New Week Same Humans #27
An English scientist says you can live forever. The Zuck moves in on email newsletters. Plus more news and analysis from this week.
Welcome to the Wednesday update from New World Same Humans, a newsletter on trends, technology, and society by David Mattin.
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💡 This week’s Sunday essay was about how we reclaim power in an age of surveillance capitalism. Go here to read Welcome to the Age of Data Resistance.💡
This week, how gamers inside Roblox are creating the internet we’ll all live with in ten years.
Also, Elon Musk thought about selling an NFT artwork and then changed his mind. And why radical English scientist Aubrey de Grey thinks 2036 may turn out to be the most important year in human history.
Let’s go!
Welcome to the Blox
The market says online game Roblox is worth $42 billion. Shares have soared since the company behind the game, Roblox Corporation, IPO’d last week.
Gaze in awe at the user numbers, and you’ll see why. The company said half of all US teens under 16 were playing the game during the pandemic. Daily active users jumped by 85% last year, and now stand at 36 million.
Roblox isn’t just a game; it’s a platform for game developers, a social network, and a ecommerce juggernaut.
Gamers can ‘friend’ one another, and so build ongoing in-game relationships. Meanwhile an army of over 7 million creators – often teenagers themselves – build a constant stream of new worlds on the platform, which others can join. These British teenage twins, for example, built a number of popular Roblox worlds, which now earn them £100K a year each.
Where does the money come from? Gamers buy an in-game currency called Robux to purchase avatar enhancements including clothes, gestures, and capabilities. They spent $920 million in 2020.
⚡ NWSH Take: The key takeaway here? This isn’t about video games; it’s about the future of the internet. Child gamers and teenage developers are building the next iteration of online, and the rest of us had better catch up. // Roblox Corporation’s CEO David Baszucki is clear about his vision: he’s not creating another video game, but a version of the metaverse: a massive, shared virtual world in which millions will hang out, play, talk, and collaborate. // For the teens and tweens already immersed in games such as Roblox and Fortnite, that vision requires no explanation. My children are 7-year-old twin boys; ask then what they internet is and they reference Roblox, not Google. // Right now the competing versions of the metaverse are about gaming and concerts. Next, they’ll be about work, wellness, and commerce of all kinds.
Elon plays his Twitter pals
Clearly feeling starved of attention this week, Elon Musk made a play for the spotlight with this announcement:
Up for grabs was two-and-a-half minutes of techno, with accompanying lyrics: NFT for your vanity / Computers never sleep / It’s verified / It’s guaranteed.
Despite receiving a $1.1 million bid, Musk changed his mind when the auction closed; no sale occurred.
Meanwhile, in a signal that the market for NFT art might just be approaching its peak, Procter & Gamble-owned toilet paper brand Charmin launched this series of NFT virtual loo rolls. The proceeds will go to health charity Direct Relief.
And this just in at the time of sending: Nathan Apodaca, who achieved TikTok megastardom with a video of himself riding a long board and listening to Fleetwood Mac’s Dreams, is selling the clip as an NFT. Bids are set to start at $500K.
Zuck wants in on newsletters
It’s been a big week for the creator economy. In particular, for the rising army of independent writers and journalists tapping away at their keyboards in 2021, and the online platforms that want to serve them.
Facebook confirmed rumours that it will launch a newsletter feature in the coming months. The platform will allow writers to reach readers via email newsletters and websites, and to monetise via paid subscriptions.
The move comes after Twitter’s recent purchase of newsletter platform Revue, and its announcement of a new super follow feature that will allow creators to charge for additional, exclusive content. After years of pretty much zero product innovation, it seems the platform is doubling down on a new vision of itself as the complete stack – from audience building, to publication, to monetisation – for writers.
Meanwhile, Substack – the much-hyped newsletter platform on which NWSH is published – found itself at the centre of its first big content controversy. The platform was accused of enabling anti-trans writers via its Pro initiative, which pays writers a salary for one year while they get started. Substack says it does no such thing.
⚡ NWSH Take: You know things are getting serious when the Zuck jumps in. The creator economy, and email newsletters in particular, are having a long moment. So what’s are the key takeaways from this week? // The creator economy means a revolution in journalism. Independent reporters such as Judd Legum can now build huge readerships without the patronage of any mainstream outlet. Power is shifting away from the old gods – the New York Times, or CNN – and towards new ones. // Like any revolution, it’s controversial. Substack and similar platforms will face further questions about content moderation. But there’s no going back; the future of journalism is, at least in part, a direct relationship between journalists and readers. // As for the Zuck, even he admits he’s an inveterate copycat when it comes to successful social products (Stories!), so the move on newsletters is no surprise. What’s next? Twitter is trialling Spaces, it’s answer to audio-only social network Clubhouse. Will FB move on audio next?
Thus spoke Methuselah
Good news this week from the shaman of eternal life known to us as Aubrey de Grey. He says if you can live until 2036, there’s a good chance you’ll live forever:
If you know anything about the quest for human immortality, you know about de Grey. The long-haired, scruffy Englishman has long been the figurehead for the fringe movement within science that believes we can solve the inconvenient problem of death.
His approach, called Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS), involves constantly repairing the cellular damage that occurs inside the human body over time, and so essentially halting the ageing process.
So far, we’re still dying. De Grey didn’t explain more about the new 2036 event horizon he’s thrown out, and most scientists remain sceptical of his claims. But I’ve followed his work from the beginning, and I’m not ready to count him out yet.
Back in January I promised a New World Same Humans podcast this year. After this tweet, I think Aubrey de Grey would make a perfect first guest. Leave it with me.
🗓️ Also this week
🚗 Uber says it will now treat UK drivers as ‘workers’, with entitlements to minimum wage and holiday pay. Over 70,000 people drive for Uber in the UK; the move comes in the wake of a UK Supreme Court ruling against the company last month.
🇨🇳 Alibaba’s web browser has been deleted from leading Chinese app stores. Company founder Jack Ma has been locked in a battle with the CCP over the future of his tech empire. Chinese president Xi Jinping say his government plans further regulatory moves against big tech platforms.
🤖 AI-fuelled writing service CopyAI closed a $2.9 million funding round. The service uses OpenAI’s GPT-3 language model to generate marketing copy based on initial text suggestions provided by the user.
😴 Google’s NEST Hub 2 tracks users while they are sleeping. The smart assistant uses radar to detect nighttime movement and sound, including snoring.
🔍 Cybersecurity firm Recorded Future plans to keep a closer eye on the dark web. The company is paying $52 million for Gemini Advisory, which tracks shady dark web sites such as Joker’s Stash, where people trade stolen credit card details.
🛰️ SpaceX deployed another 60 Starlink satellites. The company has over 1,000 satellites in orbit, and is serving internet to over 10,000 customers.
🧠 This device reads your mind and selects the perfect music for you. The Crown tracks your brain activity while you listen to music on Spotify and then suggests more music based on its inferences about your emotional state.
💰 Wikipedia plans to charge tech giants for access. The encyclopaedia is reportedly in talks with Apple, Google, and Facebook.
🕵️ A startup says it can geolocate any car on Earth in realtime, apart from in Cuba or North Korea. The Ulysses Group plan to sell their technology to the US military.
🌍 Humans of Earth
Key metrics to help you keep track of Project Human.
🙋 Global population: 7,852,860,789
🌊 Earths currently needed: 1.7802194167
💉 Global population vaccinated: 1.1%
🗓️ 2021 progress bar: 21% complete
📖 On this day: On 18th March 1965 the Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov becomes the first person to walk in space.
Block Party
Thanks for reading this week.
With the IPO of Roblox, the mainstreaming of the metaverse comes one step closer. Virtual worlds are becoming domains of human meaning and creativity, and the implications are huge.
One day: a New World Same Humans gathering inside a metaversal world!
Until then, I want to do everything I can to continue to grow this amazing community of founders, researchers, marketers, designers, policy makers and more. And there’s one thing you can do to help: share this instalment! If this instalment proved valuable, please take a minute to forward the email along to colleagues and friends you think will enjoy it, or just hit the button to share across one of your social networks:
I’ll be back on Sunday. Until then, be well,
David.
P.S Thanks to Monique van Dusseldorp for additional research and analysis.