society

Between Rock and a.. podcast?

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Just because you can do it doesn’t make it a great business model. Take music streaming, for example.

Image by Chloe Ridgeway on Unsplash

Spotify, the world’s most popular streaming service, has been the target of some Internet ire in the last week or so. Neil Young, the creator of the legendary Pono digital media player (apparently he made some music too?), decided he didn’t want anything to do with Spotify. 

Why all the righteous indignation?

Spotify pays Joe Rogan, a media personality / MMA commentator / master of “doing his own research,” over $100m to have exclusive rights to his wildly popular podcast. 

Apparently, Mr. Rogan has some interesting ideas around COVID, vaccinations, and horse de-worming medication. Not particularly controversial topics 😬. 

Why is this a big deal for Spotify?

Music streaming is a terrible business. Spotify has been bleeding cash for years and only recently turned a meager profit. The company had an operating margin of 1.4% in the first nine months of last year. No hockey sticks in sight.

The reason? It has to pay royalties to music labels for each music stream. The value from streaming accrues to the music companies, not to the streamers or artists.

Spotify makes its money not from streaming but from selling subscriptions and advertising. 

This is where podcasts come in. Spotify pays millions to Joe Rogan because he brings in a massive audience in the highly desirable 18-34 demographic. Spotify offers targeted advertising on podcasts to its most important customers, advertisers. This makes much more economic sense than making tiny margins on each stream of, let’s say, “Rockin’ in the Free World.” 

The risk to Spotify in this, slightly ridiculous, situation is not losing access to rock & roll; its not being able to monetize their investments in podcasting. 

Spotify would rather you come for the music and stay for Elon Musk smoking some fine herb  with his buddy Joe Rogan. 

They have set up expectations for their users that they can stream any song at any time. So they have to double down on more economically viable content like the Joe Rogan Experience. 

I am sure there is a Neil Young song about rocks and hard places..

Propaganda in the age of Wikileaks

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Gloria Origgi, in Edge 335 states that we are leaving the information age behind and are entering a reputation age. She posits that one of the reasons for the influence Wikileaks wields in current political and social discourse is due to powerful, and reputed media organisations like the New York Times and The Guardian acting as conduits for it’s revelations.  We trust the contents of the Wikileaks secrets because of our implicit trust of these formidable media organisations.  We believe the revelations because we believe in the integrity of the Guardian or the Times.

When a reputed newspaper breaks a story, we assume that the sources have been vetted, and that the editors have double checked the allegations / revelations before publishing them.  Wikileaks, however, presents an interesting dilemma.  The contents of the leaks were uploaded by someone (presumably PFC Bradley Manning) within the US military establishment.   The behaviour of the US government (and other governments) subsequently offer some reassurance that these diplomatic cables did come from within their organisations.  Not surprisingly, “Cablegate” has become perhaps the media event of the year (or even the decade).  Hordes of commentators have descended on the Guardian website venting their spleen about the evils of the US government, and the hypocrisy of US foreign policy.

I can’t help but be a little cynical about this hoopla.  Yes, clearly some of the contents of leaks may jeopardise national (or indeed international) security.  However, I wonder how easy it would be for a government, or any other organisation to manipulate public opinion via a channel like Wikileaks.  Could Wikileaks itself be used as tool for government (or indeed corporate propaganda)?  Would it be easier for the US government to sell overt support of a South Korean invasion of North Korea given the cables published on the topic?  Would it be easier for the state department to withdraw a diplomat / intelligence agent from a tricky situation abroad now that he has been “outed” and him disappearing would look very bad for the host nation?

Yes, this is tinfoil hat territory.  I just want to convey that we should think twice before taking the contents of the Cablegate memos at face value.  Even if the leak was unintended (as it appears), it could be quite easy for a motivated organisation (government etc.) to move quickly and use it as another avenue for propaganda.

Meetings

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I wonder if there is a simple and straightforward formula which determines the value proposition of having a meeting at work.  Corporations love looking at the bottom line.  Cost saving measures abound in these economically straightened times.  Travel budgets are slashed, weary executives travel coach class and nights out on the company expense accounts usually stretch no further than a burger at TGI Fridays, if you are lucky.

It is depressing when you attend a meeting knowing fully that it is pointless.  It is doubly depressing when you know your fellow attendees probably feel the same way,  but nobody else wants to cancel the meeting.  I guess it depends on the corporate culture.  Here in Tokyo, decision making is basically building consensus, and meetings are all about sharing information.  What ends up happening is you have ten people sitting in a room and one person talking.  Out of the ten, maybe three would have some idea on what is going on.  Two will be asleep, and the rest would be nodding but with a glazed over look in their eyes.

So, is there a solution?  Maybe have Outlook or Notes or your meeting organizer somehow hookup to the HR database and come up with how much the meeting is costing the company?  If you have ten people, each costing say $50 an hour to employ, an hour long meeting is going to cost $500.  Is it worth the expense?  Would it be better to get everybody out of the office and to a bar or a restaurant for a meal (probably costing around $500 – TGIFridays!).  Maybe people can have a bit of fun, and relax and get something done as opposed to just sitting around slowly sinking into a dazed sort of stupor.

Echo Chamber

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Does anybody even remember the term “Information Superhighway” any more?  Do you remember a pre-global warming, pre-divorce, skinny Al Gore and his dubious claims on inventing the Internet?  We were told about having the world’s knowledge at our finger tips. The Internet would free information and provide the most egalitarian way to get to knowledge previously limited to inhabitants of ivory towers.  But what happened?  The story of the last ten years unfolds almost like a moralistic tale. Like Midas and his golden touch or like the Genie from Arabian nights and their granting of life wishes that destroy lives.

We don’t learn any more.  We bookmark.  We don’t read any more, we skim.  We don’t discuss any more, we forward links to points, and another set of links to counter points, followed by links for the conclusion.  When we do decide to comment, it is a comment made in character, stereotypical.

We all live in an echo chamber of our stereotype.  Our voices bounce off the walls, and are magnified by those of our peers, also of our stereotype.  These voices then pour out of the mouth of the chamber and as an atonal roar that clashes with those coming out of other chambers.  We are here, shouting at one another, but not bothering to understand why or what we are shouting for.  We like shouting because it is what we do, our slogans are what define us.