Web Excursions 2022-01-24
is the point that I have to pour my whole self into my work if I want to achieve excellence?
[Could] I [] die in a fire if I don’t keep my perfectionism in check?
In reflecting on what happened this year, I realized I ran into three demons: Burnout, Disillusionment, and Perfectionism.
Burnout
I spent far less time writing than I did the year before, and what I did write was mostly rushed.
A lot more meetings and small tasks; a lot less wide open days with time to read and write, design and code.
Managers create extraordinary value for organizations—for which they are rewarded with increases in pay and power—
but management is often emotionally unfulfilling, especially at first.
I like to spend my days mostly making. This is who I am.
I probably spent 100 afternoons editing drafts with the same types of problems, and it was only very recently when I made the time to write a general-purpose document that we can send writers anytime they run into that particular issue.
Disillusionment
The “middle school cafeteria” vibes of the tech community have become increasingly draining for me.
I don’t feel like I belong anymore.
Sometimes I just wanna open a new tab and learn the aerodynamics of how an F1 car could drive upside down in a tunnel.
I don’t think I’ll ever have the same relationship to the tech community as I used to, and I think that’s a good thing.
Demoting the status it holds in my brain creates more room for me to follow my curiosity and focus on making things that are useful to people.
Caring less about the tech “community” will paradoxically help me focus more on the actual technologies, companies, and people that I care about.
Perfectionism
My basic style has been to come up with a big, original, creative idea, fixate on it, and then work furiously to make it happen.
I like to learn how systems work and try to build a bottoms-up model of how all the pieces fit together,
and then come up with new approaches that might seem weird at first but reflect this fundamental understanding.
I don’t like to reason by analogy or think about ideas in a fuzzy, probabilistic way.
Even if something is widely seen to not “typically” work, I still like to do it if I come up with a mechanism I think could solve the problem.
when I was at Substack. I thought we could only get big-name writers to come on board if we offered more than the 90% revshare, and expanded to providing significant upfront funding, marketing and branding resources.
At the time we did not have the bandwidth to offer these things to writers, but I was fixated on it and wanted to make it work.
Same thing at Every. I wanted to create a bundle to make access to great business writing more affordable for readers, and to make access to large audiences more available to writers.
I thought we could get business writers with wildly different styles, audiences, and topic focuses to all co-exist under the same brand
because we could use personalization, all within the context of a bundled subscription.
I get too fixated on these abstract ideas, and it hurts my ability to see what’s right in front of me with clear eyes
our expectations shape our perception of reality, and the more tightly you cling to your expectations the more everything gets filtered and colored according to your preconceptions.
If something didn’t fit with my model, it was a threat, and I either ignored it or suppressed it, or got really anxious about it.
Previously I thought anyone writing about business for a vaguely tech audience would be a good fit, because readers can always subscribe and unsubscribe to each newsletter separately.
Now I’m learning our model works much better if we think about ourselves as pretty much just a new kind of magazine.
The central “Every” editorial brand needs to stand for something more specific,
because if we put the burden of pitching a value proposition to readers on each individual newsletter it creates an incoherent overall experience for readers.
The problem is when I fixate on too specific and narrow a frame of reference, creating perfection inside the frame and havoc outside of it.
For 2022, my third year of working on Every, I have three goals:
to spend my days making things I am proud of,
to reconnect with my curiosity and write about things I care about, and
to hold my models much less tightly.
As far as management duties, I am trying to be much **more open and flexible. **
The key will be to notice when I am operating within a fixed, rigid frame, and
remind myself that I actually can move closer toward excellence
when I expand the frame and pay attention to what’s happening around me.
The thread that unites these three goals is the idea of service.
When I think about spending less time on management, it makes me worried I’m being selfish.
But I realized a core thing I am good at, one of my unique superpowers, is producing creative work.
And I am at my best when I’m producing creative work that’s meant as a gift for other people. I want it to be genuinely helpful.
It’s not about showing how smart I am or indulging myself by trying to create space to just do whatever I want,
it’s about creating space to make things that could be meaningful to someone else.
And nothing we make can be special unless we pour ourselves into it.
It is true that the process can completely consume us.
But the crucible we enter when we attempt to make something special is a place
that has the possibility of transforming us into something more beautiful than anything we could have imagined.
经过快 20 年的产品迭代，内容产品/社区吸引创作者已经有了非常标准且清晰的「底层逻辑」：要么有流量，要么有钱赚，至少做好一个就能到一定规模。
有流量的简单解释就是：
在新场景中高效率产生新内容，例如手机、VR 等
在新需求中高效率生产旧内容，例如 B 站、知乎、小红书等。
创作者生产的内容最终目的都是给目标用户消费，两者会在不同的地方达成严肃（付费）或松散（关注）的契约关系，但在实际履行这些契约时会面临两个具体的问题：
作为一个创作者，是否愿意放弃履行在其他渠道的契约？
只有非常少的渠道可以让创作者发布的内容稳定送达给订阅者
「流量 = 影响力，影响力 = 收入」已经成为当前创作者的金科玉律，目前市面上的流量一共就三种类型：
公共流量（广点通\穿山甲等广告平台，花钱就能买）、
平台流量（内容平台内部流量，算法和运营想给谁就给谁）、
社交流量（微信、QQ 等自己可控的社交工具以及内容平台的关注 feed，影响周围的亲朋好友和已经关注自己的人）。
标准做法就成了：渠道方通过购买公共流量做大自己的平台流量，再通过算法/运营等手段分发平台流量给创作者。
「垄断尽可能多的独家内容做大平台，通过算法高效率分配流量」这已经是当下内容产品事实上的唯一解。
收入方式基本可以划分为两类：平台给的和自己赚的。
补贴只是一点点小钱，真正能称得上「赚钱」还是得靠自己的能力从用户口袋里掏钱，大多数创作者会通过广告商来将自己的影响力变现
[但问题是]
广告带来的收入极度不稳定
广告收入和粉丝信任的平衡
「在获得一定量的粉丝之前用爱发电，通过提供广告主服务变现」基本上是目前大部分内容创作者的共同道路。
因为作品无法在真空中传输，所以有了一个负责传输和传播内容的中间角色，让整体变成了三方关系
一个好的平台应该可以同时把控需求和供给，形成自己的护城河。
Web3 认为过大的单一垄断平台是问题的根源，如果在这个内容传递过程中换掉平台方这个角色，则需要回到前文提到的核心问题上：如何解决流量和钱的问题
需要设计机制鼓励每个人分享当下看到的内容，在 Web 2.0 世界被验证最有用的就是给钱，这个基本逻辑在 Web3 世界也适用。
这个**「钱」是凭空出现的**，通过算法来定义它的获取难度、获取方式和总量，对这个网络贡献越多的人获得的「钱」也就越多，这一切都是透明的，
从而避免了 Web 2.0 世界需要付出的努力越来越大，收益却越来越低的拼多多行为。
同时，创作者的主要收益也不再是广告和平台补贴，而是前文提到的「钱」。
这个「钱」由创作者制造并用于激励传播的同时自己也会保留一部分，
但这个「钱」并不是类似我们日常使用的人民币，而是更像是股票：
如果你为创作者做了更多事情，例如分享他的作品，提出了有效的建议等，就可以获得这份「股票」，
随着创作者的作品越来越受欢迎，未来能成为一个成功项目的概率逐渐变大，想要获得这个「股票」的人也会越来越多，这个「股票」的价格也会水涨船高，
通过这种方式创建出更具凝聚力的粉丝社群。
在这样的逻辑下，「股票」如何运转就成为了至关重要的一环，
因而诞生了 Token Economics 这样的垂直领域，
目标则是设计一个让「股票」健康运转的系统，这也是评估一个项目是否靠谱最重要的因素。
过去经常会看到一个讨论：能不能有一个跟钱没有那么强相关的 Web3 世界？
从创作者或者内容方向来看，金融属性已经牢牢嵌入进这个体系，钱的流转方式已经是产品设计中最重要的一环：
在 Web 2.0 世界中，流量是整个系统的燃料，有了流量才会有后面的一切，所以这些产品们才需要诸如数据、算法、独家内容等方式垄断和获取注意力，
如果创作者获得不到流量，那他的离开只是个时间问题。
而在 Web3 世界中，钱 [i.e., token] 变成了整个系统的燃料，
这也是为什么在 Web3 产品里干什么都要钱，为什么要设计好经济流转系统的原因，同时投资要比消费能让人掏出更多的钱，
或许这也是 Web3 能聚集如此庞大资金量的原因之一。
在 Web 2.0 的世界里，很多人常说的一句话是「注意力就是钱，我看你的东西就是在给你付钱」，
但实际上来看这些**「钱」其实是给了这个平台方而非创作者自己**，
在每一个环节的 ROI 都被精确计算到了平台广告的收益时，实际上这些用户行为已经被金融化了。
Web3 则是通过为每个创作者增加了一层金融杠杆用来扩大自己的能量，让注意力真的变成了属于自己的「钱」，
而创作者实际上成为了一个标的物，所有来自其他人的支持都是某种投资行为，
「现在 Web3 里能买的优质资产太少了，一边的人在制造垃圾试图割人，一边的人拿着钱不知道买什么」。
真实世界中由于投资者和被投资者之间存在信息不对称，而且投资者经常处于弱势的一方，因此发行证券公开募资会有政府监管部门来确保被投资者不会被欺诈，
在 Web3 世界中不存在这样的监管，主要依靠区块链的数据和代码透明来确保不会被欺诈，
但这只影响链上的数据，依赖创作者的链下行为就无法被制约了，
或许也这是以 DeFi 为代表的纯链上金融活动比较火爆的原因之一。
金融化一切是正确的方向么？
反对者认为不是什么东西都要被金融化的：
一旦能够赚钱，游戏是否好玩就变得不再重要。
支持者会认为这些人的判断过于傲慢，视野也不够，
好玩和赚钱是可以兼得的，如果你不把自己金融化，那么其他 Web 2.0 的产品就会把你金融化，
新世界大家还在建设中，需要一些时间。
创作者每一次决定背后映射的都是自己的声誉、服务能力、品牌以及未来潜力
这其中最重要的是如何利用好这个金融杠杆创造更大的价值而不是「割韭菜」导致最终信誉破产，则是每个创作者应该思考的问题。
而对于创作者的粉丝们来说，Web3 满足了一个过去无法实现的需求：把热爱变成钱。
如果你真的喜欢一个创作者并且愿意支持和传播他的作品，过去这只是一个消费行为，而今天则可以把消费变成投资，分享自己喜欢的人成功带来的收益，是一件很有趣的事情。
How you can’t promote threads on an M1
On current M1 series chips, external controls, in
taskpolicyandsetpriority(), appear unable to change QoS, or the dispatching of threads by GCD;those external controls
can limit threads, which on the basis of QoS could be allocated to either core type, to just E cores;
cannot promote threads, which on the basis of QoS can only be allocated on E cores, so they can be run on either core type;
thus
threads originally designated for E cores alone can’t be run on P cores;
promotion of background processes and threads so they can be run more quickly using P cores isn’t currently possible
dispatching threads according to QoS and their allocation to clusters are performed separately in macOS.
Jon Gotow of St. Clair Software has added an experimental feature using
setpriority()to his App Tamer utility, and confirmed this phenomenon.