1. Four years is a long time in tech punditry
I'm going to break one of my self-imposed rules and include a link to a piece I wrote, on how John Gruber's attitude towards Meta's privacy-violating monopoly has changed over the past four years. You can work out what changed John's mind. I couldn't possibly comment.
2. Why we do reviews
It's not for of the companies whose products we look at. Back when I was starting Alphr, MKBHD was one of the reviewers we looked to as the gold standard: approachable, accurate, personal. Nothing has changed on that score, he's still superb at what he does.
3. This week's “no”
4. The rot economy is real
Ed Zitron has been writing so much good stuff lately, and this piece delivers. As he notes, venture capital doesn't reward “good” companies – it rewards companies that can be profitably flipped. The system is broken.
5. Tesla was always a bubble stock
The Wall Street Journal does something that's long overdue and has a look at the inside story of Tesla's fall to earth. Technology companies are often valued by their potential for future growth, and Tesla was no exception. But at one point it was also valued at more than the rest of the car industry put together. That's well beyond potential future profits and into bubble territory – unless you believe that at some point in the future, Tesla would have had a monopoly on cars. Now, of course, it faces competition, and unsurprisingly, the traditional carmakers build better quality vehicles than Tesla, and the Chinese companies build them cheaper AND better. Even Elon Musk's ability to make himself the main character every day isn't going to save them.
6. The internet is broken
“Your Uber driver is lost because his app hasn’t updated and keeps telling him to turn down streets that no longer exist. You still give him five stars.” File this under “I wish I had written it.” Brilliant.
7. There is no EU cookie banner law
No, really, there isn't. I think the biggest mistake of GDPR was not being tough enough.
8. CEOs are just as dumb as everyone else
Just as likely to fall for conspiracy nonsense, just as likely to repost it. And in tech, they're terminally online, too, which makes them even more likely to fall for bullshit.
9. Welcome to the new feudal era
If you want a clear explanation of how and why we are falling back into feudalism, Cory has you covered. This is why the EU DMA is so important: it's an attempt to wrestle us back from the edge of rentiers and liege lords and into competitive markets again.
10. Nilay
If MKBHD was one of our touchstones when building Alphr, The Verge was the other. This is a great, long interview with Nilay Patel, AKA the smartest man in tech journalism. If you're in any kind of journalism, you should read it.
