Time for a Web Reset; Dumb TVs; Subscription ideas

Composed under the glow of a ghostly Wolf Moon

A recent Wolf Moon (Credit: Lance Ulanoff)

A Web and Tech reset

Last week, Microsoft announced one of the biggest acquisition deals in its history (in the history of tech deals, really): A $70b takeover of Activision Blizzard. Even as a relative non-gamer, I knew this was big. My son, an avid gamer who is not always on top of all tech news asked me with a glint in his eye if we were “all over this,” at TechRadar. I assured him we were.

But the thing that this deal triggered was, for me, a lot more questions about tech consolidation and if we’re on the right path.

First, there was the bizarre coincidence that the FTC and DOJ announced that they would be seeking to review merger and acquisition rules, changes that could radically alter what the U.S. sees as OK for tech and other industry sectors.

At the same time, Congress is thinking hard about breaking up existing tech giants like Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Apple. All of them have been making the argument that splitting up these companies could make us less competitive and consumers less safe. Oddly, few are buying these arguments.

Finally, the father of the Web, Tim Berners-Lee, said he thinks it’s time for a bit of a reset. He’s focused on finding a way to break the data we store with all these companies out of their siloes and into portable containers that consumers can take wherever they go.

Then there’s Wordle. I know, how does Wordle fit into this? Think of it as a test case for how the Internet could have gone. Apparently, its creator Josh Wardle created the game not just as a way for him to stay connected to his wife but as sort of the anti-silicon valley product. He worked in the tech sector and understood all the levers you pull to make something grow big, force you to stick around and go viral. Then he did the opposite.

I’ve written about this, already. Wordle is wonderful because of its purity of purpose and its utter lack of “and have you looked at this?” come-ons. It remains a once-a-day distraction with results you can share. Others are trying to copy it (Wardle is actually okay with that, I’m less so), but none have repeated the joy of the game. Not everyone understands this. One guy on Twitter told me to change my computer Time Zone to access the next day’s game. NO! I’m not going to do that.

This all got me thinking. What if Wardle had developed Facebook instead of Mark Zuckerberg. It would’ve drawn us in on its own merits but never worked overtime to own our attention.

You see, virtually everything Silicon Valley and other tech companies do, including deals like Microsoft and Activision, is about building new ways to hold our attention and own our data. Wordle isn’t interested in any other that. It’s just a simple game that we love.

The Internet and a lot of digital technology are more of an addiction. Don’t get me wrong, I love it–pretty much all of it–but very little of it is designed to help me stop, step away, and do something else.

When your smart TV is dumb

The other night our big TCL Roku stopped responding. The screen turned green, and we struggled to get it back to a nightly Seinfeld viewing. Eventually, the TV recovered, but I learned the next morning that this was not our issue. It was a Roku-wide network one.

Like most smart TVs, Roku sets like my TCL connect to the Internet. They even get regular platform updates. I didn’t think it matters what’s happening with the Roku service if your software is local and you’re using your service provider’s pipe to stream content. Turns out, though, that Roku TVs, like Roku streaming boxes, need that uninterrupted connection to the big Roku system in the sky.

The disruption knocked my set offline (and millions of others I think). It didn’t last long but it was frustrating.

It might make more sense for Roku to change its system so that it operates locally unless it needs something from the Service. Basically, mirror whatever operations you can locally as a backup. They might be slower, but at least everything else, cable, HDMI connections, etc. might keep working. Then these Smart TVs can truly live up to their names.

Sub this

Twitter, Instagram, TikTok are all toying with or enabling subscription tiers for their services. You pay creators a monthly fee and get access to exclusive content. I like how it might help creators finally get paid for their work, as opposed to the advertisers who run spots in between.

Still, the rollout for all this has been slow and on Twitter, for instance, it’s unclear who has it and what people are getting for their money.

You see, the prospect of getting people to pay you for something you do naturally (like I tweet) is tantalizing. But figuring out how to create an uber-tier of subscriber-only content isn’t.

Creators should probably go the traditional publishing route and carve away some stuff they were already giving away for free. So, you erect a paywall around, say, original videos or threads, but leave the rest of your tweets untouched. In this way, you’re not scrambling to create something original just for your subscribers.

I offer this advice free of charge - no subscription necessary- to all my friends on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok.

Stay safe

See you soon