Jon Evans
The Latest from Jon Evans
Where did social media go wrong?
For most of my life, the internet, particularly its social media — BBSes, Usenet, LiveJournal, blogosphere, even Myspace, early Twitter and Facebook — consistently made people happier. But
Welcome to the hub of all hubs: Cosmos has launched
Last week the Cosmos Network launched, which I believe to be a major event. Yes, it’s a blockchain initiative — but definitely not just another one. If I’m right, its repercussions w
The future of flying
From 3500 feet up California is a glorious patchwork quilt of green and gold, textured by rippling mountains and shining water. Ahead of us we see the Carquinez Bridge and the Bay; behind us, the fing
How to be remote
I’ve been interviewing a lot of developers lately at my day job as the CTO of a tech consultancy, and I’ve noticed an interesting trend. Many of them seek us out because they want to work
Regarding Facebook’s cryptocurrency
If Bloomberg and the New York Times are to be believed, later this year Facebook will introduce a cryptocurrency which will allow WhatsApp users to send money instantly. Yes, that’s right: Faceb
How Netflix is eating the Academy
It’s Oscar night! Do you care? If you’re me, and/or the statistically average watcher, the answer is: a whole lot less than you used to. Last year’s viewership hit an all-time low. W
Please stop marking yourself safe on Facebook
Let me begin by saying that Facebook’s Crisis Response pages do a lot of good. They are a locus for donations and offers of help. But that said, for the love of humanity, when something bad happ
When do you go native?
So you’re a startup founder. Or you’re in charge of a new project at a big company. (Or maybe you just imagine being either of these things.) And you suddenly realize: you have to make a w
Privacy is a commons
“The commons is the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society,” quoth Wikipedia, “held in common, not owned privately.” We live in an era of surveil
The infrastructural humiliation of America
I’m flying back to the USA today, and as an infrastructure aficionado, it’s nice to be going home, but I’m dreading the disappointment. I just spent two weeks in Singapore and Thaila
The new Two Minutes Hate
You see it first on Facebook or Twitter. Something contemptible: an image, or a video, or a tweet. One accompanied by a furious, snarky caption, highlighting just how awful and unacceptable it is, a d
Technology’s dark forest
We used to be such optimists. Technology would bring us a world of wealth in harmony with the environment, and even bring us new worlds. The Internet would erase national boundaries, replace gatekeepe
Our dystopian cyberpunk here and now
We in the West love our apocalyptic science fiction, in which cartoonishly evil authorities ruthlessly oppress all who so much as wonder about their absolute power, enforced via ubiquitous surveillanc
The YKarma experiment
Blockchains are boring now. It’s been ten years since Bitcoin launched, and cryptocurrencies have almost exclusively been used to recapitulate existing monetary systems in slightly new forms. Th
It’s the Jons 2018!
It was the best of years, it was the worst of years, it was the wokest of years, it was the most problematic of years, it was the year of AI, it was the year of scooters, it was the year of Big Tech t
Here comes the downturn
It’s remarkable how fast the tenor of the times has changed. Only a few months ago we were in a boom that seemed like it might never end. Now the yield curve has inverted; the markets have gone bear
In the winds of crypto winter
Well, it was surreal while it lasted, by which I mean the 2017-18 cryptocurrency bubble. For a while there, Coinbase was #1 in the App Store, Bitcoin was above $10K, and there were more notional crypt
JIRA is an antipattern
Atlassian’s JIRA began life as a bug-tracking tool. Today, though, it has become an agile planning suite, “to plan, track, and release great software.” In many organizations it has b
Welcome to the stochastic age
In 1990, Kleiner Perkins rejected 99.4 percent of the proposals it received, while investing in 12 new companies a year. Those investees made Kleiner Perkins “the most successful financial insti
Glimpses of China’s parallel tech universe
What can we learn from Detective Chinatown 2? Quite a lot, actually. The 11th biggest box office hit of the year, it vastly outgrossed the likes of Solo: A Star Wars Story, A Star Is Born and Crazy Ri