”Mark Zuckerberg may be a mediocre sociopath with criminally stupid theories of human interaction that he imposes on 2.6 billion people, but he is an unerring bellwether for policies that will enhance Facebook’s monopoly power.”
Cory Doctorow
Source? Unknown.
Truth? Absolutely.
It’s a shame isn’t it.
Flying Elephants Aren’t Pretty
”We’re in the middle of a pandemic that crushed jobs and small businesses and the stock market is soaring. That’s not right. That’s elephants flying. I always get worried watching elephants fly. It usually doesn’t end well.”
Thomas Friedman
Wise words - the full piece is here.
”When he recorded his 100th video, he only had 74 subscribers.”
”Most overnight successes take at least 5 years. As Dave Perell notes in his newsletter Monday Musings, “[Marques Brownlee] is one of the most popular technology-focused YouTubers in the world. As I write this, he has 13.6 million subscribers and his videos have been watched 2.4 billion times. But when he recorded his 100th video, he only had 74 subscribers.” In other words he made and posted his first hundred videos with the tiniest possible audience. To make something great, keep showing up! As Perell noted in another of his issues: “If you create something weekly for 2 years, you WILL earn an audience.” That is, make 100 creations BEFORE you have a big audience. Every “overnight” success I’ve ever seen was preceded by years of relentless, and sometimes unappreciated, hard work.”
Want to borrow that e-book from the library? Sorry, Amazon won’t let you.
It’s as if they got the wrong company in the cross hairs all those years ago over book monoplies.
If I say this I am going to be in trouble. I don’t care.
Much as when a clear and obvious lie is stated - it doesn’t give you confidence that the rest is going to be any different. I refer you to ’45’ over the past 4 years.
I have not seen ‘the’ recent Oprah interview. Life is too short.
But when I hear someone claim that they “didn’t really have any idea what the royal family was, didn’t Google or do any research.” … my antennas will go up. My antennas went up!
So no … sorry. If that wasn’t a lie then stupidity is the only possibility.
This from Peggy Noonan summarises it nicely.
”Public life has gotten extremely, unrelentingly performative. Have you noticed you keep hearing that word? It means everyone is always performing—the politician, the news anchor, the angry activist. This gives natural actors an edge, and leaves those who aren’t by nature actors at a disadvantage. Meghan was a professional actress.”
Read the whole thing - save me writing it again - and it is better written than I would manage!
Old(ish) news …
Intel puts Apple’s ‘I’m a Mac’ guy into new ads praising PCs
I have just put Justin Long in the same category as the ‘Verizon’ guy … am I wrong?
‘Jack’s’ first ever tweet is up for auction and as I type, the latest bid is $2.5 million.
This is who has $2.5 million to spend on a tweet..
It’s all for charity …
BUT … is buying it also a publicity play?
… I don’t often share Marketoonist … but an exception for this one.
“Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats.”
Howard Aiken, Portraits in Silicon
Stripe now valued at $95 Billion
NINETY FIVE
Facebook will remove posts praising Atlanta shooting
Whilst I don’t have an issue with the action … I do have an issue that something like this is a story … and not just ‘what they do’.
GOP governors are refusing to use new federal funds to expand health care
You try to help … and still they block.
So why wasn’t there a clause that says if the monies aren’t used for the intended use, they would be withdrawn?
Cancel Culture
The media business keeps trying to ruin Jesse Singal and Katie Herzog, and they keep prospering. On the loony Substack controversy, and the paradox of moral panic in media.
Matt Taibbi
