David Chartier

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Sometimes.

Great observation from the ever-insightful Asymco.

The tragedy of overservice and disruption is that if you don’t shift the definition of performance eventually you run out of demand at the top of the performance curve. That opens you up to “good enough” competition from below.

As someone who prides myself on understanding generational evolutions, I’ve finally found my line in the sand; my ‘get off my lawn’ soapbox for The Kids. I don’t care if you grew up on Google. Learn how to organize your damn files you little shits.

Co-signed.

Making the decision to “go for a walk” is a deliberate way to take time out, slow down, get out, and appreciate what you see. In walking there is peace.

As it turns out, your company’s rules about working from home weren’t about what was practical or necessary to get the job done. They were more about the outdated management philosophies (neuroses?) of your boss.

Clever. Constraints breed creativity.

🤯

Companies are waking up to the many opportunities remote work provides. Obviously, it isn't for everyone or every industry or position. But as someone who has WFH for ~ 15 years, there is still a *ton* of potential.

"Racism is not mine, it’s yours. It’s not called ‘helping’ when it’s your mess we’re cleaning."

I wrote about the death of short-form videos on YouTube.

This is important. Please read.

It isn’t easy to move a social circle to a new platform. But as there seems to be no end to the problems, scandals, lax policies, and downright malicious intent of the current dominant social platforms, I think it’s time to start looking for more ethical and healthier alternatives.

"Isolation for all of us is corrosive, but when you or the issues you care about are addressed directly, acknowledged, represented in the media you encounter, that gives you a clear and tangible piece of evidence that you are not on your own. You are not the only one having these experiences or taking these issues seriously. They affect other people too and you're seeing it up on screen. You immediately become less alone in that moment."

Isolation for all of us is corrosive, but when you or the issues you care about are addressed directly, acknowledged, represented in the media you encounter, that gives you a clear and tangible piece of evidence that you are not on your own. You are not the only one having these experiences or taking these issues seriously. They affect other people too and you're seeing it up on screen. You immediately become less alone in that moment.

“The fine is immaterial. But CNIL’s decision is very significant because it means that Google must stop building advertising profiles about people until it has properly told them what it is doing and received their consent.”

“It is likely that many people will say no to being profiled by Google when they learn the truth.”

“Mastodon is a relatively new social media service, but I’ve grown to like it quite a bit. Of course, any new service these days will need good apps if it’s going to get anywhere. Thankfully, the iOS apps are getting pretty good.”

“The tool of venture capital is so specific to a tiny, tiny fraction of companies. We can’t let ourselves be fooled into thinking that’s the story of the future of American entrepreneurship.”

This makes me happy.

This is your occasional reminder to delete Facebook, if possible. I get that it’s a serious lifeline for some family and friends, and that makes it a tricky situation. But that company is awful, all the way up to the top.

The feature is useful for ad targeting—for example, showing Spanish speakers a message in their native language. But it’s also a simple matter to identify the addresses of Facebook’s ad reviewers and program campaigns to show them, and only them, harmless content.

Remote workers shouldn’t feel like they have to travel to lead interesting, fulfilled lives. It’s ok to prioritize friendships, community, and your mental health over traveling. It may not look as glamorous on Instagram, but you may end up a lot happier for it.

This country keeps getting weirder.

“Underlying all of Facebook’s screw-ups is a bumbling obliviousness to real humans. [...] But the imperative to “connect people” lacks the one ingredient essential for being a good citizen: Treating individual human beings as sacrosanct. To Facebook, the world is not made up of individuals, but of connections between them.”

“Apple isn't trying to hide the differences that exist between the Mac and iPad as creation platforms. Instead, Apple is embracing the unique attributes found with each platform.”

“Your job as a support person is not to cheer people up. It’s to acknowledge that it sucks right now, and their pain exists.”

When our phone calls are represented by an agent as in the case with Google Duplex, or our emails are auto-completed by Smart Compose, we surrender parts of our tone and voice to be replaced by the suggestions of Google’s algorithms.

Read past the apologetic headline. There is some important context and industry suspicion here.

This is a time when companies whose innovations are more intrusive than useful, more gimmicky than problem-solving, operate with business models that either burn investors’ cash or turn the users into products.

I switched to Revue for my free, weekly Finer Things in Tech newsletter (subscribe here: http://newsletter.finertech.com/), and this is a great overview of why, who, and how to go paid. It has me thinking. 🤔

It’s long, but really good. A great down-to-earth back and forth with actionable answers.

This is good content.

What an interesting idea.

As a result, Cypriot real-estate websites are filled with investment guides and details on how to apply for a new passport. This is the new era of virtual citizenship, where your papers and your identity—and all the rights that flow from them—owe more to legal frameworks and investment vehicles than any particular patch of ground where you might live.

Things pushed in our stream through an algorithm tailored to our weakness are the digital equivalent of the calls that try to lure you in when you walking down a street in Bangkok. Want a Medium Massage?

As a society, we feel like we’re at war with a computer algorithm, and the only winning move is not to play.

I like this idea. I’ve already been using Day One for some of it, but I never thought about expanding it to some of the things mentioned here. The thought of having a more cohesive tome of my journey through life and work, the things that affected me, and what I accomplished, is really interesting.

Sounds like me, and a number of my friends, might have been ahead of the curve by deleting our Facebook accounts over the last couple years.

Another former Facebook executive has spoken out about the harm the social network is doing to civil society around the world. Chamath Palihapitiya, who joined Facebook in 2007 and became its vice president for user growth, said he feels “tremendous guilt” about the company he helped make. “I think we have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works,” he told an audience at Stanford Graduate School of Business, before recommending people take a “hard break” from social media.

What we’ve found is very often the very best ideas come from the quietest voice. And if you’re not listening, you’re going to miss that.

I get that it’s hard making a living strictly as a writer. I was one. But this kind of bad behavior has helped grow a movement of distrust in our media and, subsequently, a serious erosion of our society.

what if marketers started to think about our content as the core product instead of just a thing to sell products?

when I was at Facebook, the typical reaction I recall looked like this: try to put any negative press coverage to bed as quickly as possible, with no sincere efforts to put safeguards in place or to identify and stop abusive developers. When I proposed a deeper audit of developers’ use of Facebook’s data, one executive asked me, “Do you really want to see what you’ll find?”

Trying to “change the world” was not the mission with which most great or successful things started our with. It’s only our ego, afterwards, that creates these stories. And it blinds us to the traits which actually create success.

I deleted (not just suspended) my Facebook account a few months ago. The product is useful, and I miss a few friends and family who are too lazy to use other services. But the business is rotten to the core, and I worry regulation won’t be nearly enough.

When I proposed a deeper audit of developers’ use of Facebook’s data, one executive asked me, “Do you really want to see what you’ll find?”

Good work everyone. Claps all around. 😔

I’m glad the EU is blazing this trail. I really hope it forces the industry into better regulations and greater respect for common users.

If you work in digital media, you need to know that the industry is one year from taking a big step toward Apple's view. No, this isn't a case of digital disruption coming (once again) from Silicon Valley. In this case, the seismic shift originates in the European Union. Much of the digital media industry is likely to panic over the coming months. But mark my words: The EU will ultimately lead publishers and advertisers to a better place.

“CEO Tim Cook has long wanted Apple Stores to be a place for more than browsing new Apple gadgets and fixing broken ones.”

I really like what Apple is doing with its new store design. I know some people think it sounds silly, but I sometimes send time people watching in these stores. Many people really do use them as meeting spaces, and the new designs accommodate that really well.

“It seems increasingly likely that readers who value a public service press are going to have to sustain it themselves — by contributing money, sharing knowledge, and spreading the word. A good term for this is membership. But membership won’t work if it’s just begging for cash. There has to be a social contract between journalists and members.”

The Watch was born a timepiece but it is traversing through the early iPhone and pulling in a new direction all of its own.