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ROFL, cute! :-) I started watching the video with a snarky expectation of “aka a book”, but it’s nice how: 1. The contents are personalized and time specializ

ROFL, cute! :-) I started watching the video with a snarky expectation of “aka a book”, but it’s nice how: 1. The contents are personalized and time specialized (Eg: today’s tasks and maps). 2. There is no infinite scroll or pull to refresh! Which means that you avoid the worst of your addictive behavior, and have a chance to be present in the real world, because your phone only has a few things that you need to catch up with. Now, suppose we wish to avoid using paper. We could get something equally good by just disconnecting from the internet and allowing apps only a small cache — if apps were willing to cooperate. The only reason that won’t work is because apps are in a zero-sum race to the bottom to hog user attention. So, the abundance (“hot” according to McLuhan) of the networked electronic medium (color/interactive media, and effectively infinite content) becomes a firehose that is turned against the user. The only role of paper in this idea is to impose constraints — b/w printing, non-interactive and 2 pages of content. It is very interesting how the key value add seems to be reintroducing constraints i.e. “scarcity”. Who would’ve thunk?!

Grustaf 7y ago
> The only reason that won’t work is because apps are in a zero-sum race to the bottom to hog user attention. I don't think this is entirely true. If micro payments worked, or if you have some kind of subscription model, you don't want people to use your app as much as possible (the more they use it the higher your costs), you just want them to find it so useful that they keep updating/subscribing to it. > The only role of paper in this idea is to impose constraints While I do love constraints, I don't think that's the whole point. Paper is superior to screens in a number of ways. For a given piece of information, it's much more convenient and readable, it's just not interactive.

Grustaf 7y ago

> The only reason that won’t work is because apps are in a zero-sum race to the bottom to hog user attention. I don't think this is entirely true. If micro payments worked, or if you have some kind of subscription model, you don't want people to use your app as much as possible (the more they use it the higher your costs), you just want them to find it so useful that they keep updating/subscribing to it. > The only role of paper in this idea is to impose constraints While I do love constraints, I don't think that's the whole point. Paper is superior to screens in a number of ways. For a given piece of information, it's much more convenient and readable, it's just not interactive.