com: One arc: unfinished, pick, take, add yours, leave it for whoever comes next.
- heresthecrazyones.com: Rebuilt as a keynote; the missing word stays missing.
- letsgokid.org: The first screen is one rule, one button, one light.
- neighborhoodinternet.org: The street is there before you are asked anything.
- youcanchangeit.org: Rebuilt to be beautiful rather than clever.
28 Aug 2026
- heresthecrazyones.com went up. The poster, re-read for the people it was about. Not the people who hang it.
- howmanynos.com went up. A number and the word no. Press it as long as you like. Then: a no to overcome, or a no to respect?
- keeplooking.org went up. Photographs from real places. Nothing is hidden; some things take longer to see.
- theyweresosure.com went up. A monument to the confident people who were wrong. Go anyway.
- wouldyouchooseitagain.com went up. Name what is already in your life, one thing at a time. Which would you choose again?
- wrongmeasurements.com went up. A bus line, one number. Get it to 95. Then see what the number cost.
- yourfaceisstillworking.com went up. Use the mirror. Blink. Say your name out loud. Nothing leaves your device.
- nonsynthetic.org: From a manifesto with a label to a provenance instrument; by evening, from artisanal to the cheerful public standard that got there first.
- youcompose.org: A composer's workbench, the opposite of nonsynthetic's archival label.
- allomothers.org: From maternal non-profit to cheerful civic infrastructure for care.
- saidwithoutasking.com: An open letter, Shackleton-style. DEAR ADVERTISERS.
- stayhumanforever.org: Rebuilt as the boundary-setting instrument: what you would hand over, and the part that is yours.
- asimplecar.com: A configurator. Pick a colour, done; everything else is included.
- holdonamoment.com: One button does nothing for ten seconds, then hands the decision back.
- betterfriendship.org: Made an instrument. Practice before you read.
- This page: Most of the day went into whether the g should poke the n three times or nuzzle it once. The poking stayed.
- The name on every site is Worth Building. Organization came off everywhere but the legal line.
- Bought therateishers.com. Too early; nothing built yet.
27 Aug 2026
- foodyoucanname.com went up. One test for real food: every ingredient is a thing you can name. Tap a real label and watch it shrink to what was ever food. A tribute to Michael Pollan.
- itgoestotheartist.com went up. Your subscription follows your own ears, not a pool. The $0.003 stream, reckoned with.
- noserverstoseize.com went up. Social media the community owns: encrypted, carrier-blind, hosted on the members’ own machines. Nothing to seize. A tribute to Aaron Swartz.
- ownedbythemodels.com went up. The modeling agency the models own and run. They keep the rates, the rights, and the split.
- saidwithoutasking.com went up. The space beside the answer is for sale. The answer is not.
- shortestlabel.com went up. Most face creams list twenty ingredients; nineteen are there so the label looks like it’s working. Ours has five.
- theshortmenu.com went up. Fast food with nine items, five real ingredients, and the cost-to-make printed on the tray. A tribute to In-N-Out.
- whatoriginal.com: From a poem with a dead textarea to a guided interrogation about where a thought came from.
- shortestlabel.com: Reframed: which job is each ingredient doing. The point is attention, not purity.
- theshortmenu.com: The global-pricing claim is dropped for plain price transparency; the nugget instrument recast as kitchen versus food factory, which can be defended.
- itgoestotheartist.com: The $0.003 gets its own section: the number, the sums, and why pooling is the real story.
25 Aug 2026
- theforeverbulb.com: An actual bulb: glass, filament, screw base, glowing into the black.
- futuresworthbuilding.org came down. Parked; the name said less than the work.
24 Aug 2026
- allowsomeleeway.com went up. Zero clearance seizes. The gap is the design.
- dontbestrict.com went up. The intake form that softens while you watch. Rule three resigns.
- pictureofabanana.com went up. Consulting is a very accurate picture. Ownership is the tasting.
- pushthewindowopen.com went up. Technology windows give a few inches a day, and only if you push.
- someonestoodthere.com went up.
- thecodeyoudontwrite.com went up. Zero lines, zero bugs, uptime forever. A tribute to minus two thousand.
- thehostmakestheroom.com went up. Twelve people in the dark, one light, pointed away from itself. A tribute to Bar Refaeli.
- whatshouldbedone.com went up. A machine that builds anything in seconds, stuck on its only question.
- wherethepuckisgoing.com went up. Where it is: crowded. Click where it will be. Walter flooded the rink.
- youcanchangeit.org went up. The world's terms and conditions, every sentence editable. The walls were made up too.
- atimetobealive.com: One century, one dot, tap it.
- informedintimacy.org: Type-first, phone-first, the tender mechanic.
- etszitecapital.com: Oaktree bones: a full-page ad, chapter-plate principles, a dated letter.
- letsgokid.org: Fireflies down the whole page.
23 Aug 2026
- adamandevecapital.com went up. Capital for beginnings.
- etszitecapital.com went up. Capital held the way an olive tree is held: for decades, on purpose. Honi's carob, the seventh year, and who is rich.
- buildbettercommunities.org: A transit map of crossings. Lines are people, rings are crossings, the maths multiplies.
- nobodyknowsyet.com: A broadsheet of forty open questions, one quietly solved; Hilbert at the bottom.
- buildwithintent.org: A sure-of-itself print ad. Garamond, stripes, typeset your own.
- etszite.com: An olive tree that grows in real time.
- friendsmakeeverythingbetter.org: A tribute to Fred Rogers. The ten seconds, a house for each name, the cardigan.
- makelearningfunagain.com: A tribute to Katina Bajaj. A floor that waits for your first mark.
- worthrepairing.org: Breaks show in brick red until mended. The seam is the point.
- unthanked.org: The maintainers' plaque names FFmpeg.
- whatitcosttomake.com: A realistic phone receipt, and it will print one for anything you ask.
- Decided: the counter counts people, not fetches. A first interaction or four visible seconds; never a robot.
22 Aug 2026
- worldssmallesttransformer.com went up. Four words, two sentences, sixteen numbers. All on the page, all yours to change.
- A visit counter for every site, and a live board at /stats.
- untilyoulook.com: An observed question opens its Wikipedia article.
21 Aug 2026
- This page: The hub asks for keepers: take one, and prove it with a thing that already exists.
18 Aug 2026
- asimplecar.com went up. The configurator with one decision. Every option included; all the buttons are buttons.
- beforeyoupost.org went up. Four questions between you and the publish button. The mailbox walk, rebuilt.
- chosenbyaperson.com went up. Ten things a week, picked by a person with a name. The whole feed. It ends.
- stillwantit.com went up. The cart that makes you sleep on it. The real wants survive the night.
- theforeverbulb.com went up. The lightbulb rated in decades. Voted down in Geneva, 1924. Overruled here.
- warrantyforlife.org went up. The lifetime warranty, issued by the owner. Printable. Honored in person.
- whatitcosttomake.com went up. The second receipt: the price tag, itemized down to the hands.
- worldslargestmarketingcampaign.com: The campaign names its sponsors: everyone's pension, one payslip at a time. It ends when the money does.
17 Aug 2026
- Institute becomes Organization, across every site.
16 Aug 2026
- This page: The hub opens on a wall: 99 marks, planted; a door that opens one at random.
- thefeelingofwind.com: A hand in the grass moves it. A slow finger counts as wind.
- magicismade.com: Each wish is kept and mailed to a person; the page waits for a real answer.
15 Aug 2026
12 Aug 2026
- drinkitin.org went up. The original refreshment. Free since the beginning, and it does not keep.
- This page: The index became a recruiting ad, help wanted, the next one; it was removed the same day.
- atimetobealive.com: Redesigned as a vintage ad for Now; back to the editorial design the same day.
10 Aug 2026
- dontreinventthewheel.org came down. Retired; the wheel stays invented.
8 Aug 2026
- 18 sites went up.
- Renamed twice in one day. The Foundation became the Institute, then the Institution, then the Foundation again.
- The first note recants its open bet. Trust lives in the circle where the work is.
- teslasstory.com and thenikolateslaorganization.com came down. One Tesla site is enough.
- themeaningoftheinternet.com: Rebuilt as RFC 0. Category: still open.
- optimisticventures.org: A certificate of incorporation.
- goddoesntplaydice.org: A keynote, one slide per thought.
- homeiswhereimwithyou.com: A house that assembles wherever two lights stand.
- theshyuniverse.com: Collapses are permanent; a ledger keeps one record per visitor.
- rethinkingvalue.com: An epitaph for a number.
7 Aug 2026
6 Aug 2026
- The repository begins, with 65 sites in it.
- The futures not worth building are struck through, not hidden.