No mention of the reason for this state of affairs -- lack of anti-trust enforcement.
Google was declared an illegal monopolist but paid no real penalty. Apple and Google collect a 30% toll charge on every app purchased on their stores. Microsoft buys Activision Blizzard to the cheers of fanboys -- and promptly does what it promised not to do: fire thousands and raise prices. As Cory Doctorow has pointed out, the only guaranteed outcome is enshittification.
When you have no bar to how big a corporation can get, you are telling every small competitor with better ideas to cash in their chips, sell out and leave. No one can beat the big guys, so why even bother?
Consumers don't realize what they are losing and content themselves with a tolerable status quo, even as tech bros scheme and deal behind the scenes to lock up more and more of human existence. And it's a leading reason why we have an AI bubble, instead of real innovation (see Ed Zitron).
If we don't challenge the tech giants with regulation through actual legislation, nothing will change. We are lobsters in a supermarket tank. Our pincers are bound with elastic bands. We can barely distinguish the looming tech lords shopping for our data beyond the glass. But make no mistake, we are on the menu.
…fight culture with culture…create community, embrace those around you and those that embrace you…seek/make/be local art…just because they make tools doesn’t mean you have to use them or be one…peace and alohahaha…
I guess here on Substack we also have to unlearn the pattern of engaging with people which we internalized on Meta. I mean that urge to produce content at the speed of light, low quality, shallow communication with people in comments, constantly chasing likes and views... I mean, it would be nice to stop playing that quick dopamine game and honestly build and enjoy the new ecosystem here. That requires some work, because social media has been marinating us in the algorithm pleasing for a long time
If we're talking about online, i think substack is about as good as it gets. But ofc the answer to your question is the real world.
We're all so afraid to turn our attention from the internet. It can really feel like somethings *happening* here. But i think its important to remember that feeling is engineered, the strong fomo is intentional.
What usually comes next in this type of discussion is pointing out all the great things the internet does for us. And thats all true. Its a great tool. Its like going to the greatest gym ever, man we're gonna be so *fit*. But now we're that guy that lives at the gym(if you go to a gym regularly yk the guy im talking about lol). Its no longer enhancing our lives, its become our lives.
Its more than just the dopamine-gaming, its *all the feelings* this place induces. We're toying with our own emotions, and we love it. And when we step away from the internet, well the real world doesnt do that(that being feed us the emotions we like, that are curated for us by algorithms and ourselves). The real world requires time and effort to produce the emotions we like.
Our emotions are how we engage with the real world, that is why they are within us. What the internet produces in us is a facsimile, an excellent one no doubt, but its not the real thing. Those feelings dont last and so we constantly scroll for more, more, more. But the real world still works the way it always has, and we can engage with it(with our emotions) anytime we're willing to put in that time and effort.
So where do we go? We're already there.
(Obviously this is something i struggle with bc, well, here i am lol. The real world can feel like a ghost town, bc everybody is disengaged with it, and engaged with their phones. Its *frustrating*! Between a rock and a hard place is where we are. But this whole living in the internet is an experiment, and i think eventually people, some people, and i expect young people, will realize what they want for themselves cant be found here, that the experiment is a failure. Perhaps at that time we can put the internet back in its proper place, in the tool box. Perhaps then the internet can enhance our lives, instead of consuming them. But we will need defenses against the predatory nature of these platforms and other internet access points)
I am committed to that shift you speak of. Intentional living. Letting go of my addictions to low vibrational digital communications etc. I am finding it requires some real strength of character... Thanks for your response, I feel validated in this wholesome comments section!
"Well, there’s something I’ve been ruminating over in the more negative sense of the word: I’m starting to despair about how omnipresent modern online interaction is eroding our collective listening, learning, and critical thinking skills. And not because it’s making us dumber; I think it’s normalizing not being heard nor heeded, which is having a corrosive effect on our self esteem, which then in turn results in a lack of empathy and snarkiness driven by the frustration of not receiving the expected number of sufficient endorphin hits via acknowledgement and/or replies ... and the way to increase the chances of that is to become increasingly gratuitous and downright mean. And what makes it worse for everyone is that people think they're witty/funny, but they're not. I call it the Dunning-Krueger of online comments; one has to only spend 10 minutes on Reddit to witness a whole sad ecosystem that’s developed around that."
Thanks for sharing your essay. You make some interesting points in your essay from 2023. I personally was feeling quite the same even before that, before the worldwide pandemic, before 2018, and had noticed a drastic change in the music industry and knew it was not headed into the right direction. More and more people were demanding free content, free music, free art, free photography, a plagiarized world made normal through human greed and instant gratification and it disturbed most if not all artists and musicians.
Europeans were using the term "dumbing down of society" for years and very few Americans had caught onto that phrase, even today, but it was and is true. I had noticed Sir Tim Berners-Lee and other internet developers warning of a ‘digital dystopia’ as they unveiled plans to ‘fix’ the internet to governments that did not listen, but in fact exacerbated the problems by allowing billionaires to pay them off in order to control it in their own image. This corruption and lack of ethics has lead us to today.
A lot of this stems from billionaires knowing the gray areas built into the laws and effectively using them for their own gains. This example below should make everyone uneasy, this lawsuit took 7 years to move through the courts and resulted with the ultimate unaccountability for Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel and Reed Hastings:
As an avid, long-time moviegoer, the impact of this centralization has been dire. Hollywood still makes gobs of money, but the overwhelming amount of its product is geared to children, teens, and kidults. Fortunately for people like me, America still has a thriving independent movie industry and there are plenty of movies for adults made in Europe, Asia, and South America.
As a fellow cinephile, I have to say, I'm of the opinion that there's plenty of good stuff for adults too (there's been plenty of great R-rated films this year), and what we're really missing most in the Hollywood space right now is *thoughtful, original* PG-13 content. Stuff that older kids, young adults, and grown adults can all enjoy. The last big original PG-13 event films I can think of are maybe Interstellar or maybe Grand Budapest Hotel? Knives Out. I guess Dune is the closest thing we've had lately. Even if based on books. Marvel stuff and Avatar is...fine, but even if you throw those things in, it's still been pretty slim pickins in that space for the last decade or so.
In the arena of ideas these guys will always lose. Thus evil must be crafty to control which ideas are allowed to proliferate.
People need to start believing in the power of ideas again. As Plato would remind us, ideas rule the world.
Power understands that, which is why they go to so much effort to subvert or isolate independent culture. I’m sure it’s not by chance that Freud’s nephew is a big player in Netflix lol.
Independent creators definitely need to develop more alliances and break out of the silo.
I’m reminded of what Martin Luther King said, "Those who love peace must learn to organize as effectively as those who love war."
Creatives need to learn to organize as effectively as those who wish to control and subvert creativity. To do that, they need understand power.
Yet here I am reading this, the writing of an intelligent and articulate man that I came to know just recently, in spite of the cultural control of a mere fifty.
As someone with personal experience of the music industry I'd like to add my own perspectives.
40 years ago the music industry was run around the A&R system. Artists & Repertoire departments would scout for talent , listen to demos etc. In the modernised version, they are replaced by a system of waiting for artists to gain a lot of traction through gig followings or viral songs, then trying to capitalise on their wave.
Having experienced major contracts as well as operating as an independent label and artist afterwards, I also had high hopes for the internet to make music meritocratic, but in the 90's we could get played on various stations and reviewed , In 2015 I made another album and found that the landscape had become dire. No chance of reviews or radio plays for the independent, the download charts are an echo chamber totally controlled by the major companies , and it is well known that your chances of any exposure or earning money as an independent are virtually nil.
Yes with Soundcloud etc the infrastructure is there but there is just so much content - anyone can make an album now with a phone app and no musical ability by selecting sound building blocks.
There is very little chance of breaking through unless you have a viral gimmick and the vast majority give their efforts away for free.
"Yes with Soundcloud etc the infrastructure is there but there is just so much content - anyone can make an album now with a phone app and no musical ability by selecting sound building blocks."
Forgive the metaphor, but that genie ain't going back into the bottle.
Would love to have the list of 50 (you name a few and I can guess at maybe a dozen others). We can all work to undermine them in small ways but individual efforts can sometimes become larger efforts and naming names would be a big motivation for many.
I kinda feel like the counterculture, the one thats going to be the "new thing", cant come from us old folks. And i kinda feel like the culture in general is waiting for the youth to wake up to their responsibility in this regard. Some ofc are waiting to pounce on it and capitalize on it. But the rest of us are just waiting for something new and cool to get excited about.
But by no means do i think this happening is inevitable. Great forces are at work to keep peoples eyes and minds right where they are. And i dont think the new exciting thing will come to us through these goddamn phones(screens, whatever). I *do not* think the revolution will happen here. I think itll happen in the real world, and i think being *here* will be akin to being on the outside looking in.
Bc a lot of the problem isnt necessarily the fault of the monopolies. Its what this place *does* to people. Even the wonderful substack isnt immune, just take a stroll through some random comment sections.
The pendulum must swing, but for a new thing its gotta swing in a different direction.
On point as usual Ted. My fear is that the fringe will be even more disadvantaged as we move from the age of social media fragmentation to the age of AI-filtered information, where everyone gets their info & media via 3 or 4 AI-based platforms.
I have to say that your assessment also avoids another factor, that the promoted content that still gains exposure is either completely meaningless or laced with social engineering. The executives job is not to promote meritocracy, it is about controlling narratives in popular culture.
One other comment: << Bezos and Musk and Zuckerberg are crass upstarts. >> They are also firmly in the Trump camp -- and we know how much the dictator values "culture"!
No mention of the reason for this state of affairs -- lack of anti-trust enforcement.
Google was declared an illegal monopolist but paid no real penalty. Apple and Google collect a 30% toll charge on every app purchased on their stores. Microsoft buys Activision Blizzard to the cheers of fanboys -- and promptly does what it promised not to do: fire thousands and raise prices. As Cory Doctorow has pointed out, the only guaranteed outcome is enshittification.
When you have no bar to how big a corporation can get, you are telling every small competitor with better ideas to cash in their chips, sell out and leave. No one can beat the big guys, so why even bother?
Consumers don't realize what they are losing and content themselves with a tolerable status quo, even as tech bros scheme and deal behind the scenes to lock up more and more of human existence. And it's a leading reason why we have an AI bubble, instead of real innovation (see Ed Zitron).
If we don't challenge the tech giants with regulation through actual legislation, nothing will change. We are lobsters in a supermarket tank. Our pincers are bound with elastic bands. We can barely distinguish the looming tech lords shopping for our data beyond the glass. But make no mistake, we are on the menu.
“Enshittification”
I’m using that all day.
Enshittification (n) the state or quality of being ensconced on a throne of fecal matter.
“Despite fan protests to the contrary, even Post Malone’s Google-generated stage name bore witness to the enshittification of contemporary culture.”
It's an amazing book. Worth picking up!
Which book do you mean?
https://bookshop.org/p/books/enshittification-why-everything-suddenly-got-worse-and-what-to-do-about-it-cory-doctorow/d3f8483b158906ce?ean=9780374619329&next=t&
All day every day. My husband is getting tired of my pointing it out.
Consumers do realise what they are losing.
Funny how they were drooling to chop up Ma Bell in the 80s and yet these just slide, today...
…fight culture with culture…create community, embrace those around you and those that embrace you…seek/make/be local art…just because they make tools doesn’t mean you have to use them or be one…peace and alohahaha…
Amen. Conscious consumption FTW!
I guess here on Substack we also have to unlearn the pattern of engaging with people which we internalized on Meta. I mean that urge to produce content at the speed of light, low quality, shallow communication with people in comments, constantly chasing likes and views... I mean, it would be nice to stop playing that quick dopamine game and honestly build and enjoy the new ecosystem here. That requires some work, because social media has been marinating us in the algorithm pleasing for a long time
So long as substack employs the same dopamine-gaming systems, the results will be the same. That pattern of engaging is already baked right in here.
Man , you are so right. But where else are we to go?
If we're talking about online, i think substack is about as good as it gets. But ofc the answer to your question is the real world.
We're all so afraid to turn our attention from the internet. It can really feel like somethings *happening* here. But i think its important to remember that feeling is engineered, the strong fomo is intentional.
What usually comes next in this type of discussion is pointing out all the great things the internet does for us. And thats all true. Its a great tool. Its like going to the greatest gym ever, man we're gonna be so *fit*. But now we're that guy that lives at the gym(if you go to a gym regularly yk the guy im talking about lol). Its no longer enhancing our lives, its become our lives.
Its more than just the dopamine-gaming, its *all the feelings* this place induces. We're toying with our own emotions, and we love it. And when we step away from the internet, well the real world doesnt do that(that being feed us the emotions we like, that are curated for us by algorithms and ourselves). The real world requires time and effort to produce the emotions we like.
Our emotions are how we engage with the real world, that is why they are within us. What the internet produces in us is a facsimile, an excellent one no doubt, but its not the real thing. Those feelings dont last and so we constantly scroll for more, more, more. But the real world still works the way it always has, and we can engage with it(with our emotions) anytime we're willing to put in that time and effort.
So where do we go? We're already there.
(Obviously this is something i struggle with bc, well, here i am lol. The real world can feel like a ghost town, bc everybody is disengaged with it, and engaged with their phones. Its *frustrating*! Between a rock and a hard place is where we are. But this whole living in the internet is an experiment, and i think eventually people, some people, and i expect young people, will realize what they want for themselves cant be found here, that the experiment is a failure. Perhaps at that time we can put the internet back in its proper place, in the tool box. Perhaps then the internet can enhance our lives, instead of consuming them. But we will need defenses against the predatory nature of these platforms and other internet access points)
I am committed to that shift you speak of. Intentional living. Letting go of my addictions to low vibrational digital communications etc. I am finding it requires some real strength of character... Thanks for your response, I feel validated in this wholesome comments section!
Totally agree with you! Thank you for the great conversation!
My pleasure!
"Well, there’s something I’ve been ruminating over in the more negative sense of the word: I’m starting to despair about how omnipresent modern online interaction is eroding our collective listening, learning, and critical thinking skills. And not because it’s making us dumber; I think it’s normalizing not being heard nor heeded, which is having a corrosive effect on our self esteem, which then in turn results in a lack of empathy and snarkiness driven by the frustration of not receiving the expected number of sufficient endorphin hits via acknowledgement and/or replies ... and the way to increase the chances of that is to become increasingly gratuitous and downright mean. And what makes it worse for everyone is that people think they're witty/funny, but they're not. I call it the Dunning-Krueger of online comments; one has to only spend 10 minutes on Reddit to witness a whole sad ecosystem that’s developed around that."
https://open.substack.com/pub/gunnarmiller/p/dead-sea-scrolling
Thanks for sharing your essay. You make some interesting points in your essay from 2023. I personally was feeling quite the same even before that, before the worldwide pandemic, before 2018, and had noticed a drastic change in the music industry and knew it was not headed into the right direction. More and more people were demanding free content, free music, free art, free photography, a plagiarized world made normal through human greed and instant gratification and it disturbed most if not all artists and musicians.
Europeans were using the term "dumbing down of society" for years and very few Americans had caught onto that phrase, even today, but it was and is true. I had noticed Sir Tim Berners-Lee and other internet developers warning of a ‘digital dystopia’ as they unveiled plans to ‘fix’ the internet to governments that did not listen, but in fact exacerbated the problems by allowing billionaires to pay them off in order to control it in their own image. This corruption and lack of ethics has lead us to today.
A lot of this stems from billionaires knowing the gray areas built into the laws and effectively using them for their own gains. This example below should make everyone uneasy, this lawsuit took 7 years to move through the courts and resulted with the ultimate unaccountability for Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel and Reed Hastings:
"𝘈𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘧𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘑𝘦𝘧𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘺 𝘡𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴, 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘴 𝘔𝘦𝘵𝘢 𝘥𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘰𝘳 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘸𝘰 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯 𝘔𝘢𝘺 2018, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘴𝘰 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘦𝘳 𝘗𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘑𝘰𝘦 𝘉𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘯'𝘴 𝘞𝘩𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘏𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘦𝘧 𝘰𝘧 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘧𝘧.
𝘐𝘯 𝘵𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘺 𝘰𝘯 𝘞𝘦𝘥𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘥𝘢𝘺, 𝘔𝘳 𝘡𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸𝘭𝘦𝘥𝘨𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘢 $5 𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘍𝘦𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘛𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘦 𝘊𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘴𝘶𝘣𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘢𝘭, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘴𝘢𝘪𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘥𝘪𝘥 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘢𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘱𝘢𝘺 𝘪𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘵𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘔𝘳 𝘡𝘶𝘤𝘬𝘦𝘳𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘨 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘭𝘦𝘨𝘢𝘭 𝘭𝘪𝘢𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺.
𝘖𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘥𝘦𝘧𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘭𝘶𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘗𝘦𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘦𝘭, 𝘤𝘰-𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘧 𝘗𝘢𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘳 𝘛𝘦𝘤𝘩𝘯𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘪𝘦𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘙𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘏𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴, 𝘤𝘰-𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘧 𝘕𝘦𝘵𝘧𝘭𝘪𝘹.
𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘧𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘷𝘰𝘪𝘥 𝘵𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘢𝘵𝘩."
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2jmledvr3o
Keep positive, create art not war.
- peace.
m • ƒ
I try to be witty, but that's an old habit of mine. It's not desperate. I promise.
I pledge to practicing that. I might even try to do that in other paces than SubStack too!
As an avid, long-time moviegoer, the impact of this centralization has been dire. Hollywood still makes gobs of money, but the overwhelming amount of its product is geared to children, teens, and kidults. Fortunately for people like me, America still has a thriving independent movie industry and there are plenty of movies for adults made in Europe, Asia, and South America.
kidults...😂🤣😂 I'll be borrowing this term. Thanks.
Kidults? Grammerly and the like are not going to like you.
As a fellow cinephile, I have to say, I'm of the opinion that there's plenty of good stuff for adults too (there's been plenty of great R-rated films this year), and what we're really missing most in the Hollywood space right now is *thoughtful, original* PG-13 content. Stuff that older kids, young adults, and grown adults can all enjoy. The last big original PG-13 event films I can think of are maybe Interstellar or maybe Grand Budapest Hotel? Knives Out. I guess Dune is the closest thing we've had lately. Even if based on books. Marvel stuff and Avatar is...fine, but even if you throw those things in, it's still been pretty slim pickins in that space for the last decade or so.
In the arena of ideas these guys will always lose. Thus evil must be crafty to control which ideas are allowed to proliferate.
People need to start believing in the power of ideas again. As Plato would remind us, ideas rule the world.
Power understands that, which is why they go to so much effort to subvert or isolate independent culture. I’m sure it’s not by chance that Freud’s nephew is a big player in Netflix lol.
Independent creators definitely need to develop more alliances and break out of the silo.
I’m reminded of what Martin Luther King said, "Those who love peace must learn to organize as effectively as those who love war."
Creatives need to learn to organize as effectively as those who wish to control and subvert creativity. To do that, they need understand power.
Most of them don’t.
Yet here I am reading this, the writing of an intelligent and articulate man that I came to know just recently, in spite of the cultural control of a mere fifty.
As someone with personal experience of the music industry I'd like to add my own perspectives.
40 years ago the music industry was run around the A&R system. Artists & Repertoire departments would scout for talent , listen to demos etc. In the modernised version, they are replaced by a system of waiting for artists to gain a lot of traction through gig followings or viral songs, then trying to capitalise on their wave.
Having experienced major contracts as well as operating as an independent label and artist afterwards, I also had high hopes for the internet to make music meritocratic, but in the 90's we could get played on various stations and reviewed , In 2015 I made another album and found that the landscape had become dire. No chance of reviews or radio plays for the independent, the download charts are an echo chamber totally controlled by the major companies , and it is well known that your chances of any exposure or earning money as an independent are virtually nil.
Yes with Soundcloud etc the infrastructure is there but there is just so much content - anyone can make an album now with a phone app and no musical ability by selecting sound building blocks.
There is very little chance of breaking through unless you have a viral gimmick and the vast majority give their efforts away for free.
The book publishing world seems the same.
"Yes with Soundcloud etc the infrastructure is there but there is just so much content - anyone can make an album now with a phone app and no musical ability by selecting sound building blocks."
Forgive the metaphor, but that genie ain't going back into the bottle.
Would love to have the list of 50 (you name a few and I can guess at maybe a dozen others). We can all work to undermine them in small ways but individual efforts can sometimes become larger efforts and naming names would be a big motivation for many.
Yes, my vote as well to see that list of 50…
Long live Substack!
I kinda feel like the counterculture, the one thats going to be the "new thing", cant come from us old folks. And i kinda feel like the culture in general is waiting for the youth to wake up to their responsibility in this regard. Some ofc are waiting to pounce on it and capitalize on it. But the rest of us are just waiting for something new and cool to get excited about.
But by no means do i think this happening is inevitable. Great forces are at work to keep peoples eyes and minds right where they are. And i dont think the new exciting thing will come to us through these goddamn phones(screens, whatever). I *do not* think the revolution will happen here. I think itll happen in the real world, and i think being *here* will be akin to being on the outside looking in.
Bc a lot of the problem isnt necessarily the fault of the monopolies. Its what this place *does* to people. Even the wonderful substack isnt immune, just take a stroll through some random comment sections.
The pendulum must swing, but for a new thing its gotta swing in a different direction.
Agree!! The real stuff will happen out in the world, and we'll have to really champion those things that we love.
Great writing and an even greater reminder of the importance of indie creators, art and culture.
We need to bring back anti-trust laws!
Sure, because politicians and the administrative systems they created have themselves operated so admirably that last several decades.
More politicians! More laws! More centralized bureaucracy! That will solve everything!
Do you. have any better ideas about how to address the issues at hand?
On point as usual Ted. My fear is that the fringe will be even more disadvantaged as we move from the age of social media fragmentation to the age of AI-filtered information, where everyone gets their info & media via 3 or 4 AI-based platforms.
https://jamiefreestone.substack.com/p/the-recentralisation-of-media
Jesus.
I have to say that your assessment also avoids another factor, that the promoted content that still gains exposure is either completely meaningless or laced with social engineering. The executives job is not to promote meritocracy, it is about controlling narratives in popular culture.
One other comment: << Bezos and Musk and Zuckerberg are crass upstarts. >> They are also firmly in the Trump camp -- and we know how much the dictator values "culture"!
They switch sides depending on who they think will win! Very cynical people.