culture
In reality, Spotify was subject to the outsized influence of the major-label oligopoly of Sony, Universal, and Warner, which together owned a 17 percent stake in the company when it launched. The companies, which controlled roughly 70 percent of the market for recorded music, held considerable negotiating power from the start. For these major... See more
Liz Pelly • The Ghosts in the Machine
A 2023 Look-back: the internet dies, etc.
culture.ghost.io
The 1,000 True Fans Theory works for monetization but not for social impact.
Content will be commoditized by AI—but content isn’t culture
From Hamish McKenzie
... See moreThis same surge in AI-led content production will simultaneously fuel a tremendous need for cultural connection: real humans in communion with one another. These relationships help us make sense of the world, and to know where to direct our attention. Their value will
To spot weird signals, you need to go down rabbit holes. Follow your intuition. And remember, pursuing rabbit holes is not always an act of procrastination. Sometimes, it’s simply your mind telling you to follow your curiosity.
Alexi Gunner • Research as a form of pattern disruption
In some ways, book reviewers, critics, book club hosts, readers, and even the writers themselves, are engaged in a long war against the idea of fiction itself, involving the reverse-engineering and geolocation of various hurts and harms in the psychology of the writer. We are, at least in America, a nation trained in the arts of literary analysis,... See more