During the pandemic we had tele-health, UBI via stimulus checks, employers supporting work from home and practically eliminated the flu because people wore masks in crowded places.
We really touched greatness and gave it all away to return to the status quo.
After the flip from Gen X hating “selling out” to Millennials celebrating “securing the bag” I get a sense the anti-materialistic wave is back with Gen Z.
My son and his friends wear crocs & pajama bottoms to school and talk about coping “reps” all the time. Reps is slang for replicas (aka knock
offs).
Is this a widespread cultural movement or a Seattle thing like grunge was?
I will die on this hill, Birdwatch/Community Notes is one of the greatest features ever built by a social media app.
Every time you try to talk smack about how Europe is better at regulation than innovation
nostr:npub1l5tn499q8ns0xpac2yr8mppgmcjruf62992dk4nzg3nuhcyafu9sfx0gza nostr:npub19qm2trjs3p32nwqwry4ufxl4fk9q4utkq53ywueg0yk8cvggra5s79sn8k This is absolutely astounding. Especially if you consider that statistically not all of those folk will actually vote. How can so few command the direction of so many??
nostr:npub1ke35e4f7spe9zfzyecyt5asmcr42k5q9xvslxc4z0r789qcvesrqhtxcva nostr:npub1l5tn499q8ns0xpac2yr8mppgmcjruf62992dk4nzg3nuhcyafu9sfx0gza Don’t believe the hype. Over 74 million people voted for Donald Trump in 2020. That’s more people than voted for Barack Obama in either of the elections he won.
This isn’t a niche movement, regardless of how comforting it is to tell yourself that.
An important tool for speeding up decision making is being able to tell which decisions are one-way versus two-way doors. One-way doors are irreversible decisions like trading in your car while two way doors are reversible decisions like painting it a different color.
If a decision is a two-way door then you shouldn’t spend too much time analyzing it because you can always do something different if it turns out to be a bad idea.
Another consequence of the end of zero interest rates is finding out how many supposedly sophisticated investors gave hundreds of millions of dollars to founders who had nothing backing their businesses besides fraud.
There was a time Theranos was a unique story. Now we have IRL, Frank, FTX, Ozy Media, Headspin, etc. The VC gods turned out to have feet of clay. https://www.theinformation.com/articles/softbank-sues-former-irl-ceo-for-fraud
A win and a loss for Google in getting US antitrust cases dismissed.
Win: The argument that Yelp should show up more prominently in Google results but doesn’t because they are a competitor was dismissed.
Loss: The judge agreed that Google paying billions to Apple to be the default search provider in Safari was worth taking to trial as an illegal anticompetitive move.
Personally, I think these were two great calls by the judge. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/04/judge-narrows-case-in-google-antitrust-suits-brought-by-states-and-doj.html
The EU learned with the GDPR that onerous regulations applied to every company actually helps big tech since they can afford the army of lawyers, bureaucrats and fines involved while burdening smaller companies.
They came up with the notion of gatekeepers so new regulations only impact US big tech. So it’s interesting to now see TikTok being heavily regulated because it met the gatekeeper while Twitter goes all in on toxicity and is ignored because it is not a gatekeeper https://www.reuters.com/technology/amazon-google-apple-meta-microsoft-say-they-meet-eu-gatekeeper-status-2023-07-04/
The HBO Max app is probably one of the worst streaming apps and is in dire need of an engineering and UX overhaul.
Instead Warner Bros. Discovery leadership instituted a confusing rebrand and reduced the value of its services by pulling content for the tax write down value. The content studios really chased Netflix into a business minefield. https://techcrunch.com/2023/08/03/warner-bros-discovery-q2-2023/
The EU’s digital services act requires social media platforms to provide chronological feeds.
This is one of the weird outcomes of the moral panic around algorithms in social media which now means TikTok has to produce chronological feeds instead of content based on your interests as an option.
The trend of EU users getting worse product experiences that few users want continues unabated.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/4/23819878/tiktok-fyp-algorithm-eu-dsa-personalization-data-tracking
My favorite example of the EU mandated products that no one wants are the N editions of Windows. These are versions of Windows without a music/video player so users can download their own versions.
You can guess how minuscule the number of people who actually buy the version of Windows with fewer features actually is. A worse product that no one wants yet mandated by government is the EU way. 😇
https://softwarekeep.com/blog/what-are-the-windows-10-n-and-kn-editions
The EU’s digital services act requires social media platforms to provide chronological feeds.
This is one of the weird outcomes of the moral panic around algorithms in social media which now means TikTok has to produce chronological feeds instead of content based on your interests as an option.
The trend of EU users getting worse product experiences that few users want continues unabated.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/4/23819878/tiktok-fyp-algorithm-eu-dsa-personalization-data-tracking
Coinbase with the UNO reverse card on the SEC. The SEC charges them with trading unregistered securities so Coinbase asks a judge to dismiss the case because they don’t trade unregistered securities.
So simple it’s brilliant. 🤣🤣🤣
https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/4/23819919/coinbase-securities-sec-lawsuit-dismissed
You can’t pass laws that require sites to block access to everyone under 18 without also requiring them to thus be able to know the ages and thus track the identity of all their users. Even if they outsource this to some ID verification service, that service is now tracking people’s real identity and sites they visit.
Some states are already requiring this for porn sites and social media sites. No doubt it will spread to dating sites, messaging apps, etc to “protect kids”https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/4/23819578/kosa-kids-online-safety-act-privacy-danger
You’ll never catch me anywhere at 8.
nostr:npub19qm2trjs3p32nwqwry4ufxl4fk9q4utkq53ywueg0yk8cvggra5s79sn8k I think it's more like 1/3 Republican, 1/3 Democrat and 1/3 Independent, roughly, so the number of DJT supporters is a portion of that 1/3. I don't think the Independent voters will go for a criminal candidate, but yes, it is sad that so many Republicans are caught up in this guys cultish hate and blame trip.
nostr:npub177pzuunt0f4rzzrnan7ecaqc429d3mpa5tsl2mttyqqf8zfdxr5qfz8rns Over 74 million people voted for Donald Trump in 2020. That’s more people than voted for Barack Obama in either of the elections he won.
Trump got 47% of the popular. This Isn’t some niche movement regardless of how much people wish it was.
This is a genuinely innovative and valuable feature from Google.
It’s been a journey watching the industry shedding its “information wants to be free” ethos and realize that just because it’s now practically the default for people to have zero privacy, we should build systems that respect that privacy as much as possible instead.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/3/23817797/google-contact-info-removal-search-results
Square’s rename to Block has been vindicated. Almost half of its revenue now comes from Bitcoin ($2.4B out of $5.5B in Q2). Both its merchant business and Cash app are profitable with a combined $1.87B gross profit this year.
Block is my favorite type of tech company — provide a useful service to consumers and businesses then get paid for it. https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/dorsey-led-block-reports-rise-second-quarter-revenue-2023-08-03/
Someone tagged me a few days ago asking why I didn’t take seriously that Twitter/X would become WeChat for the rest of the world.
That’s simple neither Apple nor Elon will allow it. WeChat is basically an app store of its own. Instead of getting a ride via the Didi app, you use its WeChat official account to hail a ride and pay.
1. Apple won’t allow anyone else to do this.
2. No mobile app would willingly be disintermediated by Elon Musk. It’s bad enough Apple & Google call the shots as is.
We’re now in the find out stage of mandatory return to office.
Unispace found that nearly half (42%) of companies with return-to-office mandates witnessed a higher level of employee attrition than they had anticipated. And almost a third (29%) of companies enforcing office returns are struggling with recruitment. In other words, employers knew the mandates would cause some attrition, but they weren’t ready for the serious problems that would result.