For a book proposal I am currently working on (German, no proposal isn’t done yet because I keep reworking stuff, my agent hates me) I am thinking a lot about late stage capitalism and technologies, about how the kinda terminal economic system shapes the technologies it brings forward etc. And there are of course a […]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/5323962

The Grift Shift is a new paradigm of debating technologies within a society that is based a lot less on the actual realistic use cases or properties of a certain technology but a surface level fascination with technologies but even more their narratives of future deliverance. Within the Grift Shift paradigm the topics and technologies addressed are mere material for public personalities to continuously claim expertise and “thought leadership” in every cycle of the shift regardless of what specific technologies are being talked about.

  • PhantomPhanatic@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    1 year ago

    You bring up some interesting points about content. I agree that a large majority of media today is so focused on quantity and hype that meaningful information is lost in the noise. I think there is a common thread there with the Silicon Valley style VC hype around whatever current thing is hot at the moment, but I felt you didn’t quite support that much in your post.

    Time will really tell for disruptive technologies we keep seeing in headlines. But I think we won’t find out until much farther in the future than people expect. Bitcoin is still around after 15 years, but didn’t prove to be as revolutionary as expected and has massive externalities that make it unappealing. It found it’s niche though.

    It takes a long time to find the unintended long term consequences that makes or breaks these high concept tech ideas. By then the gravy train is over and the next big thing is in. Some of these are grifts where someone smart enough to see the problems can avoid it but others like Air BnB or Uber don’t get sorted out until long after they screw up the market.

    A lot of this is due to the push to get a user base first then make it profitable later where the profit comes from scale and efficiency. In the meantime they sell a product that seems too good to be true because it isn’t currently sustainable.