Perhaps it is time to acknowledge it is not simply the fault of faceless machines? Consider, for example, the presence of bad and polarizing content on private messaging apps — iMessage, Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp — used by billions of people around the world. None of those apps deploy content or ranking algorithms. It’s just humans talking to huma... See more
Metcalfe’s law is wrong – the value of network effects does have a limit, it eventually gets to a point of supply that is difficult to navigate and has an increased number of ‘trolls’ and illegitimate users
The process looks meandering a lot of the time. Do I also strive for productivity? Yes, but it is a delicate balance, and I think the pitfall is to force something to happen that must happ en on its own . Observing the professional investment world writ large, its preoccupation with efficiency, predictability, and standardization is striking: indus... See more
Only free products work in India; subscription products fail miserably. They refuse to pay extra for convenience or entertainment. Anecdote: Kunal says that even wealthy people spend hours shifting around their phone storage as opposed to purchasing a couple of dollars worth of cloud storage. Business example: Netflix initially failed in India by a... See more
In digital spaces, brands can have personalities and influencers with whom one has never met can feel like close friends. These are consequences of the same thing. The parasocializing force that humanizes corporations also serves to abstract the individual, collapsing individual identity into something more synthetic and structured
Creators pay with effort. They put in the work to create a product in the hopes the audience consumes and engages with it. Audience members, on the other side of this interaction, pay for this effort with attention.