Linked List: March 17, 2021

Wednesday, 17 March 2021

Shaan Puri’s Bear Case Against Clubhouse 

Shaan Puri, in a breezy, fun thread on Twitter:

So… everyone seems to think clubhouse is the “next big thing” — but I think it’s going to fail. Here’s how I think it all goes down.

(Disclaimer — I don’t want clubhouse to fail. The world is more fun if it wins… but wanting something doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. If it did, then guac would be default included inside every bag of chips.)

It’s devilishly hard to predict how something popular and growing might eventually peter out. I think Puri is onto something about the limits of Clubhouse’s potential appeal after they run out of early adopters. One factor that’s hard to gauge, but comes up frequently, is the effect of our quarantine on Clubhouse’s appeal. To some degree it seems certain that Clubhouse is at least a little more popular than it would be (or will be) in a world where we’re not all starved for normal social interaction.

But there are some things Clubhouse has going for it that don’t seem to get talked about. One is serendipity. It’s a defining constraint of the platform that everything is live. But that can be a feature, too. Don’t forget that tens of millions of people watch live TV every day. Sometimes, some people just want to turn on the TV and find something, anything, to grab their attention. I think Clubhouse brings something like that to our phones.

Were the Airline Bailouts Really Needed? 

Andrew Ross Sorkin, writing for The New York Times:

It is fair to say that we socialized the airline industry’s losses and largely privatized the gains.

No other industry affected by the pandemic received more from the government. There was no special program for hotels or restaurants or travel agencies. Companies in those industries had to line up for the small business-focused Paycheck Protection Program and pray. The largest loan the program could make was $10 million.

The question isn’t whether airline employees should have been helped, it’s whether airline shareholders should have been. The airline bailouts weren’t simply a job-protection program, as advertised. In case you’re not convinced, there’s this: United invested $20 million into an electric helicopter company last month that went public through a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. Does that sound like a company that is in such dire straits that it requires a taxpayer-funded bailout? It received a third rescue payment after it made the investment.

With the stock market now soaring, it is worth considering whether the airlines needed taxpayer money at all.

Pairs well — albeit frustratingly — with my previous item. Sorkin points out that a big part of the “privatized profits” is that when business is good, the airlines pump their profits into stock buybacks, rather than saving for a rainy day (or pandemic year). Restaurants don’t have that option — they run on tight margins and generally slim profits even when business is good.

And yes, there are big airline-size corporations that run massive restaurant chains. A bailout that focused on privately-held restaurants would have been one way to start.

With the Government Absent, Who Was Responsible for Saving Restaurants? 

Hillary Dixler Canavan, writing for Eater:

Agency is hard enough to come by in daily life, but in a pandemic that’s made it clear just how little of it we actually have, choosing how to spend money becomes a compelling stand-in. It seems inevitable now that the choices available to even the most ethically minded diners have largely been consumer choices: Buy restaurant merch and gift cards. Get takeout and tip extravagantly. Avoid third-party delivery apps if possible. Dine outside. Eat at home.

But underneath every available option is the one terrible choice the government constructed for all of us: Engage with restaurants or watch the industry disappear. This is the wrong ultimatum, however, and one that only reinforces two distinct yet related axioms of American restaurant culture — that customers ought to have authority over workers, and that those workers matter less than their customers.

We have leaned toward “get takeout and tip extravagantly”, but it’s tough. Even making a conscientious effort to support our favorite restaurants, we’ve spent only a fraction of what we usually spend over the last year. It’s been a hard year for so many businesses, but it’s hard to not think that we, collectively, have most failed our restaurant industry. We even call it “hospitality”. How can you be hospitable during a frighteningly contagious and dangerous pandemic?

Apple’s Own Privacy Nutrition Labels 

Apple:

Our privacy labels are designed to help you understand how apps handle your data, including apps we develop at Apple. This page brings privacy labels for our iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS apps together in one place.