I'm the co-founder of Transistor.fm (podcast hosting and analytics). I write about SaaS marketing, bootstrapping startups, pursuing a good life, building calm companies, business ethics, and creating a better society.
We've lost the joy of discovering cool stuff on the internet
|
So much of what made culture great between the '60s and '90s was that you had to work for it. There was friction. You'd go to a record store, or a book store, or a thrift store, and browse for hours, just hoping for one good find. Maybe we need more of that on the internet. Do we need to be constantly inundated with a firehose of content tuned to our lowest, base desires? These days, you don't go out and find cool stuff. You get served whatever pablum the platforms think you'll consume. We need more mess, more friction.Open protocols like RSS, email, and the web give us the foundation for being more mindful:
"RSS could be an antidote to the overwhelm that we experience elsewhere on the internet." – Mike Rugnetta, Never Post Algorithms are deciding what you’ll like before you’ve even had a chance to explore. For myself, I'm trying to keep following my curiosity, rather than being spoon-fed. A lot of the fun in discovering something cool is in the journey you took to get there. Cheers, PS: Have thoughts about this? Reply to this email. 👍 If you want to read this online or share this with others, here's the link:
PPS: I'm heading out to Podcast Movement in Dallas tomorrow. If you're going to be there, say hi! |
Justin's newsletter
I'm the co-founder of Transistor.fm (podcast hosting and analytics). I write about SaaS marketing, bootstrapping startups, pursuing a good life, building calm companies, business ethics, and creating a better society.
"Never tell me the odds." – Han Solo, Star Wars. What are the odds? Yesterday, I watched my favorite hockey team (the Edmonton Oilers) lose to the Florida Panthers in the Stanley Cup finals. Every season, all 32 NHL teams have the same goal: "Win the Cup." But only one team can win. Even a strong team (like the Oilers) has only a 12% chance of winning. Put another way: they had an 88% chance of not winning. What are your odds? A founder building a new startup also faces daunting odds. As...
When I got to the address, the door looked like this: sketchy However, once inside, I was surprised to see an incredible podcast recording studio: Justin and Nathan at Kit studios On April 1st, Nathan Barry (founder of Kit) asked me to join him in an industrial area of Chicago to record a podcast. This was for the opening of the new Kit Studios in Chicago. Even cooler: anyone with a Kit account can use it. (I'm told the outside is much nicer now. 😉) Nathan and I sat down, and he interviewed...
Overall, I've been pretty unimpressed with many of the promises coming from the "AI code bois." I got tired of watching video demos that hyped things up, only to try it myself and be disappointed. But after this conversation with Adam Wathan (creator of Tailwind CSS) and Brian Casel (Instrumental.dev), I'm starting to see AI development differently: I was surprised that Adam is this bullish on AI dev tools: "I used to be more skeptical. But then I forced myself to download Cursor and build an...