Really illustrates some key concepts, including (a) that technically literate people should be writing & reporting on tech, (b) there’s plenty of talent out there internationally we haven’t tapped, and (c) we can do so much better.
This whole series of articles is some of the best tech journalism I’ve ever seen. Because it’s not all gossip columns and funding rounds. The reader actually learns something. It’s like @QuantaMagazine but for tech. welcometothejungle.com/en/collections…
One thing that jumps out at me from those pieces: social media isn’t the only factor in reducing the quality of tech writing.
Once technology became the “tech industry” & worth billions, many people got into it just for money. Coverage gradually dumbed down to focus on funding.
Note: deleted & reposted two tweets in this thread because included slightly wrong link.
The “Coder Stories” link is the right one. Take a look at the screenshots below to see an alternative vision of what tech writing might look like. Informative & fun! welcometothejungle.com/en/collections…
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The future is Communist Capital vs Woke Capital vs Crypto Capital.
Each represents a left/right fusion that’s bizarre by the standards of the 1980s consensus.
It’s PRC vs MMT vs BTC.
Communist Capital is the ideology of the Chinese Communist Party. It’s capitalism checked by the centralized power of the Chinese state, as pithily summarized here. quillette.com/2020/10/10/is-…
Media corporations are slowly realizing that leverage has shifted.
You don’t need to give free content to Bezos, Sulzberger, or Murdoch employees to get the word out anymore.
Just build your own audience, and go direct if you have something to say. cjr.org/public_editor/…
You no longer need to pay a toll to a media middleman to reach an audience. You don’t need them at all.
“The internet...destroyed one of the media’s most important sources of power: being the only place that could offer access to an audience.” cjr.org/public_editor/…
The new vanity metric is vanity media. You simply do not need legacy media coverage to reach an audience. It’s junk traffic.
Absolutely agree that workers should share in the upside of these platforms.
But a state that fails at basic functions like police, fire, public health, education, sanitation isn’t capable of competent regulation. That’s why AB5 was a disaster.
I’m very sympathetic to @ljin18 and @dumplicious’s points about making sure workers share upside.
Had Uber been able to give equity to all 1M drivers, perhaps they’d be a $100B company with $50B owned by drivers at ~$50k/driver.
A happier and economically aligned workforce.
So what eventually happens is that all these platforms get turned into crypto protocols.
Every rider and driver now share in the upside. And due to encryption, voluntary transactions between two parties can no longer be surveilled and interdicted by the state.
A fundamental issue is that viral content tends to be provocative. In theory it's possible to change the incentive structure, as shown by these two graphs. facebook.com/notes/mark-zuc…
Right now, the "policy line" is determined by community reaction or manual platform review. So there are humans in the loop.
However, if FB or Twitter's databases were open source, anyone could try ML to try predicting virality & sentiment for a post. Probably some signal there.
Of course, the problem with ML-based pre-publication content review by FB/Twitter is that these are for-profit American companies put in the role of soft censoring millions.
I think many people there have good intent, but as folks have noted the potential for abuse is obvious.