Ben Thompson: “The PC epoch had Windows as its operating system, productivity software as its killer app, and email was the dominant communications medium. The Internet epoch had the browser as its operating system, search as its killer app, and social networking, particularly Facebook, was the dominant communications medium. The mobile epoch had iOS and Android as its operating systems, the sharing economy as its killer app, and messaging was the dominant communications medium…If consumer tech’s second epoch — the Internet — was built on and enabled by the first — the PC — then it follows that the fourth epoch is built on and enabled the third. Both the creator economy and metaverses fit the bill: yes, some creators can make a go of it on the web, but I’ll be the first to say that that is only possible because of social networks. What seems more likely are that creators emerge on platforms built to accommodate them, and those platforms themselves will sit on top of mobile. That is even more likely to be the case when it comes to metaverses, which are likely able to deliver superior experiences as a native app than as a web app.”
David Cutler: “One of the most important things that we’ve observed about the world is that people who are better educated are in better health. That’s true virtually systematically, and it’s increasingly so over time. That is, the gap between people with a college degree and people without a college degree is growing over time, even as other gaps, for example, between whites and Blacks, are shrinking over time.”
Simon Kuper: ” If you write, a book is the highest expression of yourself. It will probably outlive you on Amazon. A book is an end in itself.”
