Hey everyone 👋
Thing is, for folks like me, committing to something weekly is just a challenge. With work and family going on, every weekend is the day to work on these weekly articles - and then for a couple of weeks, life decides to ‘happen’.
So here we are, trying to not miss another week, late at night - in your inbox with another issue of What The Tech.
Let’s dig in.
Story 1: Don’t Judge The Product By Its Launch (But Cover….Maybe….Still…Yes)
Links to refer:
Meta CTO explains why the smart glasses demos failed at Meta Connect — and it wasn’t the Wi-Fi
I regret to inform you Meta’s new smart glasses are the best I’ve ever tried
I don’t know if you have noticed or not, but ever since Covid, most companies have now opted out of doing live demos. Apple, Google, XYZ, pre-recorded, highly edited, cinematic videos show on a stage with the C staff waving their hands around with power poses.
No live demo, no risk of products not working on stage, no risk of awkward silence, no instant social media scandals.
Everything neatly wrapped in a marketing package someone got paid millions to tie a ribbon around with language that seems out of every company’s own dictionary.
Then, knowing all this, why would Meta even bother doing a live demo? that too, of a product which is fairly new to the market, fairly untested. I don’t know? Courage?
Suffice to say, the live demo did fail spectacularly, and we got everyone from Mark to other execs blaming the Wi-Fi. As someone who works in Product and has done a lot of demos, that is the go-to-victim of every failed click interaction.
But, surprisingly, against everyone’s expectations after the failed demo, the product? Meta Smart Glasses thingy (you can tell my enthusiasm by their naming) is actually pretty dang cool.
Not only that now you can slap on AI to your face, you can actually visualize pretty nifty stuff with the built-in straight to your retinas display.
Droopy eye is gonna be the new trend, I suppose.
Hey, all this tells you is hope is not all lost just because a live demo failed.
And maybe not do live demos, or maybe do more of them so you go viral?
But here’s my issue with this product. It’s by Meta.
Sad thing is, rebranding does work. I actually know folks who don’t associate Meta with Facebook anymore, and think of it as just ‘some company’.
For someone who grew on the terrible Facebook, steal-yo-data era - I just can’t put my trust in a product which is gonna be optimized to sell me more ads. My wallet already can’t take any more beating by the Insta ads it has to bow down to.
Then there is the whole question of having a dashcam on your forehead.
Walking around, boom, recorded.
And maybe for some that isn’t a concern, but as someone who likes to lead a semi-private life; I just feel icky.
Let’s just say someone somewhere recently got into a car accident, and the very next day it was found out that there were viral clips of it online, what good ‘journalism’ we have here.
And devices like this, gives everyone another reason to be strapped on and ready to violate everyone’s privacy in a matter of seconds.
Though on the other hand, this can be handy for people who want to record harm done to them.
I guess we give everyone head dashcams and let social justice insurance policy figure out who’s at fault.
As a product, I think it is cool that we have come so far along. I am also happy with the fact that this seems to strengthen the position of a mixed reality future rather than strapping a headset and blocking your surroundings out (no thanks AVP).
Now all I have to do is just wait maybe 10 years till someone less Meta’ish releases the same thing with 8 times the price tag, wink wink, a certain fruit.
Story 2: Oh, It Is Actually Dead
Links to refer:
So a while back I deeply enjoyed this interview with CEO of Google, done by one of the best interviewers out there - Nilay Patel, Verge Big Boss:
Now a common theme of the conversation that Nilay wanted to push on was that Google is killing the internet. AI has messed up traffic, the whole 9 yards.
And to each query, Pichai just said, nah bruh - you delulu.
And now 4 months later, the very same company is admitting that,
maybe, just maybe, not delulu?
It’s official, boys and girls (and attack helicopters) - internet is dying - wee.
But not maybe in the way you may think.
Yes it is dying in the obvious way, that search traffic is way lower than ever before.
Most folks now Google → Grab the AI Summary → Argue with Random Strangers → Who are also using AI for their responses. It’s a dog eat dog world out there.
But the thing is, maybe this is a wakeup call - back to good ol days, back to newsletters, and curation, and ‘owning’ your consumption.
No more days of top 10 pajamas you need to buy this Christmas articles from Forbes and CNN (Yes, they like affiliate revenue too, what? you thought they just report on BUSINESS and Wars?). And more of I would like to consume content to my curation’s desires.
Now there will be a gap, a huge gap.
What I reckon will happen is that most folks, who already don’t care about their consumption habits, will just end up consuming AI slop - the brain degradation will be steady, and there’s not much me or you can do about it.
But for folks, who actually care about what they read, actually want to learn new things, actually care about ‘human’ opinion - would be reading stuff like this, and subscribing to support such good creators. Plz subscribe.
But before that shift happens, the whole internet needs to change how it works.
Expect more websites to go beyond paywalls, more stuff to be unsearchable, even Verge is now pushing you to subscribe.
On one side you gain access to the world’s knowledge (hallucinations not included) using AI chatbots - but on the other side, you lose access to the wisdom behind it.
Wisdom that made knowledge actionable. Opinions, deep dives, personal connection - all of that will die - if you don’t support it.
All that will be left, is one agenda, one over affirmative glazing chatter-box - you will be using to get your daily dose of sugar free and cancer-full mental diet.
The dead internet theory is no longer just a myth. In a world where we see the largest population ever online, we are now seeing the largest slop being created on both sides -
AI comments on AI videos
AI email replies to AI spam email campaigns
AI scrappers to scrap AI generated copy
AI recruiters to AI employees
‘Mass Regurgitation’
That’s all.
What’s New With Us?
Well, writing this weekly issue has been more challenging than I initially thought.
But I am pushing strong. Thanks to the team I have that helps us push more content for your consumption.
But when it comes to writing stuff myself, it really is challenging. See this whole venture is self funded, we do have a donations page, but who cares about supporting anything these days. The world is already as expensive as it is, and doesn’t seem to get any cheaper.
Maybe one day when all hope is lost, folks do come crawling back for some originality.
But until that happens, I truly do want to play my part in this larger world and hope to bring a small change.
This publication is my longest passion driven initiative, to spread love and knowledge about technology as it is, for the laymen, from a POV of someone who deals with tech day in and day out.
But on top of that, about 2 years ago, I also started a community.
And for the last 12 months, we have been building a tribe of people working on execution first efforts. Talk the talk, but walk the walk - and that is what The Wandering Pro is all about.
After 12 months of validation, I think we are ready to publicly push on our community’s flagship activity → The 30 Day Challenge, learn more about it and it’s recent launch by clicking here.
Besides that, I am a bit disappointed that we don’t get a lot of comments or feedback on articles these days. Again, we are still pretty small - but I really do wish that soon we get a bit more oomph out of this kind of content.
I really do want to start building content around feedback rather than ‘this new AI thing this week’.
Thanks for reading - and
As always, with or without my help - I wish you the best.