Making sense of tech this week

There's been a bunch of things in the tech world I've been reading about this week.

1. Apple Vision Pro. I haven't tried it and I know it's just the first release, so it's hard to know what this will be long term. In the meantime, just go watch The Verge's take: "magic, until it's not", or obnoxious videos of people wearing them in the wild.

2. There's been countless rolling layoffs across the tech sector. At the macro this appears to be a combination of the end of the zero interest rate policy period (ZIRP) and many tech companies consequently hiring heavily in the past decade. But zooming in, many people are losing their jobs. This article does a good job of looking at the context and the individual impact:

There doesn’t seem to be a new, cheap distribution channel akin to the early internet, or a new gadget that could spur growth without the need for advertising, like the smartphone did. This means that if you build a tech product customers are willing to pay for, you still need to pay platforms like Google for search and app store ads, Meta for social media ads, Apple for app store ads, and Amazon, to reach potential customers. These ads are expensive, and so growth hacking – getting traffic via free or cheap methods – has become more popular with startups.
The end of the ZIRP period and cheap distribution, can already be felt by those working in tech. It’s harder to get funding, and harder to reach new customers. Most businesses already feel the pressure, and some have responded, but many are yet to. Here’s what this will mean for tech workers, and how to prepare.

The end of 0% interest rates: what the new normal means for software engineers (The Pragmatic Engineer)

3. Lastly, I've been trying to make sense of the social media landscape. TikTok has become a full blown e-commerce store, which was inevitable. YouTube is the most used platform. And Threads is sort of becoming the de-facto but not quite the same replacement for X.
   
   I'm still thinking about how the media we use shape the way we think, and with that is this wonderful take of text-based social media platforms.

The successful social media network is an aquarium. The influencers and posters are the denizens — jellyfish, filter feeders, sharks, octopuses, rays, squid, clownfish, and so on. The lurkers are the visitors, marveling at the shape and color of the aquarium’s denizens. Trying to make the aquarium actually functional is an impossible task; better to simply adopt an attitude of slim-pickens-riding-the-atom-bomb.gif.

Toward a unified taxonomy of text-based social media use (The Verge)

💩 Cool shit

Big PDF – This is just wonderful. Someone attempted to make the largest PDF in the world.

Infinite Craft – Combine different elements and materials to create something new.

GPT Grooves – GPT generated music in a uniquely free-form interface.

Time-specific websites – A collection of websites which aren't always available.

Just For Fun – A collection of fun, creative coding.

Kala Watch – A neat visualization of different units of time.

The Sphere - If you're looking to imagine what could go on The Sphere, this is the place to do it.

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