The Digital Utopia we were promised in the ’90s? It’s dead. Instead, we’re living in the Great Standardization – a relentless homogenization of global culture.

The Digital Utopia we were promised in the ’90s? It’s dead. Instead, we’re living in the Great Standardization – a relentless homogenization of global culture. 

https://www.joanwestenberg.com/how-we-became-the-mcworld-global-culture-is-getting-more-boring/

I write about tech + humans + philosophy. Farcaster OG. FID 3305 founder of /theindex 

https://linktr.ee/joanwestenberg

I think a fun argument is why this is the case

Are algorithms relentlessly curating our world? Or are individuals just choosing the things they like which proliferates into standards?

Or maybe another third thing

There’s a strong counter argument in the entertainment sector.  One change over the last 25 years has been the flourishing of real niches into full blown genres with commercial success.  Anime & Fantasy being two good examples.  These were limited markets that got little attention from big players 25 years ago.  Now we have almost saturation of fantasy happening across streaming services.  

What was previously not economically viable is somehow viable when done well and produced for that niche audience.  

Gaming is another area where indie games are presenting a legitimate threat to the big players.  They’ve siphoned off enough players that it may be a long time before we see a truly dominant game take over the market.