sari

I think VC-backed companies often compete with entrenched big businesses and entrenched big businesses often partner with the press and the government to enable them to win when they might not otherwise compete effectively. Note that this tactic doesn't work all the time, because government officials still have to deal with the will of the people... See more

Substack could decide, for example, to provide an app that showcases all of its writers, enabling a user to search through the newsletters, browse articles, and sign up for those they wish to. This would be analogous to the Shop app by Shopify.

As I mentioned, most of the oldest companies in the world are in Japan. In a survey of 5,500 companies over 200 years old, 3,100 are based in Japan. The rest are in some of the older countries in Europe.

But — and this was a fact I found curious, and one that speaks to the cyclical nature of things — 90% of the companies that are over 200 years old

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Advertising-supported mass media enables people to unite in support of a common cause and rebel against tyranny. Rebellion is a coordination problem. Even if all the citizens despise their leadership, they cannot coordinate without common knowledge.

The implication is that if we are unhappy with recommendations, we can easily “zoom out” to find different perspectives. We can always “zoom in” elsewhere to find different content.