I think the acknowledgement is implicit in this piece - current structures have allowed this "power capture" and need to be improved. The point the author makes is that blockchain has very obvious avenues for the same power capture and that for this reason, it's not a better option than the difficult work of improving existing and well-explored systems of power/political order.
That’s a bit of a fallacy - you can legitimately point out the shortcomings of something without needing to name an alternative (e.g. criticizing Ponzi schemes). In this case, though, you could actually have an alternative of simply not using blockchain. The world was just fine for a long time without it.
In my experience selling a consumer product, barely a month goes by without a new PR/marketing agency telling me we should “go for the green angle”. Few people seem to understand that, like you said, these common differentiators, in my case “green/natural”, have become extremely commoditized.
The insured pay the price. Hospitals will never turn away a patient with a medical emergency - the inability of certain patients to pay is factored into hospital finances, raising the price for those who do pay.
I was turned on to “no design” newsletters by Jeff Bezos’ updates on Blue Origin. They read and feel like a personal note from him, even though I know I’m just an entry on a big list.
Since then, I’ve made all important announcements to my company’s customers via this “personal”, no-design style. The reply-to is my direct email address, which I think deepens the personal touch of this style, and prevents me from abusing this format for marketing spam (since I inevitably get a few dozen replies from customers every time I send an email like this).
On the note of this style being more effective just because it’s different: There’s certainly an element of that, but I don’t think a really personal-feeling email can work for frequent marketing emails. First, I think the real reply-to is a critical part of a “personal” email, and second, I think companies will understand that this style works better when reserved for infrequent communication that you really want read. At our company, our standard marketing goes out designed. But when I want to announce a new product or feature, I’ll send it out just like an email from my outbox (plus the mandatory unsubscribe link). My customers read those emails more than any others, and I’ve never had a bad response.
It's often said [0] that every language is conducive to a unique worldview - in my personal experience, I see the world very differently in Polish than I do in English. Yet even if that worldview perspective may be intangible (i.e. hard to prove), the simple cultural value of each language is tremendous. Losing a language is like burning the Mona Lisa - along with every photo, copy, or file of her ever made.
You're right, Meltwater and Optimizely aren't as bad as it gets (84.51 definitely is). And after spending some time on those websites, you're able to get a pretty good sense for what they do.
My main point is that it shouldn't ever be difficult for a potential customer to quickly get to that understanding, and I do believe these sites could do a far better job at quickly and clearly explaining their companies' function... just like you did.
"Meltwater's flagship product is media monitoring". "Optimizely is a website A/B testing tool". Boom.
Oh, okay, that makes sense. Probably some super-secure online backup service...
>Encryption: Your data can only be accessed with your personal keys. We can't access your data even if we wanted to!
>Source code: The client code is available. You don't need to trust us; you can check the encryption yourself!
>Deduplication: Only the unique data between your current files and encrypted archives is uploaded.
Wow, that's... extremely clear. That's literally everything I wanted to know, save for maybe pricing...
>Storage: 250 picodollars / byte-month of encoded data
>Bandwidth: 250 picodollars / byte of encoded data
...aha, it's something confusing!
>($0.25 / GB-month)
...never mind. This is extremely clear.
I could keep going, but as far as copy, this website is excellent. And even the design could be considered a plus given your target audience.
Though if Tarsnap ever gets a GUI, I would suggest giving the website one as well :)
"Talent is Overrated" is a great pop exploration of this and similar findings. If you find this interesting, I highly recommend that book as a jumping off point for exploring similar findings.
You neglect to mention the fact that we are so used to seeing 24 fps that anything above it doesn't look like a movie.
Why do home videos have that "home video" look? The biggest reason is the 60 fps frame rate - it just doesn't feel cinematic. Even the 48 fps of the Hobbit films felt too "lifelike" and not cinematic enough.
A lot of prominent directors, as you've mentioned, say they'd like to move towards a world with higher frame rates. But that'll be a bitter pill to swallow for a viewing public that unconsciously believes "cinema" means 24 fps.
3D in particular is very difficult to watch at frame rates as low as 24 fps - a big reason it makes so many people nauseous, and a big reason so many directors are saying we need higher frame rates.
High resolution may not be a huge positive but it is definitely not a negative. There's nothing inherently cinematic or better about low resolution like there is about 24 fps, and if excessive sharpness feels jarring in a scene, the cinematographer can elect to use a lens with a softer focus.
And the strobing effect you mention - unless we're talking 3D (where motion blur feels wrong), a low shutter rate and consequent good amount of motion blur easily avoid strobing.
Should be noted that while the article calls Rocket Lab a US firm operating in NZ, it's been an NZ firm since its first day, and only went to the US for funding.
Exciting news not only because it shows commercial spaceflight is becoming global, but because Rocket Lab has one of the most ambitious launch schedules out there.
One could argue that the basics involve putting sounds together in the simplest way possible - something like this. And that it takes far more work and skill to get to the advanced, low level stuff like writing on staff paper (and on the production side, compression, EQ, mastering, etc.).
To put it another way: Is learning x86 assembly the "basics of computer programming"?
I've heard it from a friend working at one that it's 0.5-2% of a deal (the bigger the deal the smaller the cut), and here's a Quora discussion that corroborates that figure [0].