Sterling Proffer
@sterling
Sterling Proffer
“A writer,” said Thomas Mann, “is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” More difficult, because there is more for you to do, more that you know how to do, and because you hold yourself to higher standards.
William Deresiewicz • The Death of the Artist: How Creators Are Struggling to Survive in the Age of Billionaires and Big Tech
In the past thirty years what it means to be an artist has dramatically changed.
Before the internet, being an artist meant operating in a very specific area where the gatekeepers, critics, and ways of doing things were well-structured and defined. You as the artist plugged into this system if invited (most artists... See more
instagram.comRecord labels are digging their own grave. They finally have achieved their dream—which is to make money while doing as little work as possible. But the end result is a world in which they add so little value that no successful musician will want them any longer.
Ted Gioia • Record Labels Dig Their Own Grave. And the Shovel is Called TikTok.
An attitude to life which seeks fulfilment in the s ingle-minded pursuit of wealth - in short, materialism - does not fit into this world, because it contains within itself no limiting principle, while the environment in which it is placed is strictly limited.
E.F. Schumacher • Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered (Harper Perennial Modern Thought)
To understand your adjacent users, it is helpful to understand the attributes of who is successful today and why they are successful. The reason this is helpful is that your adjacent user is different on one or more of these attributes (but not all). These attributes create vectors of expansion.
Bangaly Kaba • The Adjacent User Theory
