Edition 27

The Ghost of Twitter's Past haunts me, What is Zuckerberg doing, and will "Made In China" cars be no more in the US?

Oct 09, 2024

Wrong on China.

I was in Guangzhou in March 2023 and I did what it turns out was a very dumb tweet.

Nearly 20 miles out of the city, I was still to reach the new Guangzhou high-speed train station, and speeding along in a silent Taxi, I remarked “how stupid it was that they built the station so far outside the city”

The first comment set me straight, “not for long, in a few years it will be the center”, it’s at times like this that the pace of change, the scale of ambition, and the endless development hits you.

I was back in the city last month, even after Tokyo its scale shocks you, the skyscrapers feel like a forest, innumerable, endless, when you land in London afterward, you look out over West London and it seems like a quaint village. China is the only place you see newly built motorways, being built on top of slightly less newly built motorways.

China is without doubt the best place to see a future. I don’t mean “the” future, I mean a version of it. It’s the future that can happen with absolute determination, an iron rule, a clear vision, and a crushing sense that the individual is irrelevant. There is competence on a scale that bewilders anyone from Europe or the US.

What makes it truly special is none of this; it’s that this country never had to transform for the digital/social/mobile age- it was constructed for it.

There is no eCommerce, there is just commerce built for a digital world.

There are automated ports because there are no workers or unions to replace.

EVs exist as a first car, not a better car, it’s the ultimate demonstration of my long-held belief that the only way to really digitally transform is to build what you should have, not change. It’s a country that leapfrogged from being underbanked to digital money, from no landlines to smartphones, from no celebrities to countless social media influencers.

What felt different this time?

I saw the sunshine for the first time ever in 12 visits to China, I saw roads with greenery planted around them, China is always impressive, but for the first time ever, at times it seemed pleasant.
Chinese brands seemed on the rise. The ability of Chinese companies to replicate perfectly what’s been designed elsewhere has always been admirable, but now for the first time, you see local brands in Fashion, or electronics, vehicles, or even Luxury being chosen above Global counterparts.
Quality of manufacturing. I was there to source a few things, and “Made in China” has quite quickly moved from “made there because it’s cheap” to “perhaps this is the very best version of this I’ve ever seen”, be it furniture, vehicles, clothing or raw materials.

The death of the smartphone?

It seems like everyone is launching face computers, We had the Apple Vision Pro, then Snap Spectacles v9?? And now Zuckerberg showed off the AR proof of concept Orion with one of the worst Marketing images ever made.

Zuckerberg wants these to take off more than anything, He’s spanked $20bn on the metaverse with little to show, he’s not once had a good idea in his life except buying Instagram or WhatsApp, and he's annoyed because Apple and Google effectively own the end distribution point for all of his software.

His need doesn’t make a gap in the market or a market in the gap, and I think all face computing is a path of nowhere significant, or fast.

A lot of technology analysts don't agree, they have this narrative that we are at peak smartphone, and the question: what is the next platform and when?

This makes no sense to me, just because phones are becoming more identical and innovation is slowing means little. It’s usage that dictates if things are fading or growing, and there is (sadly) no evidence at all that any demographic on the planet is weaning themselves off the amphetamines for the eyes feeling of staring at a phone.

There are a couple of things about the smartphone form factor, which make them perfect for humans.

People know I'm using it (they can see I'm distracted, and privacy concerns diminish)
I can look away from it and leave it behind.
I carry it with me, not ON me
This makes ME in control, not the tech

I hope at some point people realize that if you're going to spend $30 billion chasing a dream, you should probably buy 10 even vaguely normal people a beer, and ask them what they think.

Little ones

You can’t touch this. Finally, Touchscreens are getting out of fashion. Something almost everyone who ever picked up a new rental car in 2018 onwards has been praying for.

Office surveillance is growing, have we ever thought about the powerful combination of 1. Hiring people we trust to be good, 2. Looking at outputs rather than and 3. Measuring dump stuff in ways that kill any remnant of culture?

Prediction, by 2026, I think most Chinese cars will be effectively banned from being sold in the US or EU.

MasterCard bought a service that allows you to manage and cancel subscription plans. Really great to see a payment company offer more imaginative value than lounge access and points, I love companies that try to help people navigate the modern world and save time and their sanity.

A thriving underground economy is clogging the Internet with AI garbage, and it seems likely to be getting worse, at some point, we may have to start paying for the Internet with money and not our attention.

Lots of people seem to say Google is losing its share of “search” and search advertising, but for the moment these charts are more of a reflection of the growth of new forms of search, and the shift towards placing media money ever closer to the point of sale to claim success. Search on Amazon is more akin to Trade marketing spend on placements.

Private nuclear power is becoming a big thing and from nowhere.

We forget this, but there was a period of time in the 1960’s, where most people thought that we solved energy, that we would just have abundant, cheap, reliable, everlasting power.

Oddly, one of the unexpected positive outcomes of the search for generative AI, maybe that it provides the necessity for Nuclear power

Obesity could have peaked in the USA, because it’s likely happening with Injections, a lot of people seem to have quite emotional responses. It's going to be fascinating to track how attitudes towards unhealthiness change in our lifetimes.

Regrets, Gen Z has a few. A lot of people regret spending time on social media at the same time almost nobody seems to be doing anything about it. I've long felt that the algorithmic newsfeed was the worst thing to ever happen to us.