A few weeks ago, PJ Vogt interviewed Ezra Klein on the Search Engine podcast. It was a fascinating interview and I encourage you to give it a listen, but one concept that Ezra shared really stuck out to me — we are generators of the media.
He said this on a podcast, and I’m repeating it on a blog, but he wasn’t talking about literally creating media. That’s part of it, of course, but he was talking about generating media with our actions online. In particular, he said:
“We are generators of the media. What we give our time, attention, and money to is what thrives and what doesn’t get it is what dies.”
If you think we need better news sites, then pay for the news that you want to see more of. If you’re tired of how pervasive Facebook is, then don’t spend your time on there. What we consume helps shape future content.
He explained further:
“The most frustrating person in this paradigm is the person who is on Twitter complaining about Twitter. Dude, it is like you are sending money to Elon Musk and complaining about Elon Musk as you take your $20 and put it in the algorithm.”
I’ve made it a point over the years to pay for the services that I get value out of, even if I don’t necessarily need to pay for them. I use this platform to send links and visitors to services and websites that I enjoy. While this is by no means a huge platform, every visitor and every link helps a little bit.
Behavior on the internet isn’t getting worse, but I don’t like the direction that many companies are taking, such as Google replacing the useful “Google Now” with the clickbait-feeding “Google Discover”. I can’t fix that decision that they made, but I make it a point to avoid that area of my phone.
Vote with your browsing habits, and check out that full episode of Search Engine to get a deep dive into what I’ve touched on here.
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