* No real data provided for its central claim that personal taste has declined. In fact, the data seems to prove the opposite - for example, TV shows. Historically, most everyone in the U.S. watched 1 of the 4 major TV networks, and that was it. Now there are hundreds of channels, plus streaming services, plus people making their own series on YouTube, Americans watching shows from Europe/Asia/etc, people watching old shows, etc. Even excluding foreign shows, YouTube, the availability of old shows, etc: https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=p9t3Rb...
* Same for music - the music that most people knew about was what got played on terrestrial radio stations. Now I, and I imagine many others, listen to pre-AI bands and songs that may still have never been played on any radio station, but which I discovered online instead.
* Even in terms of clothing, if you went back to the 80s, 50s, 20s, etc, would you encounter as many people then wearing nonconforming fashion as you do today?
* The article mentions how, historically, record labels might have controlled what got played and what became popular, but handwaves it away without doing any actual analysis of how much music is played now vs then because a business decided you should hear it.
Some of the article’s claims might be true if they could provide data for it, but the data we have shows the opposite - historically everyone might have been able to discuss the same things around the water cooler as there was exponentially less variety in people's personal consumption, but now everyone is living in separate non-shared spaces.
Incredibly bad article:
* No real data provided for its central claim that personal taste has declined. In fact, the data seems to prove the opposite - for example, TV shows. Historically, most everyone in the U.S. watched 1 of the 4 major TV networks, and that was it. Now there are hundreds of channels, plus streaming services, plus people making their own series on YouTube, Americans watching shows from Europe/Asia/etc, people watching old shows, etc. Even excluding foreign shows, YouTube, the availability of old shows, etc: https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=p9t3Rb...
* Same for music - the music that most people knew about was what got played on terrestrial radio stations. Now I, and I imagine many others, listen to pre-AI bands and songs that may still have never been played on any radio station, but which I discovered online instead.
* Even in terms of clothing, if you went back to the 80s, 50s, 20s, etc, would you encounter as many people then wearing nonconforming fashion as you do today?
* The article mentions how, historically, record labels might have controlled what got played and what became popular, but handwaves it away without doing any actual analysis of how much music is played now vs then because a business decided you should hear it.
Some of the article’s claims might be true if they could provide data for it, but the data we have shows the opposite - historically everyone might have been able to discuss the same things around the water cooler as there was exponentially less variety in people's personal consumption, but now everyone is living in separate non-shared spaces.
Esquire's more styly NY article on the same theme published May 20th: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49093258
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