Technology Accelerated The Affordability Problem

The affordability crisis didn’t emerge b/c prices rose; technology and innovation atomized risk, cost, and power, and households now carry the fragments.

Products got cheaper, life got harder to afford

rockatalic.substack.com/p/technology...

Sheild laws, built for institutional journalism, fail to capture the persuasive power of creators. Obvious dilemma: protecting creators who post news vs. granting legal cover to ragebait and disinfo

www.cjr.org/feature/pere...

“Stuck culture” is mostly a measurement problem; old instruments (box office, Billboard, logos, prestige TV) now track corporate risk, not cultural metabolism.

Movement lives in micro‑cultures, memes, and formats our dashboards do not see.

rockatalic.substack.com/p/culture-is...

Pessimism about the present and future of social media is totally warranted. But we're surrounded by evidence about a better future.

rockatalic.substack.com/p/an-optimis...

"Not everyone is a fan" because out-of-touch liberals don't understand how media and influence work in 2025. This is part of the job now

I've thought for some time that the next generation of journalists, even at the local level, will look a lot more like local influencers who make the content in the ways/on the platforms that today's audiences want. From ‪@helenlewis.bsky.social‬:
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

“People don’t focus enough on the basketball during the Finals”

During the Finals:

A team in the freaking Finals did a draft pick trade
Bane trade
Huge Lakers sale
Draft prep and Ace Bailey workouts are a story??
Durant trade on day of Game 7

#NBAsky

The Pacers, who wisely push the inbounds passes when the other team argues a call, also have a tendency to just hold onto the ball and not give it to the refs when they disagree with a call. #NBASky #NBAfinals

OKC's offensive strategy so far seems to be "court disaster". Dribble into crowds, minimal ball movement, all passes are wild, and keep throwing lazy passes in McConnell's direction. #NBAsky

Painful to read as an educator, but latest proof of how academia has zero presence in culture and hasn't for decades, and is much more comfortable hanging out with elite money (partially the message of last summer's Palestine-centric protests).

www.businessinsider.com/gen-z-tech-f...

This is a good week to spend more time and attention checking in with your loved ones.

Expect more projects like this; good. Protocols will improve + lower the bar for starting social projects as incumbent networks erode conditions driving their attention-driven businesses. Still, holy grail: video-driven protocol social network. Hard/expensive. Possible w/o VC $ or big co backing?