Premium Friction
Wealth has always helped smooth over bumps - but when the physical world is such a mess and the digital world is so easy, it’s simple to curate the digital into the physical if you have money.
Kyla Scanlon • The Most Valuable Commodity in the World is Friction
You don’t go to business school to learn you go to network. The physical world is built to optimize the digital, which doesn’t necessarily work. Take Coachella for example
Instead, she seeks friction, referencing Kyla Scanlon’s recent interview for The Ezra Klein Show : “There’s value in things being a little bit difficult,” Scanlon said.
Home Lattes and Tea Leaves
- The digital world has almost no friction.
- The physical world is full of it.
The Most Valuable Commodity in the World is Friction
The closer technology brings us to the cusp of feeling like we are the gods of our time, the more incredibly offensive it seems to be reminded of all the ways in which we still aren’t. So you get this utterly bizarre situation where the world speeds up and gets more and more efficient, and we have all this technology for saving time, but it doesn’
... See moreKrista Tippett • Oliver Burkeman – Time Management for Mortals
Microtrends are finally losing their grip. In a shift away from fast, flashy content, fashion lovers are leaning into slower, deeper engagement. We’re entering the post-dopamine era where consumers crave meaning, not just a quick hit. Think: fewer impulse buys and aesthetics that actually retain attention.
Silence, Brand! 07.23.25
All you have to do is take out your phone to disappear into the frictionless universe of technology. And companies definitely want you to! AI is the newest terrain in a decades-long race to eliminate all forms of cognitive resistance - to build the most complete, most seamless, most profitable mind-melder that follows you across platforms, logs you... See more
Kyla Scanlon • The Most Valuable Commodity in the World is Friction
Yeah the squeeze bottle isn’t necessarily innovative but when it comes to olive oil, it was not something you saw before. You can’t unlearn convenience , once Millennials and GenZ got ahold of this format and embraced it, the race to squeeze olive oil began across the world from new brands to legacy, beyond olive oil to avocado and and more.
Grazification of Condiments
Myself and people my age have been trained under the illusion that we can effectively eliminate any and all friction from our lives. We can work from home, Amazon prime everything we need, swipe through a limitless array of mediocre dates, text our therapist, and have a person go to the grocery store for us when we don’t feel like it, all while con... See more
Rosie Spinks • The Friendship Problem
But when the stopwatch stops, we flip. We crave other people. Leisure is a hall of mirrors, and only another mortal can polish the glass. A robot could throw perfect strikes forever, but no one would pay to watch. We want the thrill of potential failure. The human tremor that turns repetition into story. Stockfish calculates deeper than Magnus Carl... See more