Hey y'all!
Walk into a fancy coffee shop in Austin, Berlin, or Seoul and somehow it's all the same: Edison bulbs, oat milk, the same six fonts, the same mustache and the same plant in the corner. New songs front-load the hook; a thousand new books wearing the same cover; and that fight scene at the end of every recent movie...
This week's open question: how much of your taste is yours?
Variations and derivations:
- Where do your preferences come from? (Which sources do you endorse?)
- What's something you love, that you found completely randomly? (Eg it wasnt an algorithmic or economic pressure trying to get you to find it)
- How do you know the difference between what you like and what you're being trained to like?
- Let's talk about "the feed" (social media, yes, but also netflix, spotify, etc)
- Plenty of counter-evidence exists! What is it? Also, is a narrower mainstream a fair trade for a wider, weirder long tail?
- Are the same pressures that narrowed the center giving us more strange, niche, wonderful stuff finding its people than ever? Or is that a counterforce, or something else?
I met my wife on Bumble. I love hoity-toity coffee shops and I love Marvel movies... so does everyone, and maybe that's the point. So no judgement here, just curiousity. What are we "optimizing" toward, how do we define what "performs," and do we want anything different?
Respond here.
Lots of love, and see (some of) you soon
Jordan
(UpTrust CEO)