An interview with Eugene Wei about Elon Musk’s critical mistake with Twitter, the questionable prospects for Threads, and what Taylor Swift and other communal experiences say about the commoditization wrought by technology.
Disney’s Taylor Swift Era
Not even Taylor Swift can fight the devaluation of recorded music, but she makes it up in physical experiences; Disney isn’t much different, but it looks much worse given the company’s old business model.
Streaming Residuals and Spotify, Llama 2 Open-Sourced, Llama’s License
Streaming residuals might end up looking like Spotify. Then, Meta makes Llama 2 open source — mostly.
Podcast Grifting; Aggregator Lessons; Ostroff, Simmons, and Harry
Bill Simmons calls Harry and Meghan grifters; he seems to have a case, but the larger issue is why Spotify mistakenly thought they would be valuable in the first place.
An Interview with DNVR Co-Founder Adam Mares About Building Local Internet Businesses
An interview with DNVR founder Adam Mares about building an Internet publishing company with roots in the real world, based on local differentiation, and scaling it across the company.
AI, NIL, and Zero Trust Authenticity
AI-generated content is not going to harm those with the capability of breaking through: it will make them stronger, aided by Zero Trust Authenticity
Spotify’s New Home Page, Categorizing Advertising, Spotify’s Competition for Discovery
Spotify announced a new home page, which makes sense both in isolation and in the context of Spotify’s competition with YouTube.
EU Narrows Apple Case, Snap’s My AI
The European Commission closes on a ruling that makes sense for Apple’s App Store, and Snap launches their own OpenAI-powered chat bot
Spotify Earnings, Spotify Exclusives, Spotify vs. Apple
Spotify’s earnings were solid, although I am more skeptical of its podcast exclusive strategy than ever. Plus, Apple continues to act anti-competitively, this time in e-books.
Spotify Audiobooks, Audiobook Business Models, Limitations and Skepticism
Spotify is now selling audio books, but with an analog business model that is further hampered by Apple. The limitations aren’t Spotify’s fault, but do limit upside.