The makeup of a successful entrepreneur is a special blend of wanting to make the world better and possessing enough commercial aptitude to figure out a way to do it in a successful and self-sustaining way
Geeks, MOPs, and sociopaths in subculture evolution
I don’t think ‘public utility’ is the most useful metaphor to understand what Twitter and its peers actually are.Public utilities make sense when the product is a simple commodity, essential for everyday life, and delivered through a set of pipes that are incredibly expensive to install and maintain.
With a more decentralized structure, modern idea machines can “arm the rebels” right where they are, instead of hiring them into a foundation. The popularity of so-called regrantor programs (i.e. scout programs) reflects this trend, where talented individuals are given funding to make grants on behalf of the grantmaking organization.
the real world is one place, and the online world many, but what I didn’t appreciate even as recently as two years ago was that the online world as I knew it then was subject to more constraints than I realized; it is only as those constraints disappear that the idea of the Internet as a place of refuge seems ever more dubious
The idea to split us all into mini-Medicis through platforms like Patreon, if anything, has only further diluted the actual value. It's not just about the fact that they financially support you (that's called a customer, or a customer who tips generously), but that they actually help grow your potential by using their status and name and resources... See more