What normally took retail-first brands 3-5 years to achieve by showing sales data via farmers markets and local grocery chains, can now be achieved in 1-2 years by online-first brands.
There’s no fundamental reason why the Photos app on my phone should be able to automatically compile a pleasing slideshow with music about a road trip I took 6 years ago, while my note-taking app can’t do the same thing.
The past few years have seen the rise of many knowledge management tools, online communities, and curation businesses. But what’s interesting is how these categories are remixing into new combinations of content, community, and software.
When professional investors look at GameStop, they see a company trading at a price unjustified by its fundamentals. When retail investors do the same, they see the symbol of a social movement, part investment, part status symbol and part entertainment derived from “sticking it to the man”.
This convexity pays off when all the information is in your head, so you can draw as many connections as possible. And those connections actually improve your retention. As you read more, more details and omissions stand out.
The first lesson from Tesler’s law of the conservation of complexity is that how simple something looks is not a reflection of how simple it is to use.