Links for February 22, 2016
Ted talk: State of the Netflix union discussion with chief content officer Ted Sarandos
Remember, prior to this, only “West Wing” had been successful in that kind of arena. And we were looking at the data to find out that there is such thing as a Kevin Spacey fan that literally watches any movie Kevin Spacey is in.... You can throw out the idea that Washington politics is too narrow a world because it’s not that it’s about Washington politics. You have to get to the deeper level and it’s really just about sex and revenge and greed and power and all those things.
This is a familiar scene. Five months ago I moved into a spartan apartment a few blocks away, where dozens of startups and thousands of tech workers live. Outside my building there’s always a phalanx of befuddled delivery guys who seem relieved when you walk out, so they can get in. Inside, the place is stuffed with the goodies they bring: Amazon Prime boxes sitting outside doors, evidence of the tangible, quotidian needs that are being serviced by the web. The humans who live there, though, I mostly never see. And even when I do, there seems to be a tacit agreement among residents to not talk to one another. I floated a few “hi’s” in the elevator when I first moved in, but in return I got the monosyllabic, no-eye-contact mumble. It was clear: Lady, this is not that kind of building.
It’s been 20 years — 20 years!? — since John Perry Barlow wrote “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace” — a rant in response to the government and corporate leaders who descend on a certain snowy resort town each year as part of the World Economic Forum (WEF).... Barlow’s dreams echoed in my head as I listened to the tech elite try to convince the other elites that they were their solution. We all imagined that the Internet would be the great equalizer, but it hasn’t panned out that way.