Curation Is King

As T Bone Burnett once said, “Major labels figured out that catering to people who don’t need music in their lives makes them more money.” Passive streaming is a prime example—when music plays in the background at shops, hairdressers, or when Spotify keeps going after you’ve fallen asleep. Major labels don’t pay for these streams but heavily invest... See more

My latest column at The New Yorker is about the revenge of homepages: Why we're turning toward individual websites as the platform era of the internet continues to disintegrate.

I started working on this piece because I've found myself going to homepages more often. It's a way to get a controlled, curated look at what a publication offers, and a... See more

This theme isn’t just confined to bookstores; it sprawls throughout our urban fabric, notably into the realm of generic coffee shops. Both scenarios – bookshops and coffee shops – underscore a broader trend: our tastes and preferences, once diverse and eclectic, are being molded into a uniform, digitally driven aesthetic.

In this realm, what wins is... See more