Severin Matusek

There needs to be serious regulatory thought about dealing with that, if we’re entering into a scenario in which our digital twins are potentially more economically productive than our physical corporeal existence.”

There is a clear pattern for all four companies [Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google]: each controls, to varying degrees, the entry point for customers to the category in which they compete. This control of the customer entry point, by extension, gives each company power over the companies actually supplying what each company “sells”, whether that be... See more

The caveat to that is that writing is just one format of many in the information landscape (hence the notes, video and podcast feeds on Substack). If you ask me, the real business is ideas (Brian Morrissey, who I referenced a while ago, has a very helpful explainer on this here) . There are more opportunities to make money from writing, but don’t... See more

For Water & Music's inaugural collaborative research report, over 40 of our community members across industries, geographies, career stages and skill sets came together to try to make sense of the immense challenges and opportunities that lay ahead for music/Web3's future.

At the same time, we are often told these systems are impossible to fully comprehend and are far beyond our control.

For creative people this hits especially hard as social media’s invention of “personal brands,” “influencers,” and the “Creator Economy” turned the few remaining aspects of life that hadn’t yet been marketized into the last ways we could make a living without working for somebody else. Gradually and then suddenly creative people found themselves... See more

The real breakthroughs that enabled the revival of the 1,000 True Fans model are better understood as cultural. The rise in both online news paywalls and subscription video-streaming services trained users to be more comfortable paying à la carte for content. When you already shell out regular subscription fees for newyorker.com, Netflix, Peacock,... See more

Truth is only important relative to the lore object, whether that be fictional media, or the real life of an internet micro-celebrity.