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I don't think the medium of short form video is redeemable. Its occasional positives are the delivery vehicle for the many negatives, the sugar coating around t

by npunt 10mo ago

I don't think the medium of short form video is redeemable. Its occasional positives are the delivery vehicle for the many negatives, the sugar coating around the poison. It's rotten by just about any measure: properties of the medium, what types of business it attracts, messages that thrive, how well it reflects reality, aggregate effects on people across a variety of outcomes, the aftertaste of using it, etc. I think the best question to assess it is does this make us better people or not, and to what degree? From what I have seen, the answer is it seems to be pretty significantly de-skilling us in attention, agency, nuance, psychological wellbeing, etc. It makes us more vulnerable to influence and manipulation. The businesses that benefit the most from deploying it are advertising-based, which naturally leads to surveillance and algorithms and pace of consumption that maximizes addiction. The messages that perform best are emotional and attention seeking. There is no information quality control. The consumption pattern it suggests leaves no room for thinking, processing emotion, or nuance. The personal crusade I'm on is to build a competing product at the quality level of TikTok/Insta that diverts interest & attention toward books, which as a medium is both a lot more of a known quantity and whose consumption naturally results in longer attention spans, greater literacy, and all the nth order consequences of written culture. It's great that things like BookTok exist but ultimately that energy & activity needs to find its way over to a healthier home.

TranquilMarmot 9mo ago
I agree that is is irredeemable. I'm excited for Oracle to take over because then TikTok will degrade to a point where I'm not compelled to use it anymore! > build a competing product at the quality level of TikTok/Insta that diverts interest & attention toward books, which as a medium is both a lot more of a known quantity and whose consumption naturally results in longer attention spans, greater literacy, and all the nth order consequences of written culture This sounds great in theory and has been tried a few times (see: Goodreads, Storygraph, Worm.so and a few others) but without the social aspect I think it is difficult to gain traction. A lot of my favorite books I've found by going to local bookstores and looking at the employee recommendations.
- npunt 9mo ago
  Haha yes hopefully Oracle works its anti-magic on TikTok, that'd be lovely to see. Agree social & network effects are essential to achieving the mission. We (Margins) are building that part out now after spending the last year and a half perfecting the single player experience, it's very early but so far it's going great and we went viral again this holiday season. Social also needs something different than the 'let's make an early 2010s social product' approaches I keep seeing people trying, that stuff just cannot work in the age of AI bots poisoning the commons. I don't think any of the existing players are close to the quality levels of TikTok/Insta, certainly not GR or SG, and there's always new copy/paste projects that come and go, its kinda become a genre of solo dev project like weather apps. I also think all these Goodreads-like apps are following the wrong formula to win the mainstream, they tend to get stuck appealing to niche user interests. Of all of them Fable made the best attempt at it but wasn't ever original enough in formula or high enough in quality, and they burned through $27m largely failing to find PMF and sold for peanuts. Local bookstores are necessary/essential parts of winning back attention from social media and offer the unique value of physical presence and community, but will never be sufficient to get all the people addicted to these digital drugs away from their apps. Apps really are powerful things that offer unique experiences that people have come to expect, so I think a realistic theory of change involves an app being the medium to route attention to healthier ends. How exactly to do that is indeed the challenge!

by npunt 10mo ago

TranquilMarmot 9mo ago

I agree that is is irredeemable. I'm excited for Oracle to take over because then TikTok will degrade to a point where I'm not compelled to use it anymore! > build a competing product at the quality level of TikTok/Insta that diverts interest & attention toward books, which as a medium is both a lot more of a known quantity and whose consumption naturally results in longer attention spans, greater literacy, and all the nth order consequences of written culture This sounds great in theory and has been tried a few times (see: Goodreads, Storygraph, Worm.so and a few others) but without the social aspect I think it is difficult to gain traction. A lot of my favorite books I've found by going to local bookstores and looking at the employee recommendations.

npunt 9mo ago
Haha yes hopefully Oracle works its anti-magic on TikTok, that'd be lovely to see. Agree social & network effects are essential to achieving the mission. We (Margins) are building that part out now after spending the last year and a half perfecting the single player experience, it's very early but so far it's going great and we went viral again this holiday season. Social also needs something different than the 'let's make an early 2010s social product' approaches I keep seeing people trying, that stuff just cannot work in the age of AI bots poisoning the commons. I don't think any of the existing players are close to the quality levels of TikTok/Insta, certainly not GR or SG, and there's always new copy/paste projects that come and go, its kinda become a genre of solo dev project like weather apps. I also think all these Goodreads-like apps are following the wrong formula to win the mainstream, they tend to get stuck appealing to niche user interests. Of all of them Fable made the best attempt at it but wasn't ever original enough in formula or high enough in quality, and they burned through $27m largely failing to find PMF and sold for peanuts. Local bookstores are necessary/essential parts of winning back attention from social media and offer the unique value of physical presence and community, but will never be sufficient to get all the people addicted to these digital drugs away from their apps. Apps really are powerful things that offer unique experiences that people have come to expect, so I think a realistic theory of change involves an app being the medium to route attention to healthier ends. How exactly to do that is indeed the challenge!