Weekly Links & Thoughts #118

Here is this week’s edition of meshedsociety.com weekly, loaded with thoughtful opinion pieces, interesting analyses and significant yet under-reported information bits from the digital and technology world. Published and annotated every Thursday (CET), just in time so you have something good to read over the weekend.

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Reading time indicator: 1 = up to 3 minutes, 2 = 3 to 10 minutes, 3 = more than 10 minutes

• Tech Companies are Addicting People! But Should They Stop? (nirandfar.com, 2)
  
  Two years ago, Nir Eyal published “Hooked” which became somewhat of a holy book for tech companies and developers who strive for creating engaged users. Since then, he tries to navigate the thin line between advocating for the principles underlying the idea of getting users hooked on apps through intelligent design and the exploitation of primal impulses, and distancing himself from when the steps taken by companies are going too far. This new piece by him pretty much sums up the conflict he put himself in. He claims that tech companies have no interest in creating addicted users and therefore should implement concepts to prevent strong compulsive user behavior. I personally am not convinced that this claim is true. That being said, it’s well worth reading.
• Sebastian Thrun Defends Flying Cars to Me (backchannel.com, 2)
  
  Tech billionaires are toying with ideas and projects to make flying vehicles reality. In this interview, the German-born computer scientist Sebastian Thrun who was a VP at Google and co-founded Udacity passionately defends the concept against an array of critical questions. However, not everyone in the industry agrees with him: Elon Musk prefers to dig tunnels and doesn’t believe in the feasibility of flying vehicles for the masses. See the “video of the week” at the bottom of this list.
• This is How Google will Collapse (medium.com, 2)
  
  A comprehensive overview of the variety of actual or potential weaknesses in Google’s current market position and business model.
• Quitting the Silicon Valley Swamp (pando.com, 2)
  
  The book author, blogger and writer Paul Carr, known for not mincing his words, writes about his long-standing habit of strategically quitting bad habits and removing destructive elements from his life. And he explains why it is now time for him to give up covering the Silicon Valley tech industry.
• The death of the smartphone is further away than you think. And there is no ‘Next Big Thing’ (zdnet.com, 2)
  
  At the current moment I do subscribe to the assumption that we won’t move past the smartphone as prime personal device for a while – with maybe the exception of the home.
• FOMO? Teens Can’t Put Down Their Phones (emarketer.com, 1)
  
  A statistic that encapsulates the difference between digital natives and the rest of the population: Teen users worldwide spend 48 more minutes every day using their smartphones for online activities (with a total of 3 hours 38 minutes) than average people ages 16 to 64.
• We don’t want to be an office: Café owners are pulling the plug on WiFi (theglobeandmail.com, 1)
  
  Independent café owners are removing WiFi from their venues so that guests start to talk to each other again. What’s with this cliche that the (most likely) shallow small talk with strangers is in any way more desirable/better/important/valuable than reading, writing, programming, learning, messaging with loved ones far away or anything else that can be done on a device?!
• Our world outsmarts us (aeon.co, 2)
  
  A great essay on an issue that I have been thinking about a lot lately: How the human brain’s inability to intuitively grasp statistical concepts and mathematics increasingly prevents us from understanding today’s complex problems and thereby from finding adequate solutions.
• Facebook Stories is a total failure (mashable.com, 2)
  
  It totally is, but it also does not matter at all, as long as Stories are a huge success for Facebook-owned Instagram. This is the advantage of operating multiple leading services that are in some kind of competition with each other (for attention and user engagement): Not every feature needs to be a big hit in every one of the entities.
• How Web Forums Make Neuroticism Viral (truthhawk.com, 2)
  
  Here we have an hypothesis which probably would require more research in order to be qualified as accurate. But as a possibility based on empirical observation it’s interesting to consider whether people featuring certain personality traits are dominating the online discourse and “exporting” certain patterns to a bigger audience.
• Clayton Christensen, Doubling Down (insidehighered.com, 1)
  
  Clayton Christensen, the author of “The innovator’s dilemma” and father of the theory of “disruptive innovation”, expects half of the colleges (in the U.S.) to close within a decade, driven by the spread of online learning.
• Mobile Payment Is Now Officially Available in Iran (techrasa.com, 2)
  
  Who knows, maybe mobile payment will become prevalent in Iran quicker than in many European countries. According to this text, one third of Point of Sale systems in the country can accept mobile payment.
• Apple Can’t Ignore Microsoft’s Slick New Laptop (bloomberg.com, 2)
  
  Let’s assume for the sake of the argument that Microsoft will manage to make former Mac users switch in significant numbers back to a Windows device: It would be an incredible turn-around for the company. But of course, right now, this is hypothetical.
• 2017 Global Startup Ecosystem Report (thenextweb.com, 2)
  
  The Startup Genome project has released its third report on global startup ecosystems, including a top 20 ranking. Nice to see Stockholm receiving the recognition it deserves (although within the European Union, Berlin is considered the leading ecosystem). From the article: “When it comes to Europe the big news is Stockholm. For Gauthier, Stockholm had the most impressive upward movement this year by jumping into number 14, making its debut in the top 20”.

Recently on meshedsociety.com:

• The mainstream appeal of Amazon’s smart speaker Echo
  
  I bought an Amazon Echo and watched my parents’s reaction when I started to talk to it. Now I understand even better its mass appeal.

Video of the week:

• Elon Musk’s TED 2017 Full Interview
  
  A must-watch if you haven’t seen it yet. If Elon Musk can pull of all the things he plans to, he will become one of the most important people of this century.

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Here is this week’s edition of meshedsociety.com weekly, loaded with thoughtful opinion pieces, interesting analyses and significant yet under-reported information bits from the digital and technology world. Published and annotated every Thursday (CET), just in time so you have something good to read over the weekend.

New: Try out the meshedsociety.com chatbot on Facebook Messenger.

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• How Humans Are Shaping Our Own Evolution (nationalgeographic.com, 3)
  
  This amazing feature investigates the question of whether modern technology enables us humans to accelerate our own evolution way past the slow biological evolutionary process. There are indications for this being the case.
• How tech created a global village — and put us at each other’s throats (bostonglobe.com, 2)
  
  There is no shortage of think pieces about Facebook. This one stands out, in my opinion: Author Nicholas Carr points to what he observers being a long-standing misconception in Western thought: The assumption that communication technology promotes social harmony. I wonder, after everything Mark Zuckerberg has been right about (and he has been right a lot, otherwise his company wouldn’t be such a dominating force today), if this could be his giant mistake? That his company’s mission to “make the world more open and connected” and the deriving actions actually contribute to a tendency towards the opposite?
• Why Instagram Is Becoming Facebook’s Next Facebook (nytimes.com, 2)
  
  Could happen. And maybe facebook.com is being cannibalized along the way.
• The Sceptical Optimist: A philosopher’s take on technological progress (foundingfuel.com, 2)
  
  Practicing “skeptical optimism” is a brilliant way to position yourself in between Luddites and one-dimensional techno-optimists, don’t you agree?
• We Are Entering the Era of the Brain Machine Interface (backchannel.com, 2)
• With Neuralink, Elon Musk Promises Human-to-Human Telepathy. Don’t Believe It. (technologyreview.com, 2)
  
  I feel it would be irresponsible to formally recommend the 36.000 word piece by superhuman writer Tim Urban about Elon Musk’s plans to build a brain computer (however, here it is – but you most likely have stumbled upon it already). So I’ll share two divergent takes on the extraordinary sounding undertaking.
• Stop calling them flying cars (theverge.com, 2)
  
  The flurry of sudden news about attempts to build “flying cars” seems a bit absurd to me – not only because these are technically not cars. Is this really more than herd mentality in full effect?
• Our Puny Human Brains Are Terrible at Thinking About the Future (slate.com, 2)
  
  We humans don’t always act in our own long-term self interest (which is one reason why am not principally against the idea of fixing some of our mental flaws through technology). Here is interesting research that sheds light on one process that encourages short term behavior: When we imagine our future selves, the brain stops acting as if we’re thinking about ourselves. Instead, it starts acting as if we’re thinking about a different person.
• Google’s ‘Project Owl’ — a three-pronged attack on fake news & problematic content (searchengineland.com, 3)
  
  A comprehensive look at Google’s newly presented measures to deliver trustworthy search results and civilized search suggestions.
• One for the thumbs (sixcolors.com, 2)
  
  Initially I felt an urge to disagree with Netflix’s switch from a five star rating system to a binary one consisting of only 2 options (thumbs up or thumbs down). But I am in the process of changing my mind (and this piece contributed to that). As an avid Tripadvisor hotel reviewer I also remember my frequent struggle with awarding the “right” rating when having more than 2 options.
• Police Now Using Facial Recognition to Spot Jaywalkers in Shenzhen (thatsmags.com, 1)
  
  A little taste of things to come.
• The Quick vs the Strong (crookedtimber.org, 2)
  
  New technology leads to a battle between the quick and the strong. As it looks now in regards to the Internet, the governments (aka the strong) seem to gain the upper hand over the quick.
• Why is Russia so good at encouraging women into tech? (bbc.com, 2)
  
  “According to Unesco, 29% of people in scientific research worldwide are women, compared with 41% in Russia. In the UK, about 4% of inventors are women, whereas the figure is 15% in Russia”.
• The Future of the Venture Capital Business (originventures.com, 2)
  
  The industry behind most of the technologies and services mentioned in this weekly reading list is built on venture capital – which ironically hasn’t experienced much change for decades. Until now. Informative overview of what causes this sector to face its very own disruption.
• The new status symbol: it’s not what you spend – it’s how hard you work (theguardian.com, 2)
  
  I would have liked this article even more without the unnecessary judgemental tone, but I guess staff at The Guardian cannot help it – and maybe I only react that way since I am also quite productivity focused and therefore feel ideologically attacked. Anyway, the described phenomenon is indeed quite remarkable: “Tim Cook is approximately 500,000% richer than the average American – but he wakes up at 3.45 in the morning”.
• Learning is Earning (medium.com, 1)
  
  Pouring some oil into the “productivity” fire. The headline qualifies as witty catchphrase.
• How Elon Musk Learns Faster And Better Than Everyone Else (medium.com, 2)
  
  And one more on that topic. Very inspiring. Also related to the text recommended last week about the revelation by some that experience (in only one area) no longer matters.
• Stop Guessing Languages Based on IP Address (medium.com, 2)
  
  Yes, please! Especially annoying when one uses a foreign VPN server.
• Reflecting on 3 years as a founder (kathleenfritzsche.com, 2)
  
  “It always looks much more professional from the outside” – so easy to forget, and so true.
• How We Got 10 Million Teens to Read Fiction on Their Phones (medium.com, 2)
  
  The story behind Hooked, a startup founded on the basis of the quite clever idea to offer users chat-styled fictional stories and to allow them to create their own ones.
• Amazon Strategy Teardown: Building New Business Pillars In AI, Next-Gen Logistics, And Enterprise Cloud Apps (cbinsights.com, 3)
  
  As Amazon is poised to be one of the defining companies of the decades to come (and that might even be an understatement), setting aside half an hour to educate oneself in detail about the company’s strategy is probably not the worst thing to do.

Video of the week:

• Neil deGrasse Tyson: Science in America
  
  The big achievement of the enlightenment – science – is being questioned by ideological and religious actors wherever you look. Neil deGrasse Tyson has released a griping 5 minute video to raise awareness for what’s at stake.

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If you like what you read, you can support meshedsociety.com on Patreon!

Here is this week’s edition of meshedsociety.com weekly, loaded with thoughtful opinion pieces, interesting analyses and significant yet under-reported information bits from the digital and technology world. Published and annotated every Thursday (CET), just in time so you have something good to read over the weekend.

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If you want to make sure not to miss this link selection, do like more than 350 other smart people (as of March 2017) and sign up for free for the weekly email. It is being sent out each Thursday right after this post goes live, including all the links. Example.

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Reading time indicator: 1 = up to 3 minutes, 2 = 3 to 10 minutes, 3 = more than 10 minutes

• Cloud computing’s history foretells the future of automotive (diginomica.com, 2)
  
  About the parallels between how individual computing gave way to cloud computing (which in turn changed the role and characteristics of computers at large) and the shift from individual car usage to connected, distributed mobility. Fascinating analogy.
• The Crisis of Attention Theft—Ads That Steal Your Time for Nothing in Return (wired.com, 2)
  
  “Attention theft” – what a brilliant term. Personally I find it applicable to many more circumstances than those commercials shown on TV screens in public mentioned in the article.
• What it’s really like to work in a Chinese mega-factory, according to a student who spent 6 weeks there (businessinsider.com, 3)
  
  This interview with a guy who assembled iPhones is very long (about 30 minutes reading time), but exceptionally informative.
• Sky Mining (reallifemag.com, 2)
  
  Contemplating conflicting motivators behind today’s re-surge in enthusiasm for space travel. It seems to be equally about escaping the destructive impact of the threats to planet Earth that at least in parts could be considered side effects of capitalism and about exporting capitalism (and inevitability its side effects) to other planets.
• The despair of learning that experience no longer matters (newyorker.com, 2)
  
  This piece left me with a lot of thoughts which I have not been able to sort properly yet. In any case, I find it quite intriguing to ponder whether many populist voters’s realization that their decades-long professional experience is not valued enough anymore could explain their frustration.
• Facebook and the Cost of Monopoly (stratechery.com, 3)
  
  Ben Thompson is disappointed by the announcements made at Facebook’s developer conference F8 (which were mostly related to AR/VR and aimed squarely at squashing Snapchat – which the latter admittedly is making easier than it has to). He considers them a sign that Facebook’s (network-powered) monopolistic characteristics are harming innovation. The possible connection between monopolism of today’s Silicon Valley culture and lack of customer-centric innovation is also the topic of this piece arguing that the Valley’s tech industry is destroying itself.
• Build a Better Monster (idlewords.com, 3)
  
  The founder of the beloved niche bookmarking site Pinboard, Maciej Cegłowski, has published the written version of a speech in which he connects a lot of dots and events of recent times to outline the problematic status of quo of today’s digital business models and monopolistic tendencies of a few large companies, the increasingly massive side effects on politics and public debate, as well as possible solutions. Long but worth it and filled with succinct and observant lines to remember for later (such as this one: “One problem is that any system trying to maximize engagement will try to push users towards the fringes.“)
• Selling Mark Zuckerberg (buzzfeed.com, 3)
  
  A detailed look at Mark Zuckerberg’s personal transformation.
• Will Tech-Driven Deflation Export Japan’s Economic Woes to the World? (singularityhub.com, 2)
  
  Japan historically has been chasing efficiencies through technologies, which in combination with a low birth rate is being seen as a major reason for the country’s economic woes. In the light of current technological and demographic trends, it’s not to be ruled out that this could become the fate for plenty of other nations.
• Why Kickstarter Decided To Radically Transform Its Business Model (fastcompany.com, 3)
  
  Gotta love Kickstarter for adopting the new U.S. corporate entity type called Public Benefit Corporation. It came with the pledge to never sell the company or go public and to offer a “general public benefit.” Remarkably, the investors were on board with the decision.
• AI: Process v Output (thewavingcat.com, 3)
  
  An in-depth, well-researched and well-curated analysis of what’s considered to be one of the major challenges of applied artificial intelligence: the inability of humans to understand the process with which an AI produces its output, and the trade-off which would happen if transparency of the computing process would be the goal. For the author, there is no question: “Transparent messiness is more desirable than oblique efficiency.” Meanwhile, Albert Wenger, who actually is the VC who according to the previous piece introduced the Kickstarter founders to the concept of the Public Benefit Corporation, puts things into perspective by pointing out that no one really knows how humans do what they do.
• Primitive reflexes and artificial intelligence (medium.com, 1)
  
  That’s something which humans have for sure ahead of AI: We are born with reflexes that require no external teaching at all.
• Steve Ballmer Serves Up a Fascinating Data Trove (nytimes.com, 2)
  
  Traditionally non-innovating former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is back with a new project, and it seems to be quite useful (from a U.S. tax payer perspective). I loved how his new endeavor was commented here: “Those of us who have been in or around the technology space since the 1990s when Microsoft used to bulldozer all in front of it are completely unused to Steve Ballmer doing things that we can uncomplicatedly see as good”.
• The Art of Writing One-Sentence Product Descriptions (medium.dave-bailey.com, 1)
  
  Especially useful advice for people building or promoting products/services, but essentially good advice for a lot of things one creates in life: “If we want our product to be shared by word of mouth, then we must accept that it will likely pass from person to person as a single sentence.”
• Smartphones Are the New Cigarettes (markmanson.net, 2)
  
  An apt analogy if you consider how hastingly people pull out their phones after a longer period of forced abstinence (or forced offline mode). Not really accurate when comparing the use cases though. Unlike cigarettes, smartphones actually can be used for a lot of good and useful tasks.
• Why Americans Don’t Understand The European Startup Scene (arc.applause.com, 2)
  
  The fragmentation of Europe makes the startup scene hard to understand even for Europeans, I’d argue.
• On Growing: 7 Lessons from the Story of WeChat (blog.ycombinator.com, 3)
  
  The Chinese messaging and social media giant did a lot of things right and followed quite an innovative playbook.
• Meet Algo, the VPN that works (blog.trailofbits.com, 2)
  
  Something different: I recently created my own VPN tunnel in the cloud with this self-hosted VPN server. It’s a slightly technical task but fun if you like to challenge yourself a bit. However, if you are technical, than you will laugh at me calling this a “challenge”. Important note: As you will run this software on a commercial cloud provider such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure or DigitalOcean where you’ll add your payment details, you should not use this if your goal is to be completely anonymous. Use cases are encryption in public WiFis and circumvention of locally blocked websites (when traveling) as well as possibly even of geo-blocking.

Podcast episode of the week:

• Exponent.fm Episode 110: Moral Hazard
  
  Great exchange between Ben Thompson and James Allworth about constructive and destructive entrepreneurship and the consequences for technology and capitalism.

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If you like what you read, you can support meshedsociety.com on Patreon!

Here is this week’s edition of meshedsociety.com weekly, loaded with thoughtful opinion pieces, interesting analyses and significant yet under-reported information bits from the digital and technology world. Published and annotated every Thursday (CET), just in time so you have something good to read over the weekend.

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If you want to make sure not to miss this link selection, do like more than 350 other smart people (as of March 2017) and sign up for free for the weekly email. It is being sent out each Thursday right after this post goes live, including all the links. Example.

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Reading time indicator: 1 = up to 3 minutes, 2 = 3 to 10 minutes, 3 = more than 10 minutes

• Critical States (medium.com, 2)
  
  The moment when water is ready to turn into ice is called a critical state. For shallow observers, the surface doesn’t look different to the previous state though. For success in life or business, it is crucial to identify those metaphorical critical states early on to spot and seize opportunities that others are missing. Inspiring.
• What in the World Is Causing the Retail Meltdown of 2017? (theatlantic.com, 2)
  
  A sound compilation of causes for the massive number of retail bankruptcies in the US in 2017. There already have been as many this year (9) as in all of 2016. The most fascinating suggested reason on the list: “Many young people are driven by the experiences that will make the best social media content—whether it’s a conventional beach pic or a well-lit plate of glistening avocado toast. Laugh if you want, but these sorts of questions—“what experience will reliably deliver the most popular Instagram post?”—really drive the behavior of people ages 13 and up.” I’m not 13 anymore but I would be lying to say that I have never caught myself thinking “This would look pretty cool on Instagram!” before doing something.
• An off-grid social network (staltz.com, 2)
  
  Compared to the freaky-sounding peer-to-peer social network called Scuttlebutt profiled in this piece, Mastodon suddenly looks like pure establishment.
• Why Uber Won’t Fire Its CEO (backchannel.com, 2)
  
  Due in part to the dual-class share structure which many tech founders have come to embrace, company boards’ influence over who gets to be CEO is being diminished. In the case of Uber, according to Jessi Hempel, the only person who can decide whether Uber needs a new CEO is its cofounder and current CEO, Travis Kalanick. I guess, if we would talk about heads of state, such a scenario would be labeled “dictatorship”.
• Autonomous Trucking Overlooks Skilled Labor Need (supplychain247.com, 2)
  
  The looming disappearance of millions of truck driver jobs is often cited as a consequence of the ongoing trends towards automation and the emergence of self-driving vehicles. However, as always, things are more multifaceted.
• End of road for trucking startup Palleter (medium.com, 2)
  
  Staying on the topic of trucking: The European startup Palleter had an interesting idea: Using a smart technical platform to fill unused capacity in trucks on demand. However, as the founders detail in this piece, their hypotheses had a a few flaws which made the whole idea unfeasible. So they shut down the company instead of raising money. As their update at the end of text notes, after its publication they received a lot of ideas and proposals, so this might not be the end of Palleter after all.
• How BlaBlaCar faced growing pains and had to change its focus (techcrunch.com, 2)
  
  One more article focusing on vehicles on four wheels: Informative account of the French ride sharing company BlaBlaCar’s pivot away from Western Europe towards the Russian market.
• The Spiritual, Reductionist Consciousness of Christof Koch (nautil.us, 3)
  
  An Illuminating interview about consciousness. The more you think about this feature of the brain, the more enigmatic it appears.
• Shenzhen is a hothouse of innovation (economist.com, 2)
  
  Yet another insightful profile of the southern Chinese city Shenzhen’s rise as a hardware and innovation hub.
• OK Google, do you track ads? (internetofpeople.eu, 1)
  
  A controversial Burger King commercial deliberately triggered Google’s smart speaker Google Home. Here are two relevant observations/conclusions.
• A New, More Rigorous Study Confirms: The More You Use Facebook, the Worse You Feel (hbr.org, 2)
  
  Worth noting: The quantity of the Facebook usage matters according to the research. So checking Facebook occasionally won’t make people instantly feel worse. With extensive usage, the risk rises significantly.
• The News Feed is Outdated: How Stories Changed the Way I Think About Social Media (blog.bufferapp.com, 2)
  
  But maybe all this will be obsolete very soon, considering the rise of stories as (possibly) the successor of the feed concept. The stories feature is being used very differently than a feed-based system, so researchers can start over.
• This is the Jeff Bezos playbook for preventing Amazon’s demise (recode.net, 2)
  
  Jeff Bezos’s yearly letter to the shareholders, including lots of advice for professional flourishing. I instantly loved the concept of “disagree and commit” highlighted in the text.
• It’s time for Google and Facebook to freak out about Amazon (mashable.com, 1)
  
  It’s certainly going well for Jeff Bezos’s company. Google is responding by turning its image search into a product search engine.
• Apple’s AirPods make me feel like an alien (theverge.com, 1)
  
  What happens next is crucial: Will this feeling persist or will an increased number of people wearing AirPods help to normalize the AirPods product design? I am optimistic for the product.
• Is Slack a product or a feature? The pros, cons and competition (diginomica.com, 2)
  
  A relevant question, well explained. Related observation: It’s a very subjective impression but lately I haven’t heard anyone rave about Slack anymore. Novelty definitely has worn off, which means the company is entering a more challenging stage.
• The art inside you (medium.com, 1)
  
  A beautiful motto for the age of automation: Finding the art inside you.
• Fuck virality, I want my ideas to be radioactive (markcarrigan.net, 1)
  
  I have made it my mission to only recommend radioactive articles in this weekly list, no viral ones… in all seriousness, while the label “radioactive” sounds pretty absurd, I like the point being made.
• Singapore scientists teleport lemonade over the internet (cnet.com, 2)
  
  Eye-catching headline, and only a bit sensationalistic. The main difference to “real” teleportation is that the lemonade on the sender’s side didn’t vanish after the procedure. So it was rather a reproduction over a long distance instead of an actual “teleportation”. Still, kind of cool.
• The new age of Ayn Rand: how she won over Trump and Silicon Valley (theguardian.com, 2)
  
  The works of the Russian-American novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand have influenced the world view of many of Silicon Valley’s tech libertarians – and not only those.

Recently on meshedsociety.com:

• The internet brings people into space
  
  Tesla & SpaceX founder Elon Musk and Amazo founder Jeff Bezos have earned a lot of money with their web companies, which they now use to fund bold, visionary and pretty risky endeavors far beyond their initial focus areas. Seen through this lens, the effects of the internet are actually changing the world twice.
• The end of roaming surcharges is a milestone for the EU
  
  For people living in the European Union, June 15 this year will be a date as import and symbolic as March 26 1995 was. At that day the Schengen agreement of open borders went into effect.

Podcast episode of the week:

• The Knowledge Project: Naval Ravikant
  
  Naval Ravikant is the CEO and co-founder of AngelList and has invested in more than 100 companies. In this podcast interview he talks for a full 2 hours about a wide spectrum of topics, such as reading, habits, decision-making, mental models, and life. I was not bored a single second.

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If you like what you read, you can support meshedsociety.com on Patreon!

Here is this week’s edition of meshedsociety.com weekly, loaded with thoughtful opinion pieces, interesting analyses and significant yet under-reported information bits from the digital and technology world. Published and annotated every Thursday (CET), just in time so you have something good to read over the weekend.

If you like this weekly selection and want to support it with a few bucks, you can do that through Patreon. A big thank you to the existing Patrons. You are great!

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If you want to make sure not to miss this link selection, do like more than 350 other smart people (as of March 2017) and sign up for free for the weekly email. It is being sent out each Thursday right after this post goes live, including all the links. Example.

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Reading time indicator: 1 = up to 3 minutes, 2 = 3 to 10 minutes, 3 = more than 10 minutes

• A deep look at Google’s biggest-ever search quality crisis (searchengineland.com, 3)
  
  The wave of fake news and the ideological war about facts and truth are undermining the foundation of Google’s success: The trust in its search results.
• 10 work skills for the postnormal era (workfutures.io, 3)
  
  While this intelligent list is labeled “work skills”, these skills might as well be considered general personal traits to thrive in the years to come. According to the author Stowe Boyd, “boundless curiosity” is the most crucial skill to develop. This sounds right to me.
• This Must Be The /r/Place (waxy.org, 1)
  
  On April Fool’s Day (which is “when the internet is at its most annoying” – quote from this post), Reddit launched an incredible social experiment which was aimed at demonstrating how its users in collaboration can build great things.
• Computer Moves (reallifemag.com, 3)
  
  With machines getting better at all kind of mind games, it is about time to learn to lose and to see the potential in that kind of “skill”. Because in fact, even if computers will increasingly beat humans, that won’t make games obsolete. You are always more amused to beat a friend than a computer. Computers can teach important lessons to use when playing against humans.
• Will robots displace humans as motorised vehicles ousted horses? (economist.com, 2)
  
  If humans will become the new horses, then maybe we can find peace in the knowledge that horses are still around, even if they are not needed anymore. But obviously this comparison is flawed since humans are experts in making up tasks (which often are complete bullshit), which horses aren’t. Still a thought-provoking analogy.
• Forget butter with your popcorn. How about a steak at the movie theatre? (theglobeandmail.com, 2)
  
  Prepare for the emergence of “microcinemas” that make the question where to go after obsolete. In some places in Asia (and possibly elsewhere, too), getting full meals even during the movie is already possible.
• The High-Speed Trading Behind Your Amazon Purchase (news.morningstar.com, 1)
  
  If you ever have wondered about odd pricing of products sold by third parties on Amazon, this might explain it. It’s astonishing to learn how third-party vendors are battling for visibility.
• It’s getting harder and harder to tell Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter apart (recode.com, 1)
  
  Could be one reason why Snapchat is now trying to become a search engine.
• Starbucks, Amazon, Dunkin’ Donuts Drive New Mobile Payment Behaviors (mediapost.com, 1)
  
  Smart point: The players that are successfully pushing mobile payments are those that embed it into the larger customer experience process. This is the added value that has been missing and that has been preventing mobile payments from reaching mainstream for so long.
• Streaming Music Services, From Most Screwed to Least Screwed (gizmodo.com, 2)
  
  A remarkable list. There for sure will be more casualties in the streaming space.
• Inside chatbots’ year of growing pains: ‘We’re at an inflection point’ (marketingland.com, 3)
  
  About the state of the chatbots. The hype and inflated expectations are gone for now, but that’s most likely a good thing.
• Germany’s Race to Catch Up in the Startup World (spiegel.de, 3)
  
  Personal observation: Interestingly, it seems as currently not startups but the widely respected German industrial incumbents (and specifically the car companies) are pushing digital ideas forward the most. Let’s see if they will be successful in invalidating the innovator’s dilemma.
• Venture Capital Funnel Shows Odds of Becoming a Unicorn Are Less than 1% (cbinsights.com, 2)
  
  Of 1098 tracked tech companies that raised seed financing rounds in the US in 2008-2010, only 46% managed to raise a second round of funding, and 0.91% companies became unicorns valued at $1 billion or more.
• Why this venture capitalist wants to make traditional VC obsolete (americanbanker.com, 3)
  
  Speaking about venture capital, in this insightful interview, the VC Brock Pierce predicts that in 10 to 20 years no startup in the world will be financed in any way other than through crypto tokens. If you have no idea what he is talking about, don’t only read the interview but listen to the podcast episode recommended below.
• Why HTTPS Won’t Keep Your Internet Usage Habits Secret (inc.com, 2)
  
  Good to be aware of the shortcomings of the secure protocol for web communication.
• Companies start implanting microchips into workers’ bodies (latimes.com, 2)
  
  How long until this becomes a requirement at certain types of companies in order to be eligible for employment there?
• Mastodon is dead in the water (medium.com, 3)
  
  Over the past days, a new decentralized Twitter clone called Mastodon has captivated the attention and imagination of people in the tech sphere. Read this well reflected analysis of the pros and cons (the article’s sentiment is less negative than what the headline suggests).
• Why Japan’s Rail Workers Can’t Stop Pointing at Things (atlasobscura.com, 2)
  
  This has nothing to do with the usual topical scope of meshedsociety.com weekly, but it is too fascinating not to point to.

Recently on meshedsociety.com:

• Becoming a “better” human in the digital age
  
  In the digital age, the human brain can be tricked and manipulated more effectively than ever before, as most recently shown by Uber’s attempts to influence its drivers’ behavior. So how to maintain a level of autonomy then? Most probably by developing the ability to go against one’s nature and primal instincts – which humans have done many times before.

Podcast episode of the week:

• a16z Podcast: Cryptocurrencies, App Coins, and Investing in Protocols
  
  This podcast offers rather challenging content due to the complicated nature of the topic, but the participants try their best to make it as comprehensible as possible. In my opinion, the potential of using cryptocurrencies to fund and finance startups, open source software and new protocols is too intriguing to be ignored.

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Here is this week’s edition of meshedsociety.com weekly, loaded with thoughtful opinion pieces, interesting analyses and significant yet under-reported information bits from the digital and technology world. Published and annotated every Thursday (CET), just in time so you have something good to read over the weekend.

Personal note: Back from vacation!

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Reading time indicator: 1 = up to 3 minutes, 2 = 3 to 10 minutes, 3 = more than 10 minutes

• The future of the open internet — and our way of life — is in your hands (medium.freecodecamp.com, 3)
  
  A griping depiction of the repeating dynamic that steers information technology towards corporate monopolies until a new technology comes and disrupts the old order. But when it comes to the Internet, there might be no disruptor.
• Tech and the fake market tactic (anildash.com, 3)
  
  How the tech industry leverages the advantages of the free market in order to create rigged markets.
• Systems smart enough to know when they’re not smart enough (bigmedium.com, 3)
  
  Machines have an over-confidence problem, writes Josh Clark, who also has some ideas about how to handle this situation. One might want to add that most humans have an over-confidence problem as well.
• The Trade-Off Every AI Company Will Make (digitopoly.org, 2)
  
  Like a person who starts a new job, an AI with machine learning capabilities has to “practice” in order to get better. Companies that want to utilize AI are therefore faced with a tricky question: when to shift from in-house training to on-the-job learning.
• The Wonders of the Future (collaborativefund.com, 2)
  
  Big breakthroughs don’t happen on their own. They are a conglomeration of small discoveries and often unforeseen.
• Tech Bigwigs Know How Addictive Their Products Are. Why Don’t the Rest of Us? (wired.com, 2)
  
  In my eyes, psychological dependency (or addiction if you want to call it that way) on digital technology is a massive challenge. Those who fail to resist and fail to remain in control are, more than with any other information technology before, becoming subject to large-scale manipulation by commercial and ideological actors.
• Why we can’t put our smartphones down – and what it’s doing to our relationships (newatlas.com, 2)
  
  Related to the previous article. It’s the first time I hear the term “phubbing”. It stands for “phone snubbing” – phone distractions that occur in the presence of other people. What’s described here makes a lot of sense to me: “The more one romantic partner perceives that they are being phubbed, the more it hurts their feelings, which ultimately fed into reporting higher levels of stress, anxiety and depression.”
• Reframe Work And Be Free (truthhawk.com, 1)
  
  A brilliant way to view work: investing time instead of spending time. An added thought from myself: If a certain work doesn’t feel like a good investment, it’s probably something one should try to let go as soon as possible.
• Lessons in Tenacity from the Co-Founder of Foursquare (firstround.com, 3)
  
  For over ten years, Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley had a vision, and he never gave up.
• Is Netflix ringing the death knell for cinemas? (denofgeek.com, 2)
  
  Betteridge’s law applies of course. But Netflix undeniably is changing movie distribution and consumption patterns, so it will have an impact on cinema.
• The Google Pixel does not exist (phonearena.com, 1)
  
  Google’s Pixel phone is said to be the best Android smartphone on the market – but it appears as if Google is not really keen on selling it to people.
• Apple Is Pushing iPad Like Never Before (aboveavalon.com, 2)
  
  A lengthy, in-depth analysis of Apple’s latest strategy for the iPad. The tablet market is not as dead as some claim it to be.
• Why Employees At Apple And Google Are More Productive (fastcompany.com, 2)
  
  Some companies from the tech sector are remarkably more productive than the average company, while having not significantly more “star players” among their employees. The key to this success lies in how these high performers are distributed among the teams.
• Poaching passengers: An Uber driver endorses Juno (blog.wandr.me, 2)
  
  Occurrences during which Uber drivers try to get a passenger to join them on another ride-sharing app highlight Uber’s issue with lacking driver loyalty – which only remains unproblematic for Uber as long as no serious (global) competitor exists.
• Upgrade your Medium (blog.medium.com, 2)
  
  Evan Williams, founder of Medium, outlines the rough details of the platform’s upcoming subscription system. This will be interesting to watch.
• It Will Take Google 22 Days to Find You (motherboard.vice.com, 1)
  
  If you launch a website that you don’t index for search engines and that you solely tell a few friends about who you encourage to spread the word, how long does it take until Google finds you? One guy tried it.
• Now We Know Why Microsoft Bought LinkedIn (backchannel.com, 2)
  
  At least in parts the reason my be: LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, who is extremely well connected, appreciated and influential in Silicon Valley.
• Elon Musk’s Billion-Dollar Crusade to Stop the A.I. Apocalypse (vanityfair.com, 3)
  
  I have seen some criticism about this long read (for example here) but I found it to be pretty effective at making the reader feel how much the (possibly sensationalist) debate about AI as a potential threat is captivating the industry big shots’s minds. In the end, no one knows. In comparison to this superior AI that some are afraid and others are excited about, an Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking or Ray Kurzweil are not much more intelligent than anyone else. So everyone is just speculating about the future while being subject to the same cognitive limitations.

Recently on meshedsociety.com:

• A radical idea for Twitter: Kill the timeline, and kill the call center
  
  Twitter is perfectly suited to become the world’s major platform to connect (consumer) businesses of all sizes with costumers. I explain why the company could benefit from abandoning the whole timeline and tweeting concept and entirely focus on connecting businesses and consumers.

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