Link Salad, the Fall of Rome Edition
Some of what I've been reading
— The Ghosts in the Machine - Liz Pelly, Harper’s Magazine, Jan. 2025
“According to a source close to the company, Spotify’s own internal research showed that many users were not coming to the platform to listen to specific artists or albums; they just needed something to serve as a soundtrack for their days, like a study playlist or maybe a dinner soundtrack. In the lean-back listening environment that streaming had helped champion, listeners often weren’t even aware of what song or artist they were hearing. As a result, the thinking seemed to be: Why pay full-price royalties if users were only half listening? It was likely from this reasoning that the Perfect Fit Content program was created.”
— Casual Viewing - Will Tavlin, n+1, Winter 2025
“Reaching seventy-two million households didn’t mean what it sounded like it meant. What it actually meant was that seventy-two million accounts watched at least two minutes of The Old Guard. According to Netflix, two minutes was “long enough to indicate the choice was intentional,” even though Netflix designed its viewing experience to be totally unintentional. An essential part of Netflix’s platform is its autoplay feature, which launches users into the next episode of a television series, or an algorithmically chosen movie, seconds after a program ends and sometimes just before the credits roll.”
— Video Games Can’t Afford to Look This Good - Zachary Small, The New York Times, Dec. 26, 2024
“Optimizing cinematic games for a narrow group of consumers who have spent hundreds of dollars on a console or computer may no longer make financial sense. Studios are increasingly prioritizing games with basic graphics that can be played on the smartphones already in everyone’s pocket.”
Currently listening: Higher - Sleep Token