🔖 Status as a Service (StaaS) | Remains of the Day

Bookmarked Status as a Service (StaaS) by Eugene Wei (Remains of the Day)

Status-Seeking Monkeys

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a person in possession of little fortune, must be in want of more social capital."

So wrote Jane Austen, or she would have, I think, if she were chronicling our current age (instead we have Taylor Lorenz, and thank goodness for that).

Let's begin with two principles:

  • People are status-seeking monkeys*

  • People seek out the most efficient path to maximizing social capital

* Status-Seeking Monkeys will also be the name of my indie band, if I ever learn to play the guitar and start a band

I begin with these two observations of human nature because few would dispute them, yet I seldom see social networks, some of the largest and fastest-growing companies in the history of the world, analyzed on the dimension of status or social capital.

Hat tip: Ryan Barrett

stunning analysis of social networks as products: https://www.eugenewei.com/blog/2019/2/19/status-as-a-service . many insights i’d never heard before. (beware though, almost 20k words!)

Published by

Chris Aldrich

I'm a biomedical and electrical engineer with interests in information theory, complexity, evolution, genetics, signal processing, IndieWeb, theoretical mathematics, and big history. I'm also a talent manager-producer-publisher in the entertainment industry with expertise in representation, distribution, finance, production, content delivery, and new media.

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