Good Links: The First One

Hello. What a January, eh? The longest month of the year was full of layoffs, miserable headlines and the beginning of Trump's seemingly inevitable return to the White House. I also got tonsilitis, again. Maybe twice. Uhh, at least we had The Traitors? (I know this is a linked list, but honestly, you should watch The Traitors. It's very fun, incredibly camp, and Claudia Winkleman acts like she's trying to win an Olivier.)

Anyway, I said we'd try something different, so here we are. Welcome to Good Links. Here's some cool things from the web.

It Happened To Me: I Was A Daily Video Game Blogger

Let's start with this real gut-wrencher from Gita Jackson at Aftermath:

The key to being a daily video game blogger—or a daily blogger of any kind, but especially one in an industry as small as video games—is that you both have to be constantly producing and constantly consuming. While we were in the office, our boss’s expectation was that we were to be at our desks writing for the entire day. If we had doctor’s appointments, the unspoken rule was that we were to schedule them for before or after work. I wrote a blog on my phone on the way back from the subway after going to an apartment showing, just so I wouldn’t miss any time after having to be away from my desk. I regularly stayed at the office until 7 or 8pm—9pm wasn’t unheard of either. 

I have an anecdote that I wheel out every year or so about my post-University job hunt. I did a degree in Journalism and English Language, and spent a rather miserable Summer 2016 not getting anywhere with job applications until I wound up sat in a call centre meeting room, telling an interviewer about my degree. They asked me why I wasn't just becoming a journalist, and I always wish I'd said to them, when was the last time you paid for news? That sure was the motivator for me at the time, as I stared down the last £200 of my overdraft, but really I think I realised that the job I wanted as a bright-eyed teenager was going to destroy my life, either through Gamergate-era harassment or punishing hours.

I don't think we talk about the pressure that's on any kind of journalist, gaming or otherwise. Whether it's the nature of events or the expectation of a profit-driven publisher, it tends to eat up its staff -- and we can and should do better. (On that note, you should subscribe to Aftermath.)

Netflix is turning into cable TV

Alex Cranz, writing for The Verge just after Netflix announced a deal that will bring WWE to the service from 2025:

This all also seems to confirm an issue I’ve been noticing with Netflix for a while now. It’s got a programming problem. In its bid to be the best streamer, it didn’t focus on specific audiences as most other streamers did. Instead, Netflix has tried to reach every audience. First with originals, and now by just buying up the streaming rights to things. So it's got whatever this long-delayed and troubled adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender is, but also Young Sheldon and Suits, and a wealth of foreign language programming.

I talked about how I think Netflix is basically the Sky TV/basic cable of the 21st century a few years back, and as a person old enough to have fuzzy memories of WWE on Sky in the late 90s/early 2000s I can't think of anything more basic cable. But yes, Netflix seems a little aimless these days; like the Sky EPG at its peak, there's enough stuff to inspire choice paralysis, and the odd Stranger Things or Wednesday or whatever propped up by thousands of Is It Cakes and What's Really In a Greggses that you'll scroll through for hours on end. It's just a little funny that Netflix (and the rest of Hollywood) spent billions of dollars and upended an entire industry just to make basic cable an app.

Apple Vision Pro review: magic, until it's not

The tail end of the month brought reviews of Apple's new, $3500 face computer, and Nilay Patel's is the one that feels the most comprehensive to me. (I did really enjoy Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal's ambition, though -- she rented a ski lodge and basically lived in the thing for a day.)

I've found myself feeling a cautious optimism about the Vision Pro. I'm mostly sold on strapping a screen to my face; I owned a PSVR for a bit, and spent a lot of time in my pal Reece's Oculus headset fiddling about with things like Half-Life: Alyx. If there's anyone able to make this a thing we all do, it's probably Apple. I'm excited to try it on, and it'll probably illict the subtle kind of ooh that came out of me the first time an Apple Watch tapped me on the wrist. But I'm also really struggling to articulate why I'm excited; like a lot of modern innovations, this does feel like a solution in search of a problem, and I'm not sure Apple's relentless commitment to spitting out new generations of things will change that.

Good Links owes its existence to other, more interesting newsletters and blogs -- namely Garbage Day, Web Curios, and the likes of Daring Fireball. You should check at least the first two out.

If you liked this, please tell me what you liked by replying to this email -- this is all new and I don't know what's going to work! Also, as a thank you for getting to the bottom of this, here's Yes' Owner Of A Lonely Heart as a Rhythm Heaven medley. Catch you soon.