[nonostantement #172] - apple vs facebook / amazon surveillance network / creator economy
Now with an easy address to donate Ethereum: joele.eth!
Welcome to nonostantement: a weekly newsletter with real, edgy and sweet stuff found all over the Internet.
Hello there, Joele here. I'm sorry for the cryptocurrency world but obviously having managed to register a .eth domain I caused a total collapse that burned billions of dollars. It was all because of me. I am still living in Barcelona, doing my usual job and sending you interesting links, like every Sunday.
If you enjoy this newsletter please forward it to your friends - or you can now offer me a virtual coffee to show your support :) OR.. you could donate Ethereum directly to joele.eth - HOW COOL IS THAT? Please let me know if you need help ;)
As a soundtrack I recommend Semper by Mario Batkovic one of the many cool artists releasing on Invada, the label founded by Geoff Barrow (Portishead, BEAK>, yes that guy).
#THEDARKSIDE
Let's start with my favorite : the dark side. Without any judgment, just the title of this article: "Palestinians Have Been Censored on Facebook for Years, But Now It’s Even Worse"
At this point we all know that our data is being sold by strangers to scammers and spammers all over the world, but how much is it worth?
I have already talked about it in the past - the automotive world is changing, and I'm not sure it’s for the better: Volkswagen talks about a car subscription system (such as Spotify).
[Video] - a funny commercial from Apple visualizes very well how tracking user behaviour works. Let's forget for a moment that Apple is at war with other companies (like Facebook) simply to impose its business model (obviously not for the sake of your privacy) and just enjoy the video. By the way, they are really serious about screwing Facebook, the people I know in the online ads business are all pretty scared by the new implementations in iOS, which ruin Facebook’s ability to collect user data…
Yes! Let's all buy online cameras to put in front of our door, all connected to the same network of a worldwide monopolist, what can go wrong? Amazon's Ring is the largest civilian surveillance network the US has ever seen.
If you enjoy this newsletter you could donate Ethereum using the address joele.eth - gas fees are usually really low on Sunday morning, so this could be the right time to do that!
#PEOPLE
It is important, from time to time, to remind ourselves of the ten principles for good design of Dieter Rams.
“White yoga influencers and brands have monetized South Asian cultural traditions for decades. Now, they owe a debt to a country in crisis.”
I love the idea of “70 Over 70” podcast: conversations with remarkable people, all over the age of 70, about the big questions we all ask ourselves, no matter how old we are. What does it mean to live well? What are we still searching for? And how do we learn to let go? I hope to soon have the time to be able to listen to this podcast (for now I am sending it to you because I trust where I found it ;) )
[In Italian] - In the last few days in Italy there has been some discussions about the gender neutral pronoun "they". A lot of people make fun of it basically for a translation error in Italian - I found this guide enlightening… and made me feel very ignorant, but I now know more about it - hope it can help you too :)
#SOCIALMEDIA
Online shopping changed, and we barely noticed - social media and the continuous push, without restraint, to make you buy and consume constantly.
Selling your expertise without “renting” your time with actual work but selling lessons is an old trick (which works) but social media influencers have managed to monetize their communities with this technique making millions.
Others influencers (like streamers) have made money with donations from people who make them do weird things, so much that now there is an app that lets you pay to control another person's life.
A quite technical link but that I find very useful and that I also put here for my students that I have seen have subscribed to this newsletter lately: The ultimate guide to the creator economy - a list of really useful online tools.
That's it for now.
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