S05E03: Launching the Brain Trust
In today's installment: Launching a membership experiment. Thoughts on surveillance capitalism and a thought experiment for tackling a small slice of it.
Sitrep: It's the somewhat hectic end of a productive week: A website went missing on us (for reasons), and my company was invited to a tender that's very interesting indeed but also due next week. So everything is a little more derailed than usual, but in the best possible way. I'm giddy about a new experiment, so I didn't want to let that bounce to next week…
Oh! Today is also the deadline for the OpenDott PhD program in responsible tech that I'll be helping out with. The application is deliberately super lightweight (CV + letter of motivation). FAQ and application details here.
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Launching The Brain Trust
If you read this, you're part of an intimate community of folks who are deeply tapped into my conversations and thoughts. I mean it: When I look through the list of newsletter subscribers I see a great many names of people I have great respect for, and many of you reply to my writings frequently - something I very much welcome, by the way! So if you've hesitated, please don't!
Recently I've seen several people I greatly respect start experimenting with memberships to support their creative output, and to help them focus on quality writing. (Hey Patrick! Hey Craig! 👋) Since I'm very much interested in independent publishing, and since I've been writing more and more for years anyway, I'd like to test this out, too.
I'd like to start an experiment in reader-supported writing: Not because I need to support my livelihood, luckily; but because it is a kind of mandate to focus more of my time on writing, and to give it greater focus and care.
So today I'm turning to you all to join in this experiment. And I hasten to add: There's no pressure! This is entirely, entirely voluntary. It works under the beautiful idea of "unlocked commons", meaning there are no paywalls and no exclusives: This serves to make sure everything stays part of the commons and keeps contributing to the commons. So everything will be available for free online just like before, only now it will be a tiny bit more sustainable.
Concretely, I'd like to spend more time and focus on writing about responsible tech, social impact of emerging technologies, and also to ramp up production quality.
You can join in this experiment today using one of two types of membership:
So you might wonder:
What does your membership support?
I write about 100.000 words a year that are published for free online. This includes:
- My newsletter, Connection Problem. Published weekly-ish, this is a more personal glimpse behind the scenes, and where I try out new ideas. It's pretty conversational and touches on a wide range of topics including responsible tech, surveillance capitalism, as well as project announcements and personal updates.
- My blog, thewavingcat.com/blog. This is where I publicly document a lot of the work I do, as well as some more thought-out ideas and proposals.
- Most years, I write or co-publish long form texts, too. Mostly this takes the form of reports (like View Source: Shenzhen) or book-ish publications (Understanding the Connected Home, The Indie Conference Organizer Handbook); occasionally it's documentation of a field trip (Shenzhen, Would You Live In A Robot exhibit).
That was the TL&DR; If you want to learn some more, read on, otherwise scroll down (to the section on Surveillance Capitalism).
First, let's take a look back. I was curious about how much output I've been producing, so I went through my archives from the last two years (2018 and 2017).
Before diving into the numbers and the concrete content, a few quick notes:
- My writing often explores themes that are highly critical of the status quo of the tech industry, and in defense of user rights and responsible technology. I'm so publicly vocal about these issues because I deeply care, and because I believe it's important that we all stand up for what we believe in—especially those of us on the inside of the industry who have a disproportional leverage. But I'm also painfully aware that this is a serious risk to my livelihood: After all, I am a self-employed advisor for hire, and tech companies are by far the best-paying clients out there. So I don't do this lightly, but still do it daily.I don't intend to stop this: In 2019, more than ever, I think it's important that we all stand up for what we believe in. This is my bit.
- I publish just about anything I write openly and under a Creative Commons license (except confidential client reports, obviously). I do this because I believe in openness and mutual learning and in supporting the Commons: Just like I've benefited all my life from people sharing their insights and failings, I want to pay it forward.
- Almost everything I write, I write without getting paid. From blog posts to newsletter to reports and book(ish) publications, most of my output is to try out new ideas or to document learnings and insights, what worked and what didn't. Less frequently, there's a report that's for a client but still gets published under CC license.
So, numbers. In 2018 I've published writing of roundabout 65.000 words (not counting tweets, obviously); in 2017 it was over 100.000.
As a rule of thumb, novels have a word count of 40-110K words. So I've been writing the equivalent a novel or two every year.
2018
2018 did not, by any means, like a very productive year because we had a baby at home and I didn't get to write or do anywhere near as much as I would have liked. And yet… turns out I was much more productive than I had thought!
Now, when I was "more productive than I thought", this refers to public writing. Keep in mind that this is what I do in addition to my actual work, even though a lot of it dovetails nicely. So where does that lead us?
A quick back-of-the-napkin calculation clocks in at somewhere around 65.000 words. This is down from over 100.000 in 2017; as I said, we had a baby and I wasn't as flexible as usual, so I expect this to go right back up.
An interesting aside, it looks like I pretty much shifted all my more exploratory writing from blog to newsletter: The word count between the two of them seems pretty stable, only the newsletter has taken over as the more active. That feels right: We live in a time for more personal, intimate conversations.
- Connection Problem: 35 issues total, 47542 words
- Blog (thewavingcat.com/blog): 23 posts total, 13479 words
- Op-eds & other articles: 5 op-eds and other articles (not counting interviews), 4586 words
- Reports: Co-published and copy edited the ThingsCon Report, "The State of Responsible IoT"
- Not counted: Medium, where I mostly cross-posts this year, so I'm not counting those posts; and project-specific blogs and newsletter (ThingsCon, Zephyr Berlin)
2017
Now 2017 was indeed a productive year, and one that feels much more like what I have in mind for 2019, too: Besides newsletter and blog, there were 3 meaty longform pieces: 3 reports, 1 book-ish publication - all of them published under Creative Commons licenses. There was also some very detailed travel documentations: A deep, long glimpse behind the scenes of Shenzhen, China, and a visit to Vitra's exhibition Would you live in a robot.
Again, a back-of-the-napkin calculation brings us to just over 106.000 words. And again, that's not counting project-specific newsletters or blogs, nor Twitter. But this feels like a representative year that's pretty much in line with the years previous.
Again, the breakdown:
- Connection Problem: 7 issues (I had revived this only in November), 8193 words
- Blog (thewavingcat.com/blog): 76 blog posts, 53578 words
- Reports & other long form: 2 reports totaling 45159 words
- View Source: Shenzhen, 19415 words
- A Trustmark for IoT, 25744 words
Your membership helps me keep this up; This is strong external validation, a real motivator, and also a mandate to keep going down this path, together.
If this sounds like something you want to support, join today:
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If you'd like to work with me in the upcoming months, I have very limited availability, so let's have a chat! I'm currently doing the planning for Q2 and Q3 2019.
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Surveillance Capitalism
Apple CEO Tim Cook has been beating the drum about protecting user privacy for quite a while now. Which is fantastic! A powerful tech CEO asking for privacy protection—and even legislation!—and being so outspoken about it is great.
On the other hand, what would be even greater? Right: If that CEO also put their money where their mouth was, that is if he was ready to forego profit for this principled stand. I read estimates that Apple receives an estimated USD 9 billion in 2018 alone for referrals of searches to Google. (Most browsers make money through search referrals: Every time a user searches something through the browser, that search is handled by a search engine and generates data, and hence value.) In other words, Apple sends their Safari users by default to Google for searches; to one of the very companies Tim Cook slams for privacy invasions.
Over on Twitter I shared a little thought experiment: What if the browser makers stopped accepting money for referrals to search engines that didn't commit to non-invasive, non-tracking advertising and instead sent the traffic to those that protect user privacy? What if they also blocked all ads that used tracking technologies, and whitelisted only those who didn't? There might be a huge opportunity there to shift to non-tracking ads, so advertising would remain a business model for journalism, but without the threat to privacy.
So less referrals to Google (unless Google committed to non-tracking ads), and blocking a bunch of the tracking going on across Facebook properties. While centralization and consolidation of the big platforms has many downsides, there's an upside here: We only need to get a handful of players to change their ways and it'll have a huge effect. A sliver of hope right there?
Chrome, Google's own browser, is by far the dominant browser, clocking in at over 60% (62.9% according to w3counter, and this number is roughly consistent across most stats I found). The next in line are Safari (Apple) with 14.3%, Internet Explorer & Edge (Microsoft) with 7.1% and Firefox (Mozilla) with 6.2%. There are others, but those are mostly marginal. So that's roughly 62% for Google, 28% for the other big(ish) three.
Between a quarter and a third of the market isn't the world, but it's significant. If it was a reliable way of avoiding online tracking I'd switch away from Chrome in a blink. (In fact, as I'm writing this, I've switched my mobile devices to Firefox and their search to Duckduckgo, on my desktop I'm still using three browsers including Chrome.)
It's just a thought. But it seems there's a huge opportunity to both protect user privacy and also to reclaim advertising as a legitimate business model for journalism and others, like it once used to be. Always remember, no matter how many times Zuckerberg implies that this is just how ads work: The social contract of the web that it's supported by ads; the social contract of the web is NOT that it is supported by surveillance.
(For full disclosure's sake, I've personally benefited from the money made through ads and referrals many times, including working with Google & being a Mozilla Fellow. I think there are opportunities to explore going forward to course-correct away from tracking.)
See also:
- Shoshana Zuboff keynote speech on surveillance capitalism (Youtube)
- Scout: A smart-home counterspy agent (Medium)
- Project Alias: This is the first truly great Amazon Alexa and Google Home Hack (Fast Company)
- To make companies moral, make the employees the owners (Fast Company)
Better to stop short than fill to the brim.
Oversharpen the blade, and the edge will soon blunt.
Amass a store of gold and jade, and no one can protect it.
Claim wealth and titles, and disaster will follow.
Retire when the work is done.
This is the way of heaven.
— The Tao Te Ching (Chapter 9)
When Lao Tzu wrote the above chapter of the Tao Te Ching he probably didn't do so with data collection in mind, but it seems to work well in that context 🤔
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What's next?
We'll be selecting the five PhDs from all the applications for the OpenDott PhD program in responsible tech. Planning for several ThingsCon events we're cooking up. More work on a tender, and more work on the Trustmark. The next few weeks are for lots of iterative steps, pushing forward on any number of projects.
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I wish you an excellent weekend.
Yours truly,
Peter
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Who writes here? Peter Bihr explores the impact of emerging technologies — like Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence. He is the founder of The Waving Cat, a boutique research, strategy & foresight company. He co-founded ThingsCon, a non-profit that fosters the creation of a responsible Internet of Things. In 2018, Peter is a Mozilla Fellow. He tweets at @peterbihr. Interested in working together? Let’s have a chat.
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Know someone who might enjoy this newsletter or benefit from it? A shout out to tinyletter.com/pbihr or a forward is appreciated!
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Pictures: Header my own, footer Unsplash (todd_diemer).