10 ms·

My dream of the great unbundling

49 points by laurex 6y ago

twobitshifter 6y ago
> If you’re a product manager working on a feed or search interface inside of a giant tech company, you have access to hundreds of billions of hours of human attention. Could you help your users spend one hour a year learning about what’s coming for the world, climate-wise, with a small dose of civics to go with it? > Because, if you did, that would be 2 or 3 billion hours of shared experience. Two to 3 billion hours of people learning how important it is that we come together calmly. And that is a beautiful canvas of time upon which to paint a future. It would be one hell of a product. We’re counting on you. Although this power could be used for good, it’s scary to think of what could happen if the “bad guys” develop or control such platforms. It wouldn’t just be a yearly 1 hour knowledge drip, but instead a firehose of propaganda.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- ergot_vacation 6y ago
  >Although this power could be used for good, it’s scary to think of what could happen if the “bad guys” develop or control such platforms. It wouldn’t just be a yearly 1 hour knowledge drip, but instead a firehose of propaganda. I have bad news for you.
  - virtue3 6y ago
    shhh, just go back to drinking from the hose. (extremely bad news)
  - agustif 6y ago
    > but instead a firehose of propaganda. Perfectly sums up current state of affairs on social and mass media.
petermcneeley 6y ago
Not a very good or coherent article. I almost wonder if it was written by a bot. After a random jumble of sentences we have this naïve cry for help: "If you’re a product manager working on a feed or search interface inside of a giant tech company ..Could you help your users spend one hour a year learning about what’s coming for the world, climate-wise, with a small dose of civics to go with it?" Moloch doesnt work that way. You cant fight Moloch while at the same time being one of his fingers.
- ergot_vacation 6y ago
  Unfortunately there seem to be a LOT of people that think this way. "Now that these companies are so powerful, they can use all that power to benefit humanity! You're not like the Dark Lord Mr. Frodo, you can use the Ring's power for good!" It doesn't work like that. Unlike the author, I ACTUALLY look forward to an "unbundling," to a breakup. The time seems right. Lots of lawsuits in the air, and maybe more importantly, nearly everyone seems to hate and mistrust big tech at this point. The downside is that if it does happen, we'll probably have some ill-conceived gov regulations that half-work and half are a pain in the ass. But we might get some space for actual innovation and competition again, instead of Youtube endlessly redesigning their website and discovering new ways to screw over their users.
  - mulmen 6y ago
    > The downside is that if it does happen, we'll probably have some ill-conceived gov regulations that half-work and half are a pain in the ass. I'm not sure I buy this apathetic cliche. Can we look at history for examples? Say railroads or the phone company? Were those regulations ill conceived?
- ksec 6y ago
  I felt the author feel Tech Giant are too powerful, he wanted to break them up, so he decided to write an article about it with random reasons.
Mediterraneo10 6y ago
> Could you help your users spend one hour a year learning about what’s coming for the world, climate-wise, with a small dose of civics to go with it? A considerable portion of the population is cynical and jaded, or sees your concern as identification with the opposite political faction than the one they support, and so they may have a kneejerk reaction to any idealism about making the world a better place. Talking to them overtly about pressing social and environmental problems is just going to turn them off. If you want those problems tackled, then you have to use a more subtle approach. It is just like when some say a carbon tax that puts subconscious pressure on the population's spending, is a better solution than trying to appeal directly to people’s sense of morality.
- jancsika 6y ago
  The author wrote that data-megaminer corporations could perhaps spend a tiny fraction of their behavior modification budget for a net benefit to society. Somehow you read, "Hire an RMS to yell exactly the same hour-long screed at each and every user."
- paraknight 6y ago
  IMO people's opinions are more malleable than one might think, as long as you package the message in the right way and slowly modify it over time. E.g. you would start by telling the anti-vaxer that anti-vax propaganda is a conspiracy by the Chinese to make Americans weaker (I'm exaggerating, but you get the point)
hyko 6y ago
guaranteed decentralized this time
zach_garwood 6y ago
> humans are the mold growing on technology.
Wistar 6y ago
For some weird reason, on all of the recent Wired articles, all I am able to see is the first paragraph. No "read more," no obvious way to see the rest of the article. This is on iOS with Chrome.
- naosouumapessoa 6y ago
  Just out of curiosity, why would anyone subject themselves to use chrome on iOS? Sync is so important that you deal with the web without content block?
  - Wistar 6y ago
    It's just a casual couch browsing machine. I am not worried about sync but Chrome seems to work better on this older iPad than does Safari.
- dbattaglia 6y ago
  On iOS Safari the site has a signup dialog that takes over the page, I bet it’s just rendering weird/broken on iOS Chrome.
- ssivark 6y ago
  Noticed the same in Firefox+iOS. Clearing the cookies/cache fixed the problem. I presume Wired tries to limit readers to a few free articles per period.
- Wistar 6y ago
  Also seeing the behavior with recent The New Yorker articles.
simonh 6y ago
What a whiner.
grishka 6y ago
The part where he says that we will all die makes the common wrong assumption that science is going to be at standstill for the next century. It will not.
ThrustVectoring 6y ago
> Could you help your users spend one hour a year learning about what’s coming for the world, climate-wise, with a small dose of civics to go with it? Good luck. You can't get a random user to spend an hour learning. You have approximately two sentences. Like, take YouTube. They've added various "learn about the COVID vaccine" or "here's something to do with Black History Month" rows in the recommended feed to me. I've x'd out of every one of these civic recommendations, pretty much regardless of the content - I'm in the app to get a chill videogame streamer to fall asleep to anyhow, if I'm in the mood to become more informed, I'm not lazily scrolling through what's new on YouTube. Pretty much all those sections have done is told me that Google is, as an institution, pro-vaccine and pro-cultural-left (broadly construed). I already pretty much knew that.
- manmal 6y ago
  Those streamers could be paid to talk a bit about the climate while they are playing. Mr Beast and friends planted 22 million trees (https://teamtrees.org/ https://teamtrees.org/), and I think this did have a lasting effect on pop culture, however small.
  - ThrustVectoring 6y ago
    That wasn't a decision made by the product manager of an algorithmic feed, though.
    - manmal 6y ago
      The algorithm decides how much views such videos get though. Reward streamers with feed picks and trending spots, and you’ll get more of those.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
I don't understand how I'm living in such a different world than the author here. He asks "Could you help your users spend one hour a year learning about what’s coming for the world", but every large organization I'm familiar invests a lot into telling its users about climate change, civics, and various other social causes which the organization finds important. Is there something I'm misunderstanding?
marmot777 6y ago
I think this was the author’s way of expressing fear of the future. We all fear the future to one degree or another. I’m an optimist but these times we live in has worn down my optimism somewhat.
offtop5 6y ago
If I want to dream of anything, I want to dream of an economy which moves from trying to grab eyeballs to focus on screens. I want the harm of social media to be known and for people to take back those billions of hours they waste per year. I've noticed society's in the last 12 years or so has gotten much meaner, much more angry. And for what, most people are actually really nice in the real world. Social media often feels like the coldness of a big city, on a gargantuan scale. Millions of people will call you ugly or stupid, if it makes them feel a little bit better for a second. My shared experience is going for a walk in the park with a little FM radio. I share nature with all the other people in the park, and rarely mostly the old people from a time before social media, will say hi or talk about how rough a certain trail is to walk. I feel like I'm wildly optimistic, but I do think social media is going to self-destruct , in along with it the rising rates of suicide and mental illness. In 20 years spending 10 hours on social media ( dating apps definitely count) will be seen the same way as smoking two packs a day. A lot of people will do it, many will be addicted and unable to stop, but it'll be a collective knowledge it's not a healthy activity.
- sunsipples 6y ago
  this is worded so well, thank you
- karmakaze 6y ago
  The thing about eyeballs on screens is that there's two types: the commercial kind which we can certainly do with less of and get better at, and secondly it's a basic human desire, to be seen, felt, relevant. The latter will persist in any medium and we should make better incarnations that do this through technology. Online or shared world gaming communities might be one way. Another that should be in accelerated development right now are more ways of sharing experiences. E.g. we don't have physical movie theatres, but there can be something more social than Netflix, etc.

49 points by laurex 6y ago

> If you’re a product manager working on a feed or search interface inside of a giant tech company, you have access to hundreds of billions of hours of human attention. Could you help your users spend one hour a year learning about what’s coming for the world, climate-wise, with a small dose of civics to go with it? > Because, if you did, that would be 2 or 3 billion hours of shared experience. Two to 3 billion hours of people learning how important it is that we come together calmly. And that is a beautiful canvas of time upon which to paint a future. It would be one hell of a product. We’re counting on you. Although this power could be used for good, it’s scary to think of what could happen if the “bad guys” develop or control such platforms. It wouldn’t just be a yearly 1 hour knowledge drip, but instead a firehose of propaganda.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ergot_vacation 6y ago
>Although this power could be used for good, it’s scary to think of what could happen if the “bad guys” develop or control such platforms. It wouldn’t just be a yearly 1 hour knowledge drip, but instead a firehose of propaganda. I have bad news for you.
- virtue3 6y ago
  shhh, just go back to drinking from the hose. (extremely bad news)
- agustif 6y ago
  > but instead a firehose of propaganda. Perfectly sums up current state of affairs on social and mass media.

petermcneeley 6y ago

Not a very good or coherent article. I almost wonder if it was written by a bot. After a random jumble of sentences we have this naïve cry for help: "If you’re a product manager working on a feed or search interface inside of a giant tech company ..Could you help your users spend one hour a year learning about what’s coming for the world, climate-wise, with a small dose of civics to go with it?" Moloch doesnt work that way. You cant fight Moloch while at the same time being one of his fingers.

ergot_vacation 6y ago
Unfortunately there seem to be a LOT of people that think this way. "Now that these companies are so powerful, they can use all that power to benefit humanity! You're not like the Dark Lord Mr. Frodo, you can use the Ring's power for good!" It doesn't work like that. Unlike the author, I ACTUALLY look forward to an "unbundling," to a breakup. The time seems right. Lots of lawsuits in the air, and maybe more importantly, nearly everyone seems to hate and mistrust big tech at this point. The downside is that if it does happen, we'll probably have some ill-conceived gov regulations that half-work and half are a pain in the ass. But we might get some space for actual innovation and competition again, instead of Youtube endlessly redesigning their website and discovering new ways to screw over their users.
- mulmen 6y ago
  > The downside is that if it does happen, we'll probably have some ill-conceived gov regulations that half-work and half are a pain in the ass. I'm not sure I buy this apathetic cliche. Can we look at history for examples? Say railroads or the phone company? Were those regulations ill conceived?
ksec 6y ago
I felt the author feel Tech Giant are too powerful, he wanted to break them up, so he decided to write an article about it with random reasons.

Mediterraneo10 6y ago

> Could you help your users spend one hour a year learning about what’s coming for the world, climate-wise, with a small dose of civics to go with it? A considerable portion of the population is cynical and jaded, or sees your concern as identification with the opposite political faction than the one they support, and so they may have a kneejerk reaction to any idealism about making the world a better place. Talking to them overtly about pressing social and environmental problems is just going to turn them off. If you want those problems tackled, then you have to use a more subtle approach. It is just like when some say a carbon tax that puts subconscious pressure on the population's spending, is a better solution than trying to appeal directly to people’s sense of morality.

jancsika 6y ago
The author wrote that data-megaminer corporations could perhaps spend a tiny fraction of their behavior modification budget for a net benefit to society. Somehow you read, "Hire an RMS to yell exactly the same hour-long screed at each and every user."
paraknight 6y ago
IMO people's opinions are more malleable than one might think, as long as you package the message in the right way and slowly modify it over time. E.g. you would start by telling the anti-vaxer that anti-vax propaganda is a conspiracy by the Chinese to make Americans weaker (I'm exaggerating, but you get the point)

hyko 6y ago

guaranteed decentralized this time

zach_garwood 6y ago

> humans are the mold growing on technology.

Wistar 6y ago

For some weird reason, on all of the recent Wired articles, all I am able to see is the first paragraph. No "read more," no obvious way to see the rest of the article. This is on iOS with Chrome.

naosouumapessoa 6y ago
Just out of curiosity, why would anyone subject themselves to use chrome on iOS? Sync is so important that you deal with the web without content block?
- Wistar 6y ago
  It's just a casual couch browsing machine. I am not worried about sync but Chrome seems to work better on this older iPad than does Safari.
dbattaglia 6y ago
On iOS Safari the site has a signup dialog that takes over the page, I bet it’s just rendering weird/broken on iOS Chrome.
ssivark 6y ago
Noticed the same in Firefox+iOS. Clearing the cookies/cache fixed the problem. I presume Wired tries to limit readers to a few free articles per period.
Wistar 6y ago
Also seeing the behavior with recent The New Yorker articles.

simonh 6y ago

What a whiner.

grishka 6y ago

The part where he says that we will all die makes the common wrong assumption that science is going to be at standstill for the next century. It will not.

ThrustVectoring 6y ago

> Could you help your users spend one hour a year learning about what’s coming for the world, climate-wise, with a small dose of civics to go with it? Good luck. You can't get a random user to spend an hour learning. You have approximately two sentences. Like, take YouTube. They've added various "learn about the COVID vaccine" or "here's something to do with Black History Month" rows in the recommended feed to me. I've x'd out of every one of these civic recommendations, pretty much regardless of the content - I'm in the app to get a chill videogame streamer to fall asleep to anyhow, if I'm in the mood to become more informed, I'm not lazily scrolling through what's new on YouTube. Pretty much all those sections have done is told me that Google is, as an institution, pro-vaccine and pro-cultural-left (broadly construed). I already pretty much knew that.

manmal 6y ago
Those streamers could be paid to talk a bit about the climate while they are playing. Mr Beast and friends planted 22 million trees (https://teamtrees.org/ https://teamtrees.org/), and I think this did have a lasting effect on pop culture, however small.
- ThrustVectoring 6y ago
  That wasn't a decision made by the product manager of an algorithmic feed, though.
  - manmal 6y ago
    The algorithm decides how much views such videos get though. Reward streamers with feed picks and trending spots, and you’ll get more of those.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago

I don't understand how I'm living in such a different world than the author here. He asks "Could you help your users spend one hour a year learning about what’s coming for the world", but every large organization I'm familiar invests a lot into telling its users about climate change, civics, and various other social causes which the organization finds important. Is there something I'm misunderstanding?

marmot777 6y ago

I think this was the author’s way of expressing fear of the future. We all fear the future to one degree or another. I’m an optimist but these times we live in has worn down my optimism somewhat.

offtop5 6y ago

If I want to dream of anything, I want to dream of an economy which moves from trying to grab eyeballs to focus on screens. I want the harm of social media to be known and for people to take back those billions of hours they waste per year. I've noticed society's in the last 12 years or so has gotten much meaner, much more angry. And for what, most people are actually really nice in the real world. Social media often feels like the coldness of a big city, on a gargantuan scale. Millions of people will call you ugly or stupid, if it makes them feel a little bit better for a second. My shared experience is going for a walk in the park with a little FM radio. I share nature with all the other people in the park, and rarely mostly the old people from a time before social media, will say hi or talk about how rough a certain trail is to walk. I feel like I'm wildly optimistic, but I do think social media is going to self-destruct , in along with it the rising rates of suicide and mental illness. In 20 years spending 10 hours on social media ( dating apps definitely count) will be seen the same way as smoking two packs a day. A lot of people will do it, many will be addicted and unable to stop, but it'll be a collective knowledge it's not a healthy activity.

sunsipples 6y ago
this is worded so well, thank you
karmakaze 6y ago
The thing about eyeballs on screens is that there's two types: the commercial kind which we can certainly do with less of and get better at, and secondly it's a basic human desire, to be seen, felt, relevant. The latter will persist in any medium and we should make better incarnations that do this through technology. Online or shared world gaming communities might be one way. Another that should be in accelerated development right now are more ways of sharing experiences. E.g. we don't have physical movie theatres, but there can be something more social than Netflix, etc.