Sam Liebeskind

A social media app that aims to be town square is different to a social networking app that aims to provide a smaller, safe community. The latter has a far easier time banning accounts from entities like ICE, because it can set a tighter set of community rules. So one lesson is perhaps that we need — or at least, many people need — a pluralistic... See more

Dunning highlights a thorny and persistent problem with the system of nonprofit neighborhoods: it channelled and mediated the voices and interests of residents in ways that muffled direct challenges to the distribution of power within their communities.

Insofar as the neighborhood nonprofits that represent them have depended on government for their... See more

Infrastructural goods are strategic because of the manner in which these three properties interact. Without monopolistic tendencies, the market could correct with competition. Without the variety in downstream uses, the power of infrastructure would be narrow (and users in a narrow domain can more easily coordinate countervailing power). And... See more

The essence of positioning is sacrifice. You must be willing to give up something in order to establish that unique position. Nyquil, the nighttime cold medicine, gave up the daytime market. The focus of most marketing operations is just the opposite. They look for ways to broaden their markets by line extension, by size and flavor proliferation,

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To be stable and effective, both democracy and democratic publics require people to be socially embedded in ongoing relationships rather than temporary mini-publics. Such relationships may be less efficient in the short term, so that some optimal policies remain out of reach, but they are better over time at generating political compromises that... See more