Finding A Third Way For Remote Work
Recently I read a great article by Cal Newport putting a new spin on remote working. He calls for people to make use of third spaces for our work. Rather than working from home.
Taking your laptop to a rented office or a Starbucks is not a new idea. But Cal Newport argues that employers should subsidize their worker’s offices. Due to the increased productivity gains, he argues it’s a no brainer. As investment will pay for itself.
At the beginning of the article, Cal Newport introduces the scene of many authors who rented space to do their work. Maya Angelou hired a bare hotel when she wanted to write. John Steinbeck went on a fishing boat to do his writing. JK Rowling was famous for renting hotel space in Scotland.
Cal Newport mentioned that writers may have been the first work from home knowledge workers. After the pandemic, many people may have to follow their lead as we continue remote working.
One of the issues from working from home is the lack of separation between home life and work life. As you are completing your presentation next to your laundry basket. Your brain is half occupied thinking about the various house duties that you need to do. Eating away at your concentration.
Cal notes:
Because the laundry basket is embedded in a thick, stress-inducing matrix of under-attended household tasks, it creates what the neuroscientist Daniel Levitin describes as “a traffic jam of neural nodes trying to get through to consciousness.” Angelou, by shifting her work to a hotel room with bare walls, was cultivating an effective mental space to compose poetry by calming her relational-memory system.
This is why many people recommend, you still keep the routines you had when heading to the office. So your mind creates the mental shift getting into work mode.
This is why cal mentions:
Many workers won’t be returning to an office anytime soon, but having them relocate their efforts entirely to their homes for the long run might be unexpectedly misery-inducing and unproductive. We need to consider a third option for our current moment, and if we look to authors for inspiration then one such alternative emerges: work from near home.
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A co-working space, a small office above a Main Street store, a rented garage apartment, or even a spruced-up shed can enable a much more satisfying and effective experience tackling cognitive work than the laptop on the kitchen table, or the home-office desk in the bedroom.
This model of remote work allows us to take advantage of remote work. Without dealing with the mental fatigue challenge of dealing with our home environment.
You would make a good argument saying this is a promotion for co-working spaces and coffee shops. You won’t be wrong. But the article allows us to think about how we can improve remote work even more.
In the article, he mentioned a British startup called Flown. An Airbnb for office space. You can rent a room and desk with an amazing view of the Cotswolds or rent a house near a Portuguese beach.
I think this can be the upgrade of the nomad lifestyle that was popular a few years ago. As the short space away from your normal environment allows you time to think. But not too long that you are worried about getting a new visa. The short-stay allows you to get to your friends and family in a short time.
Flown allows for bigger spaces, to invite co-workers and other people to work on your project.
The startup is said to be targeting companies that want to buy in bulk. So employees can work in a new location that can help creative output.
On the website they described team off-sites:
Team off-sites are opportunities to bring a team together to connect and collaborate in person. For teams usually co-located, it’s a chance to get away from the day-to-day for a creative boost. For teams usually remote, it’s a chance to form valuable real-world bonds.
As I mentioned earlier with the return on investment, Cal Newport same something similar:
If an organization plans to allow remote work, the extra cost to subsidize the ability of workers to escape household distraction will be more than recouped in both the increased quality of work produced and the improved happiness of the employees, leading to less burnout and reduced churn. Strictly from the perspective of dollars and cents, W.F.N.H. is likely a superior policy to W.F.H. It’s an up-front investment that promises strong returns in the long run.
Remote work could get even better with the development of better technology. Notably, Starlink may allow for fast internet speeds in the most rural areas. If Starlink works then you could read your presentation in the middle of the sea or check up on your email during a long mountain hike.
Thanks to covid lots of people have moved into suburbia. So if you have a large acre of land. You could work directly in a field enjoying nature at the same time.
Work near home help with more minor issues. Like lack of space at home. But one of the main barriers to Work near home is cost. Not everybody can afford to work in a third space. Hence the importance of subsidizing worker’s offices
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We can’t comprehend how big the world is
I was reading an article about scientific illiteracy. Which author was recounting a story that he was teaching his class a physics problem which you need to estimate the population of the USA. But worked a significant amount of students underestimated the US population. Some overestimated it by a billion. He said that the students were “innumerate”. As they did not grasp what a million or billion was.
I found a similar concept in an article called The Economy is Mind-Bogglingly Huge. In the article, he explains that tons of industries you have never heard about that keeps the world spinning.
In the article he gave this example:
I was talking to the owner of a scale (to weigh things) business in the Midwest. People ask him "Is that a full-time job? Is that industry big enough to support you?"
His response: "Look around this room. Everything you own, everything you see, and everything you eat has been weighed. Multiple times."
When a product (let’s say flour) is farmed and processed, it is weighed. When it is packed into shipping containers, those are weighed. When they are unloaded from the ship, they are weighed again. When the truck is loaded with pallets it is weighed again. A customer buying flour may weigh it again while they’re making their recipe, and then weigh themselves after eating their cookies.
Then added:
Have you ever thought about how many times your flour is weighed? How many scales are built, sold, repaired, and serviced in the supply chain of just your flour?
Granted this does not take into account the decreasing globalisation and localising of supply chains. But it gets the point across. Supply chains as we can see in the example above can still involve numerous parties in just one area. Never mind a whole country or the entire world.
Software Economy is Bigger Than You Think
In the software world, a similar observation was made called the Patio11 Law. Patio11’s Law states the software economy is bigger than you think, even when you take into account Patio11’s Law.
Patio11 (Patrick Mckenzie) gave an example in a podcast. About people making decent cash making software for kitchen countertop installers. Kitchen remodelling can cost a lot of money if you a going for a high end remodel. There is a large field of local companies doing these. And they have serious questions they want answers to. Like how much marble do I buy from the store? Because if you don’t buy enough you will work out halfway through that you have an incomplete kitchen. Also if you buy too much then work out that you spend too much money on the material. Having software can give you the answers to the question. This allows the software maker to create a boatload of money. With a field, you never heard about.
He also mentions there is software for cemetery management. Software that can help lay out cemeteries and other functions. While this is morbid. It does help illustrate the point software and people creating companies is everywhere you see.
In this blog post. The person gave more examples.
Austen Allred shared how, when matching Lambda graduates to jobs, he’ll discover software companies he’s never heard of in Oklahoma pocketing $10m/year in profit. Doing things like “making actuarial software for funeral homes.”
My favorite example is ConvertKit. None of my friends have heard of ConvertKit. They ended 2019 with $20 million in ARR. Revenue is growing 30% year-over-year. They have 48 employees.
To be fair Nathan Barry is pretty well known in the bootstrapper scene. But compared to the YC companies it is a drop in the bucket.
In the article he also mentioned that:
Of the 3,000+ software companies acquired over the last three years, only 7% got TechCrunch, Recode, HN, or other mainstream tech coverage.
So they are thousands of software companies hanging in the background, making a load of cash. Also, I think that these companies are not invisible. There are invisible to us. That funeral home software I’m sure has some presence in the industry. By word of mouth or marketing via B2B means.
Think of AWS if you’re a developer or if you’re somewhat aware of tech. You probably know that AWS is one of the most important companies around. But if you ask your grandfather about it. He will give you an odd look.
It’s the reason why we call many of these areas niches. Only a select few people care about the subject. But that is more than enough to make a lot of money.
The internet has allowed us to connect to billions of people are around the world with no geographic limit. So this allows us to fulfil niches that we could not have before due to geography. There are millions of niches one could get involved in. Some niches are more valuable than others. The media only writes articles about a select few of those niches.
See: Ben Thompson never-ending-niches
So it would make sense that you could create millions of dollars and nobody has heard about you. Because there is so much to do with billions of people on the planet. Billions of people in the world mean billions of people to serve.
This does not mean they are not roadblocks for opportunity. Racism, sexism, corruption etc. But the pie is getting bigger and we can be part of it.
Massive Supply Chains Around the World
Right now, semiconductors are in the news because we have a shortage of them. And many companies can’t create new products. Car companies can’t make new cars. Tech companies can’t make new laptops and phones. Sony can’t make new PlayStations.
The semiconductor industry has hundreds of players. Some very big, some very small. You have some companies that only make the blueprints. You have some companies that only make the chips. You have companies that only make the software for the chip. Then you have companies that add the chip they add to their device. And there is way more I’m missing.
When making a chip, they are companies that make equipment for those chip manufacturers. The most famous and important example is the Dutch company ASM. That makes million-dollar machines to cut chips using lasers. (I'm not kidding). This Dutch company is the only company in the world that can do lithography to such a high level.
Check out this video by TechAltar explaining the semiconductor industry.
Some of the famous covid vaccines take at least 200 components to manufacture. You can bet that there are companies where their only job is to make some of those materials.
Bits of the internet that was forever free are now becoming monetised. Patron and Onlyfans are the latest examples. But twitter announced upcoming monetization features for creators. Spotify and Apple are looking to have exclusive podcast episodes. So many people can serve their niches while getting paid. Most of these creators will not know about it. But enough people will be enough to sustain them. Think of Kevin Kelly 1,000 true fans.
Blockchain and decentralised finance promise to do even more. But has yet to hit mainstream adoption outside of speculation.
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Is It Possible to Create A Social Media Platform Without Ads?
I was reading an interesting article by Lillian Li about the Chinese video platform called Bilibili. I recommend checking out her newsletter if you’re interested in the Chinese tech scene.
Bilibili has been dubbed as Gen Z’s version of YouTube in China. Because of its younger cohort. But from reading the article. Bilibili is not just a place you watch videos. But a strong community, a place to get premium content, A website to pick videogames, A livestreaming content hub and more.
So how can one company do so much stuff? And still be in good health.
Why don’t they spam ads?
When you get to YouTube the first thing you notice is the number of ads bombarded at you. Once you escape the home screen. And decide to watch a YouTube video. You need to watch more ads before you start. After that, you can start enjoying your YouTube video.
But wait.
You need to watch more ads that interrupt your watching time.
If this sequence of events happens to you, then you know how annoying this is. If you’re on desktop you may have resorted to using an ad blocker.
From reading the article from earlier. Bilibili does not do this. Yes, they have some ads. But they won’t be spamming you as the western tech companies do.
The reason why is because they know this will frustrate the community. Which is something they value dearly. The author makes it clear that community is a massive differentiator for the platform. A feature that they have is bullet commentary which comments scroll along with the video while watching. (This is also available on other Chinese video platforms.) But there is extra value in bullet commentary on this platform. As the community is of high quality. Meaning the comments are more likely to be meaningful.
How to make money outside of adverts?
So if you don’t spam adverts on your website. How do you make money?
This is where the vast options come along. First, we start using the closest equivalents to western companies. In many video and livestreams, you donate to the streamer. Twitch were the one the popularised this model. Were the company takes a cut of the donation. The more popular the streamer the more money the company makes. Donations do help companies produce revenue. But most of the time it tends to be icing on the cake. And not enough to cover most of the company operations.
This is where premium content comes along. With a large userbase, you can make a lot of money selling content. Just ask Netflix. Many users pay a monthly subscription to the company to view exclusive content. With their inventory increasing more and more as they invest more money.
Value-added services is the fastest growing revenue segment for Bilibili, at a whopping 171.9% increase yoy, the bulk of which is coming from membership fees that allow users to access premium content. This revenue stream has led to increased investments into proprietary content (such as purchasing rights to LoL livestreams as well as commissioning exclusive anime for their platform), and it will be interesting to see whether this moves Bilibili more towards an Netflix model in the future. https://lillianli.substack.com/p/an-introduction-to-bilibili-
Video game distribution is another way that the company prints out money. This is not something you think about when it comes to a video platform. But videogames are a popular genre on the website. They can make use of user’s data to help promote or develop games that their audience will want.
Can A Western Company Do the Same?
After a mini rundown of this company. I started to wonder can a western company do something similar. Do they have a chance of creating a social media service that does not bombard you with ads?
Honestly, I don’t know.
But I will brainstorm on how other companies can do something similar to Bilibili.
First, I will go to Twitch. It is always known for its videogame community. Even after the Let’s Chat section was introduced videogames still dominate the platform. Twitch Prime allows you to get in-game loot and free games. A bit like the Bilibili example from earlier. But most of the money still comes from advertising. A lot of the benefit of getting Twitch prime is getting cosmetic benefits. Like better emojis and colour options. This can be improved even more.
For example, E-sports content is highly popular on the platform. Imagine if prime users get exclusive content on their favourite events. Like behind the scenes videos or bonus interviews. This is a simple paywall that raises a bit more revenue for the company.
As we can see they allow you to get extra in-game loot and some free games. What happens if they double down on it? Using data that twitch already has. They can design exclusive games that will be well received by the users.
YouTube could do this as well. As Google has the play store. They can design mobile games that can be popular within lots of niches on YouTube. And advertise their mobile games on people’s streams or YouTube videos. But due to the failure of Google Stadia. Google may not have the ability to execute this.
This idea is mainly for the Videogame/Gen Z base. So if you want to expand outside that cohort. Then more ideas will need to be implemented.
The best one I can think of is the integration of e-commerce with video. So you can watch a YouTube video and you can buy what’s in the video without leaving the page. And the company can get a cut of that. While that can generate a lot of money. There is lots of work getting the backend ready to allow for payments and delivery.
Imagine watching a YouTube video on your phone of a person reviewing some type of widget. Where you can simply click a link in the video. Then asks you for payment information and address. All in the app. This allows creators on the platform to monetise their audience in a whole different way.
If this gets more successful, then YouTube can slowly move away from just making money from ads. And increasing the product experience in the process.
Hopefully, your wheels in your head are turning about how you could create a social media product without relying on ads. I think it will be better for all of us if tech companies find other ways to monetise their product.
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If tech CEOs are mayors then why do we expected so much from them?
I was reading an article from the newsletter called the Diff. Which the author gave the analogy that a tech CEO is an overworked mayor. Running a platform is like running a city. As your not just setting a price for your product. But deciding how your platform should be governed.
The newsletter argues:
Moreover, the problems Facebook has to solve are not the cosmic, inspiring ones. They’re pretty trivial, technocratic issues, mostly dealing with competing interest groups rather than competing ideologies. Zuckerberg isn’t an emperor, or even a prime minister; he’s the world’s most competent and most overworked mayor. The question of how much data an advertiser should be able to collect and use, and how they should be able to use it, isn’t a question with the same scope as a treaty or a labor law; it’s a lot more like deciding where a sewage treatment plant goes or choosing which bus route to cut.
This is understandable, platform businesses are more about choosing regulations and how to implement them. But Facebook or Twitter are not signing treaties or bills on these rules. But simply juggling between interest groups over an decision. Reminds me of the YouTube situation. In which YouTube must manage the interests of creators and the advertisers.
With other important interest groups like corporate entertainment and news companies. These interest groups bring YouTube money with adverting. So YouTube tends to give this group preferential treatment. Which YouTube creators deem unfair. Deciding when to notify when somebody uploads looks more like how the bin service should run.
Deciding to send a notification for a new upload. Looks closer to people arguing how bin service should be run. With different neighbourhoods lobbying for better service. Than the drafting of the Maastricht treaty.
Many of the social media problems are strictly practical matters. How do you regulate hate speech? What practices should you adopt to judge content? In twitter’s case do you have enough tools to even deal with the problem?
I'm starting to learn that a platform/marketplace business is a double-edged sword. Yes, you run the casino. So, you get the biggest profits out of the rest of the tech companies. But you have a lot of responsibility. With people expecting you to do magic with limited resources. Or in Facebook’s case make decisions with no good trade-offs.
Do you think going to congress is fun, while both sides are yelling at you are not doing enough? While the congresspeople have no clue what they are talking about.
Jack Dorsey made a joke about this in the recent hearings. On Twitter he made a poll with a simple question mark. With the answer yes and no. A clear jab at the type of questions the congresspeople was asking.
The termination of the ex-president was a hard decision to make. Where the tech leaders had to take into account their progressive employees, the legal liability of a person spouting falsehoods or even violence. Also considering the advertisers paying the platforms. And the fans of the former president.
When you have so many interest groups, some people are bound to lose out. In many companies, your stakeholders can be the shareholders, employees and customers. Some public companies only need to worry about the shareholders.
The article touches on this subject:
GM needs to balance the interests of drivers, dealers, employees, suppliers, and shareholders, but basically all of those groups either want to get more money or spend less money, so GM has the comparatively simple option of building a really good product. But if Facebook builds a really good product for spreading news, they’ve built an exceptional product for sharing fake news; if Google has a good way to surface information, it’s also a good way to surface misinformation.
Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg only get the final say because these decisions are very hard. Facebook is forced to follow local government instructions to remove material from its website. This can be normal stuff like abuse or explicit material. Or political sensitive stuff like removing opposition leaders of the local government, political groups etc.
One example I read on ProPublica was Facebook was removing some Kurdish material with advice from the Turkish government. What was interesting was the internal emails of the thinking. Which tried their best not remove the content. But once it became clear that a ban was imminent. Then opted for a geo-block of the page. Twitter did something similar with the Indian farmers. Geo-blocking best of the bad options when it comes to censorship. As the affected country can’t see the content but everybody else can. Also people with VPNs can still access it.
Removing content that does not cause harm is not something they want to do. As they are American companies with culture of free speech. But governments are an important interest groups that can’t be ignored. If not, they will be shut out of dozens of countries. And miss out on millions of users.
The decision to geoblock content rather than remove the material outright is like working out how to enforce the law in a city. Some people want a no-mercy style approach others to want a selected approach where only serious crime is prosecuted. Your job as the mayor is to take all of these interests and approaches into account. And make an optimal decision using given knowledge.
[use another example]
America tends to take a pretty relaxed approach to regulation. In China tech companies are always under the scrutiny of the government. In an article from the Protocol[insert link], a worker from ByteDance explained that the company had to follow directives from the government. Which called to censor certain words and topics.
It was up to ByteDance to implement the directives:
During livestreaming shows, every audio clip would be automatically transcribed into text, allowing algorithms to compare the notes with a long and constantly-updated list of sensitive words, dates and names, as well as Natural Language Processing models. Algorithms would then analyze whether the content was risky enough to require individual monitoring.
To follow the rules there is a lot of work done behind the scenes to make it possible. Just like a mayor will need to make new housing developments follow building regulations. Bytedance needs to find a way to follow the rules or the government will take action.
Being emperor of Facebook or Twitter does not seem fun does it?
The author notes:
This is the problem of platforms: they build a place, rather than a business, so they can’t enapsulate complexity by making everything transactional. The upside to this model is that it leads to long-term, high-margin growth. Building a platform means homesteading a new economic frontier, and then running it as an idealized government that taxes at the Laffer maximum and most lets participants alone.
Being a tech CEO is hard. Because your not just selling weights. But dealing with numerous people with competing interests. People will always have problems. So tech companies always in a cycle of dealing with demands.
From the newsletter:
Unfortunately, new property rights require an immense and tedious investment in codification. When you’ve solved product, sales, marketing, and operations, the only thing left is politics, and by its nature, politics doesn’t get solved.
Where does creating a network and country begin?
I was reading an interview by the musical.ly co-founder and now VP of TikTok Alex Zhu. Describing how creating a social network is like making a new country.
This is how he describes it:
Building an influencer community is very similar to building a new country (economy) from the ground up. In the early stage, building a community from scratch is a lot like discovering new land. Imagine you just discover new land. Let's call it America. Now you want to build an economy. You want to grow the population and you want people to migrate to your country.
Creating something out of nothing is no small feat. You need to answer questions like: How do you create jobs with nothing there? How do you get more people to migrate to your country?
Right now I'm rereading the biography of Lee Kuan Yew the founder of modern Singapore. And something the early chapters remind me of this discussion that Alex Zhu is having. LKY worried a lot about the question of creating an economy. How to create new jobs when you have a new country. While some of Singapore's worries do not translate well into creating a new social media app. Like the question of defence. Being worried about invasions by neighbours or coups. Are not too relevant when getting people to your social media platform. The closest analogy to that is Facebook creating a clone to attack your network. But they have a less than optimal hit rate.
It makes me wonder – Where is the line of creating a new social network vs a country begin?
I found the Alex Zhu example from Li Jin. A great thinker of the creator economy in her article she laid down details on how to improve the creator economy to have some type of middle class. Almost like an American dream for the internet age.
Making people feel they have a shot at success, is the two things being a country and social networks have in common.
But it’s a chicken and egg scenario. How to create a system of value with nothing there?
Alex Zhu gives the analogy between Europe and the new land America of the 1800s.
Let use an analogy: Musical.ly will be America in this analogy, and YouTube/Instagram will be Europe. How do you convince creators from other regions (social platforms) to move to America (Musical.ly)?
The problem with Europe (YouTube & Instagram) is that the social class is already well-established. The average citizen of Europe has almost zero opportunity to move upward in the social class. We saw an opportunity to leverage this. We will build for the average citizen in Europe.
I wrote about this before. YouTube and Instagram lack the dynamism that it once had.
Because of that is harder for newcomers to join the ranks. The algorithm of those platforms favours the incumbents. As they know they can draw in a large crowd. Compared to an untested newcomer. This does not mean newcomers never succeed in those systems. But it’s much harder.
TikTok is famous for allowing newcomers to join the service and allowing them to succeed. There are many stories of TikTokers that only have less than 10 videos going viral. This is much less likely with Instagram and YouTube.
Granted, the design of the service makes life easier. Dealing with 10-second videos makes it easier for the algorithm. To go through tons of examples compared to a 10-minute YouTube video. If you are interested in this then check out Eugene Wei Remains of the Day blog post.
Alex also had some more details about the matter:
In this new land, you have to build a centralized economy in the early days. This means that wealth distribution is accruing to a small percentage of people in your land. You make sure they successfully build an audience and wealth. This makes them role models for the country (and platform). You effectively create the American dream. People in Europe (Instagram) will start to realize that this "normal" person went to America (Musical.ly) and became super-rich. Maybe I can do the same? This will lead to a lot of people migrating to your country (platform).
Here Alex is explaining that you want to have a heavy hand in the creation of the platform. In country terms, the government will be the guiding factor in the economy. Examples are having state-owned companies and subsidies. The Asian tigers [insert link of book] did this in the early years of development. With a large state calling the shots of the national economy.
In this passage, Alex explained how you want role models for your platform. So other people can see the rules and the culture of the platform. In country terms, this will promote some companies and industries over others. And Alex explains if you are doing right then people from other platforms or other countries will be willing to emigrate to the new platform. Due to the chance of success. Starting a flywheel of great talent entering the platform or country.
Therefore, once countries become successful it is hard for them to stop. Unless a major crisis happens and that is a maybe. Then the country will start to decline. In social media terms, this is the power of network effects. Were the flywheel starts spinning. And it’s hard to stop. Only after terrible mismanagement. Or an even better platform (the platform needs to be 10x better though). Then people will move away from the platform.
From reading the Lee Kuan Yew biography and this description of musical.ly and now TikTok. Is that anything great will be very hard in the early days or years. Lee Kwan Yew had to worry about creating a country that had jobs to avoid choric unemployment. Also, build an army so local neighbours don’t invade. Tiktok had to get enough users to start the flywheel. And make sure it does not get crushed by a big tech rival like Facebook.
Tech Is Not Just Bad nor Good: Biological Determinism In Tech
Biological Determinism
Last week I read a report by the Data & Society. A research group that investigates the impact of technology. The report talks about the common myths of technology. One myth I will be exploring is social media is addictive and powerless to resist.
They examined that most myths in the report come down to biological determinism:
which suggests that our “Paleolithic” brains cannot resist “God-like” technology, placing too much power in the hands of tech companies to both create and destroy our capacity for attention.
This concept gives a good idea of the recent anti-tech movement.
The general idea here is we don’t give much credit to ourselves when dealing with technology. They are people that have healthy relationships with their devices. So it must be possible.
When explaining the myth in the report. They mention that behaviours that we moralise and put a biological spin. Make us forget about human agency and cultural surroundings.
Then went on to explain that new technologies tend to have serious moral panic. Normally with concern about women and children.
The pessimist archive talked about this a lot. With the funny examples of books and bicycles. The account took a parting shot at the most famous materials of technology moral panic today.
The Social Dilemma.
A documentary about ex-big tech workers talking about the ills of technology. In the documentary the host, Tristan Harris said there was no moral panic against bicycles. He was wrong. The pessimists' archive overlayed headlines while talking about the topic. Funny video indeed.
https://twitter.com/PessimistsArc/status/1306011195212783618?s=20
The report mentions:
This myth reinforces the narrative that technology design leads to control of millions of users, locating enormous power with a small group of tech companies.
Nir Eyal touches on this as well. That technology addiction has very little evidence. So this is an area that needs to have more research. But for now, we should not be too sure about ourselves. When it comes to this topic.
We Are Not All The Same
The report mentions that different people have different responses to technology. Which is obvious when you think about it. But gets lost in our discourse. Different mental health and wellbeing can be different for young adults using social media.
Different groups use platforms differently. Marginalized communities may benefit from increased access, visibility, and community through these platforms.
The conclusion of the section explains that you should not assume everybody using tech is going to get addicted. Nor have mental health issues.
They called for more expansion of research. Meaning people from different background be included in the research and product designs.
In many areas of the world being part of the LGBT community can lead to persecution. So finding a community online. Can be the only way to find like-minded people. And talk about the issues they deal with.
In some areas of the world. Access to certain information is very difficult. If you’re an Iranian that wants to watch Hollywood movies. One will need to pirate the films. Due to an embargo of the country.
Yes, we don’t need to be on our phones 24/7 but they are some very good uses for using our devices.
Even society may change, which forces you to use technology differently. Coronavirus is the best example of that. In which people learnt about remote work. And got accustomed to using zoom and other workplace software.
Your laptop was primarily used to watch Netflix and YouTube. Now you are doing work instead. You may be spending the same hours on the device. But doing completely different tasks.
This is why we need nuance when talking about the downsides of tech. They are important to talk about. So we can improve devices and reduce the harm created by them. But hyperbole does not help.
Even with that example. They can still be issues. Many people have the problem of their workplace being always on. The employee always needs to be on call. Leaving not much time for anything outside of work. So, you can never turn off from work.
Cal Newport talks about this a lot in this blog. About the issue of people always being plugged into the workplace. Without getting much work done. Which he calls the hyperactive hive mind.
While this is a serious issue. Do we say people are addicted to zoom or email?[1]
Talking about how technology can be improved in a certain context will be helpful. Not just labelling a device bad and waiting for the tech companies to do something. Or poorly written legislation to fix it.
Technology Is Not Just Good or Bad (The Need For Nuance)
I like what the report says:
The concept of addiction does not encompass the full range of pleasures, risks, and uses that people create with technology
A summary of what I said. Using the term addiction implies that you are addicted or not, technology is only good or bad. Which is not the case. In some contexts, a certain technology is fantastic but in other cases not so.
Changing what words we use that describes our relationship with technology. May help us get rid of some of the guilt associated with that line of thinking. So when using your phone you don’t feel bad. When you are getting value from the activity.
This does not say you should do nothing with your relationship with tech. Many people recommend turning off notifications on your phone. And don’t recommend using your device late at night. And other activities.
You should ask, what value this device or technology provides for me?
When thinking deeply about this answer. You should not feel bad when using your phone for Netflix. If that’s what you plan to do. And you don’t need to think of yourself as “addicted” to Netflix. Just a consumer who wants to watch good TV shows.
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[1] Some people say your addicted to email, That I may add
Can Social Media Stop Misinformation with Media Literacy?
Stopping fire when it starts spreading
I was reading a great interactive article. From growth.design. Which talked about misinformation for the 2020 election. And how Facebook tends to feed the problem. From a design perspective.
We all know that Facebook likes engagement. As it means more people interact with their service. And get to stay on it for longer.
But that’s one of the main reasons why misinformation spreads.
Because misinformation tends to be more engaging than real information. Because of that, the algorithm is more likely to show you something false. Due to the high likelihood of being shared.
When something is highly shared. People are more likely to share it as well. In something called the bandwagon effect.
This reminds me of the content moderation problems. That the tech companies are facing. A lot of work is stopping misinformation before it gets viral.
Lots of people who are experts in this area. Said that most of the damage done is when it starts to pick up steam. Tons of people already viewed the misinformation. And it's hard to delete it. Because people will say the tech companies are overreaching. And may become a story itself. With the Streisand effect.
Tech companies need to work as a circuit breaker. They started to do this in overdrive. As the covid misinformation started to ramp up. So Facebook and YouTube tried their best from stopping covid misinformation from getting out. This was done on the algorithm side.
In the article. On the design side. The article recommended a nice solution. To stop people from blind sharing. Which you get a simple pop up box. Telling you to read the article before sharing. This should let people stop and think. And may stop them from sharing misinformation. Twitter did this for a test. And was able to reduce misinformation on the platform.
Sometimes removing misinformation will require one to make hard decisions. The controversial banning of the former president. Led to a stark decrease in misinformation. By more than 50%.
Misinformation tends to be shared by nodes in a network. So a popular person in the group shared misinformation. Then his fans run with that information. And some of those people will be popular in their own smaller groups. And share the same information. Those fans may share with some friends and family. And that’s how you get your uncle talking about Qanon.
So shutting down a popular node. Is very useful. But can be controversial. So most social media companies opt for shadow banning.
Shadowbanning and it’s disadvantages
YouTube is a great example. With the treatment of borderline content. Which counts Conspiracy Theories, covid denial. Racist videos etc. Youtube simply suppressed those videos. So those videos would not get recommended outside of the audience. This has led to the slow death of these YouTube channels. But has entrenched news incumbents even further. This does not stop misinformation from coming from traditional news channels.
And people who just talk about current affairs in general. Have been hit. Like Philip DeFranco. And other independent YouTubers. And algorithm defaults to showing traditional news channels. Like BBC, CNN, Fox news etc. Because of this YouTube has forced news to have a more establishment bias. Which while more level-headed. Has its biases.
I understand why they did this. As they to get rid of the ranters talking about microchipped aliens. While still providing news on their service. Traditional news networks are known entities. You don’t want to get a PR disaster for recommending a random youtuber providing anti-vax content. The tech companies can’t know all their creators in and out. So, the blanket ban is what they can only do.
But a lot of media literacy can’t just be done by social media companies alone.
It is likely a failure in education.
Social media is only part of the problem
As schools don’t teach kids how to think critically. (NOTE: some problems with critical thinking classes)
But teaching people from a young age about differentiating between different types of media.
Asking questions like:
Knowing if the website is sketchy.
And how to know if an article has any sources backing it up?
But it will be very difficult. In a place like America. Local boards control the curriculum. That’s not bad. But makes it difficult to implement changes like these.
Also lack of incentives for political leaders to back these changes. Do you want a population that can think for itself? And start asking hard questions about your policies. And you’re hiding behind simple slogans. Will become less effective.
I can’t imagine a politician signing up for that.
So while the problem is which deeper and systemic. I think some changes to social media. Can make it act as a firebreak. So it does not fall into violence. Which we saw with the capitol insurrection. If social media can do the job of not making the problem worse. And simply keeping the effects neutral that should be a win.
To recap a lot of changes that social media can do:
Adjust their algorithms.
To avoid recommending extremist content.
And simple design changes that allow people to stop and think before sharing content.
Why Different Social Media Companies Promote Different People
Have you noticed that social media services are used by different people?
Rich VCs talk about life and wealth on Twitter.
Fashionistas share their work on Instagram.
Your uncles and grandmas are on Facebook.
And your favourite video game streamer is on YouTube.
Why is that?
These social media services have millions of users. So they should house every community you can think of. So, it can’t because of the culture.
The answer has to do with the medium itself. Clothes are inherently visual. You can write an essay about them. But having a picture of it. Gives you all the information you need to know.
Instagram is one of the best places to share photos online. And one of the top places to share your fashion creations.
Professionals on Twitter
Why are their lots of writers on Twitter?
Because Twitter is designed mostly for writing. Even when you share memes. You still need to write something. 250 characters allow writers to compress their thoughts in less words.
If you want to explain more. You can create a thread about the idea. Which acts as a mini blog post.
Twitter is a great place to share things you read with numerous people. And you can give your two cents on the situation. While sharing it.
People tend to share their longer writing work on Twitter. Like blog posts on their website. Or their newsletter. And generate excitement over Twitter. This may help explain why Twitter bought out a Substack competitor Revue. So, they can integrate it into the app. As many newsletter writers, Twitter is their main acquisition tool.
This may also explain why the network has a lot more professionals. A lot of American coastal users use the service.
Many people mention that Twitter is there best networking tool. As they share ideas that people in their industry find valuable. And people use direct messages to start personal connections.
Twitter has a massive interest with white-collar professionals. And mainly city dwellers use that service.
This is why there is an oversampling of professions such as; journalists, VCs, programmers, marketers, writers, tech founders etc.
No blacksmiths, plumbers, or linesmen.
Journalism part has to do with twitter’s design. As Twitter is the place known to get breaking news. So, Twitter is the place to go when looking for material to write on.
Contrast to Facebook.
Friends and family with Facebook
Facebook is simple. Facebook is made for friends and family.
So it will make sense that your extended family is on there. But your friends may not be on there. Depending on your age. They probably left a while ago. And using other services like Snapchat and Instagram.
Facebook has bought and made more apps for you to talk to friends and family. Like WhatsApp and Facebook messenger. With these services, no one is creating long-form essays on there. As they are designed to for communication between people. Not explaining one’s thoughts of the world.
You can argue WhatsApp is a bit different. Because large groups can work as channels. Like a company communicating with its users. Or news company sharing what’s happening with their local community.
This may explain why Facebook is popular in the American Midwest and other less urban areas. As there is more of focus other areas of life. Rather than a career. (Hence Friends and family focus). Compared to the coastal parts of America. But these patterns show up in many countries.
Facebook has a wide appeal to many people. Mainly older folks.
YouTube, The Entertainment Medium
YouTube is the hub for entertainment. So it is a medium not use for communication. But to share ideas and make people laugh. There is a lack of direct messaging on YouTube. And communication is designed to be one to many. Think of YouTube comments.
Like Instagram YouTube tends to be more visual. Because of the longer time limit. People can experiment more. Like the video essay format. A traditional essay. With highly engaging visuals. To get hooked. But highbrow stuff like that is not as popular.
Lets plays. Or crazy challenges, celebrity vlogs etc. These tend to be highly visual and engaging. As lots of stuff happens in those videos. Great videos to watch when you are bored on a train ride.
Because of the amount of time allotted. A lot of creators have time in the video. To show their sponsorships. Which are basically ads. They also share their merchandise which you can buy.
Due to the size of YouTube. Almost everyone uses YouTube at some point. To a person who wants to learn about fashion. To a person who wants to learn about the periodic table. It’s all on YouTube.
The video just has to be entertaining enough before you click away.
Even education videos tend to be highly engaging. The one’s that are not. Get little views. Or split up into smaller videos. Like lectures.
But there is a growing genre of video that is not visual per se.
Which are podcasts.
Where you simply just watch the host and guest talking on video. I tend to use this a lot. I guess that is more visual than an audio-only podcast. As you get to see the faces of the guest and host. And all their expressions.
A podcast can help a YouTube creator produce much more videos. One hour YouTube podcast. Can be cut into 5 different clips. All linking back to the original podcast. The cost of production is low compared to other genres. Like travel or shopping hauls.
Also, can be less of a time sink on the creator's side. Compared to something like vlogging.
Design affects the medium
The design of the social network affects who uses the platforms. As it incentivises users to use the app in a certain way.
Instagram is for getting likes and followers. So eye-catching content is pushed.
Twitter is for getting retweets. So funny or outrageous content is pushed.
YouTube is for getting views. So outlandish content is pushed.
Because of that:
People with very visual hobbies will get more traction on Instagram.
People who have controversial opinions. Do well on Twitter.
People who are entertaining. Do well on YouTube.
Which self-selects for people with certain personalities and interests. That is suitable for the platform.
All that explains why people thrive of different platforms. And you view your favourite creators on different mediums.
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Can Auditable AI improve fairness in models?
Not unique but very useful
I was reading an article on Wired about the need for auditable AI. Which would be third party software evaluating bias in AI systems. While it sounded like a good idea. But I couldn’t help think it’s already been done before. With Google’s what if tool.
The author explained that the data can be tested. By checking how the AI responds by changing some of the variables. For example, if the AI judges if someone should get a loan. Then what the audit would do. Is check that does the race effect getting the loan. Or gender, etc. So if a person with the same income but different gender. Denied a loan. Then we know the AI harbours some bias.
But the author makes it sound that it’s very unique or never been done before. But Google’s ML tools already have something like this. So the creator of the AI can already audit the AI themselves.
But there is power by using a third party. That third party can publish a report publicly. And also won't be hiding data that is unfavourable to the AI. So a third party can keep the creator of the AI more accountable. Then doing the audit on your own.
Practically how will this work?
Third parties with auditable AI
We know that not all AI will need to be audited. Your cat vs dogs does not need to be audited.
The author said this will be for high stakes AI. Like medical decisions. Or justice and criminal. Hiring. Etc. This makes sense.
But for this to work seems like the companies will need to buy-in. For example, if an AI company decides to do an audit and find out their AI is seriously flawed. And no one wants their product because of it. Then companies are less likely to do so.
Maybe first the tech companies should have some type of industry regulator. That makes standards on how to audit AI. And goals for one to achieve. Government initiative will be nice. But I don’t know if the government has the know-how at the moment. To create regulation like this.
Auditing the AI. Will require domain knowledge.
The variables needed to change in the loan application. Is different for AI that decides if a patient should get medicine. The person or team doing the auditing. Will need to know what they are testing. The loan application AI can be audited for racism or sexism. The medicine AI can be audited for certain symptoms or previous diseases. But domain knowledge is highly needed.
For the medicine example. A doctor is very likely to part of the auditing team.
On the technical side, you may want to ask the creators to add extra code to make auditing easier. Like some type of API that sends results to the auditable AI. Creating an auditable AI for every separate project. Will get bogged down fast. Some type of formal standard will be needed to make life easier for the auditor and creator of the AI.
This auditable AI idea sounds a bit like pen testing in the cybersecurity world. As your stress testing (ethically) the systems. In this context we are stress testing how the AI makes a decision. Technically you can use this same idea. For testing adversarial attacks on the AI. But that is a separate issue entirely.
From there it may be possible to create a standard framework. On how one will test AI. But this depends on the domain of the AI. Like I said above. Because of that, it may not scale as well. Or likely the standards will need to be limited. So, it can cover most auditable AI situations.
Common questions for when auditing ones AI:
How to identify important features relating to the decision?
Which features could be classed as discrimination if a decision is based on them?
i.e. Gender, race, age
How to make sure the AI does not contain any hidden bias?
And so on.
It may be possible that auditable AI. Can be done by some type of industry board. So it can act as its regulator. So they can set their frameworks on how to craft auditable AI. With people with domain knowledge. And people who are designing the audited AI. To keep those ideas and metrics in mind. When developing the AI in the first place.
The audible AI by a third-party group. Could work as some type of oversight board. Or regulator. Before the important AI gets released to the public.
It is a good idea, to do regular audits on the AI. After the release. As new data would have been incorporated into the AI. Which may affect the fairness of the AI.
Auditable AI is good step, but not the only step
I think most of the value comes the new frameworks overseeing how we implement AI. In many important areas. Auditable AI is simply a tool. To help with that problem.
In some places, auditable AI tools will likely be internal. I can’t imagine the military opening up their AI tools. To the public. But it will be useful for the army that AI can make good decisions. Like working out what triggers a drone to label an object and enemy target.
Auditable AI may simply be a tool for debugging AI. Which is a great thing don’t get me wrong. Something that we all need. But may not be earth-shattering.
And what many people find out. About dealing with large corporations or bodies like governments. That they may drop your report. And continue what they were doing anyway. A company saying it opening its AI. For third party scrutiny is great. PR wise. But will they be willing to make the hard decisions? When the auditable AI tells you. Your AI has a major bias. And fixing that will cause a serious drop in revenue.
Will the company act?
Auditable AI is a great tool that we should develop and look into. But it will not solve all our ethical problems with AI.
How to avoid shiny object syndrome
If you’re a programmer who has suffered from this issue before. This set of events may happen to way too often. You are working on a project. Then just found out on Reddit. There is an interesting library that you can check out. Then you spend your whole day reading up on documentation. And trying out the library. But by the end of the day. You noticed that your original project. Has made little progress.
If that’s you.
You suffer from shiny object syndrome.
This blog post should be the antidote.
Why is shiny object syndrome dangerous?
You probably know why. You spend time running around in circles. Trying the next best thing. While you have little to show for it.
Shiny object syndrome reduces progress on many of your projects. Because of the time being spend switching between various projects. And starting them from scratch.
Imagine constructing a building which you only decide halfway to stop and make another one. Therefore, you need to disassemble and move your equipment. To the next construction zone.
All the time and effort could have been spent making even more progress with the original building.
We forget when starting a new project. That we need to spend time transitioning into the next project. That means researching how to start the next project. Refreshing your workspace for the next project. If your new project is not similar to your original project. Then you may have to learn new skills associated with the following project.
For example, if you’re a web developer then you decide to work on a blockchain project. Most likely, you need to spend time learning the ins and outs of blockchain technology. Which will take a lot of time.
Because of this, there is a lot of risks. Jumping from one project to another.
If you want to avoid this fate. Then I can recommend you some courses of actions below.
How to stop shiny object syndrome?
Wait a minute and breath.
Many times you start a project. After reading a great blog of some person’s project. And you think to yourself “I want to do that!”. Then you start googling around. Of the resources that the author used. Getting ready for a new awesome project.
Don’t get me wrong. Getting excited is a great emotion. But leads you spinning your wheels sometimes.
Instead of instantly creating a project based on your excitement. I would recommend writing your ideas down in a notebook. Ideally an online one like Evernote. So, you always have access to it.
This helps you get back to the task at hand. Then checking the idea when some time passes. Removes the euphoria of the moment. So, you can see your idea with rational eyes. And you may notice that idea was not that good in the first place. From there you avoided wasted time on a project. That would have been a dead end.
If you still think the idea is still good. Then start adding more details and plans.
Timebox space to explore new ideas
New technologies are awesome. Which may be part of the reason you’re in the community in the first place. But learning about new technologies take a lot of time. So what you may want to do is set aside time during your day or week. To explore the technology, you're most passionate about. This may help you explore your interests. Without your main task for the week or day. Being derailed. And this exploring can help think about your next project. When you are ready.
Have a plan to ship #BuildInpublic
Making sure you have a deliverable is a great way to have accountability. Having something like this will make you more likely to stay the course. If you want to do this on hard mode. Make it a public statement. So everybody can expect a product to be shipped. You are WAY less likely to abandon ship if people are expecting a product from you.
Once you start getting feedback from an audience. You may get an extra spike of motivation. To keep ongoing.
A term you should do more research on is Learn in public. (Interchangeably called build in public) This is where you share information about your project start to finish. The reason why this is good. Other than the reason above. That it will help you get more eyeballs on your project. Giving it more chance of succeeding. The feedback from the public should help make the project better. As now you have other people giving you ways to improve. Learning in public can help your next project. If your project is interesting, then they may stick around to see what you have in store.
Does the shiny object match your goals?
Maybe you have a general direction. Where you want some of your projects to go. If that’s the case you can ask. Does the shiny object achieve my goals? Or you can ask will this new technology help me do my job better. Do you think the new project will reduce the amount of time you need to work? Or can you get more work done in the same amount of time?
Asking precisely “How will this help me?” Should help you avoid. Going into a cul-de-sac.
Conclusion
Now I have given you a few ways to battle shiny object syndrome. And now you can finish your project through and through. Without jumping onto the next project that peaks your interests.