In the beginning, there was the web, and lo it was good.
I'm not much of a philosopher, and I certainly have no subject matter expertise on the matter that makes up this big wide web – apart from having been terminally on it since my tweens in the early '90s.
From many a kitchen table and bedroom desk did I work away at these dreams while grinding through day jobs of varying despair. A common story, I know.
In terms of making any sort of fortune on the web, I've nervously waved off some eventually successful boats that I couldn't see any future in – and rushed aboard more than a few future shipwrecks that seemed like such a sure thing at the time.
The first I'll blame on a fear of commitment, zero safety net, and a lack of grit. The other, I'll put down mostly to bad luck.
Despite always wanting to do things my own way, I've never been good at committing to my own personal 'this is the one' projects. I'm too prone to questioning and doubting my ideas, lacking the resilience and persistence to really prove them out – but I've poured my entire multi-skilled being into every startup I've ever joined, and it showed. Such is just two curses blessings of ADHD, among oh so many.
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
⌁ From The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot
Look. I've done well enough – in that the web's opportunities have seen me forge a solid career out of young Mike's raw talents, high-school-level education, loud ambitions and extremely limited self-starter potential in the early 2000s (ask any of my poor suffering exes of that era), but I mostly missed either the signs first or opportunities second in both 'dot com bubbles', despite being of age at the time.
In truth, that's all fine. That startup died, but the mentoring and experience – good and bad – led to more employment opportunities in journalism, and so I'm now one of many working in the media.
This field, too, is going through a period of turmoil as the drive for investor profit continues to result in cheapened content models, closures and layoffs – first at older titles that failed to compete with the disruptive newer ones online (like the one I helped start), all falling before the onslaught of...
Social Media & The Influencer
As TheVerge.com boss Nilay Patel lays out for fun guy Hank Green in the podcast below, we've arrived at a new low in media and content.
The platforms are designed to create that idea and reinforce it
Guest host Hank Green sez: It seems like people have an easier time trusting individuals now than trusting larger brands. So it’s sort of—
Patel interrupts: Oh, I totally disagree with that. I think you’re platform-pilled. I totally disagree with that in the biggest, most serious ways that I can possibly think of.
"Ah fuck yes," Green replies, as if to say "LET'S GO!"
Patel: The platforms are designed to create that idea and reinforce it. They want that to be true. They want to say, “People don’t trust brands, they trust people” and that the brands stand for nothing.
Patel doesn't so much deny that people no longer trust brands, but he says it's because of social platforms.
He continues: That’s because when you shove a brand into the same incentive structure as a group of individuals – an infinite supply of teenagers who will work for free – the brands debase themselves, and now the brands are worth nothing.
In the beginning, there was the web, and lo it was good.
Now? Not so much.
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