adamlgerber

Google has significantly more data than merely what you're googling.

virtually every website transaction is observed by Google Analytics. nearly everywebsite has a google pixel installed. nearly every phyical location you visit and relationship you have is logged by Google.

even if you never use google search, they have you marked

everyone here is talking about eels but i prefer icktok

sure, call it entertainment rather than social. very fair comment, but that is not a distinction this paper is making. the paper is also talking about tiktok too which falls into the same entertainment category.

i feel like the underlying thesis of this is maybe wrong. someone closer to the methodology would know better but here is what i see:

(1) Meta and Google have seen their growth slow (not shrink) because they reach virtually the entirety of the online population, especially in the US. Meanwhile their time spent metrics continue to rise.

(2) Reddit is called out as a modest grower but its usage has more than doubled in the US since 2021 from 90M to 170M (according to emarketer).

Doenst mean the conclusions are wrong (i agree with it on polarization) but the growth measures seem to not reflect reality.

mixed bags are our favorite thing to argue about

Building and growing a business of any size is probably one of the most intellectually stimulating lives possible. People work for years without any where close to his amount of engagement with the world.

I really admire Rob for his blog, life experience, and some truely unique and powerful perspectives.

This type of culture war bait is a little lame though. Its even more lame that he isnt welcome in certain bookstores for some reason. His book is still going to sell great and its those bookstores loss for not seeing his value.

your fact is incontestable, but labeling this as 'sad' is.

Scott Alexander is not for everyone (as I've learned by unsuccessfully foisting him on friends for years) but for people who are even remotely interested he is probably the greatest internet writer alive.

I'd love to hear alternative GOATs.

Tyler Cowen: “I believe this is the first major work published in GPT-4, Claude 2, and some other services to come. I call it a generative book.”

i love this project. i feel like this is going to be a great source of interest and value over the next few years (and potentially immesurable value over longer time frames).

odd thing to be snarky about. organized religious practices coevolved with agricultural societies. I don't think this is that scandalous?