#35: The Unbundled Universe
There's a popular notion in Silicon Valley, usually attributed to former Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale, that two of the most powerful processes in the evolution of technology are "bundling and unbundling." For anyone unacquainted with the jargon, to bundle is to combine formerly separate things that complement one another, like mobile phones and cameras; to unbundle is to take apart things that have historically been stuck together, usually due to inferior technology, and isolate the parts that people really want—the digital fragmentation of the newspaper is an example of this. If both bundling and unbundling are desirable, you might be wondering, then is everything we bundle today destined to be unbundled again tomorrow, and vice versa?
Bundling and unbundling, as Barksdale pointed out, are both promising ways to make money, and they frequently yield useful stuff (if you glance at your phone you'll probably find that almost every app is either an example of bundling or unbundling). As the associated financial opportunity has grown larger and more visible in the internet era, so has the unrestrained desire to aggressively bundle or unbundle anything that hasn't yet undergone the treatment: The Chuck E. Cheese chain, acquired by a private equity firm in 2014, announced this year that it will "unbundle" its more profitable components from the animatronic band that many understood to be its best feature. Meanwhile, Facebook and Google, having successfully bundled and unbundled so much of analog life, don't emphasize the fact that they now just quietly bundle everything they offer with unwanted ads. Wasn't the point of unbundling to isolate the good part?
The question I never hear asked, amid the aggressive clamor to dismantle and reassemble everything in a more profitable configuration, is whether the so-called dead weight really serves so little purpose. The texture of life is still mostly material that would be unbundled from something profitable—the messy, unpredictable, inefficient space that is constantly making us sad and nostalgic as little pieces of it vanish. If the market continues to colonize every remaining facet of human experience and software increasingly facilitates its manipulation, anything you wouldn't somehow pay for is something you won't get, and we'll all increasingly inhabit the smooth, over-optimized landscape of airports and Sweetgreens.
Personal update: I've just started a 3-month work sabbatical that lasts until February. Beyond the expected sabbatical activities (catching up on reading, unwinding, etc) I'm looking for interesting projects to get involved with, particularly writing projects, and would at least love to grab coffee in NYC with anyone who happens to be around. Drop me a line here if you're interested!
Reads:
"You're not stuck in traffic, you are traffic." Great Kevin Slavin essay on designing for participants rather than "users" (thanks for sending, Taylor).
How Facebook Figures Out Everyone You've Ever Met: A reminder that Facebook knows way more than what you actively tell it about yourself.
Archaeologists Unearth Earliest Known Shithole Located Super Far From Everywhere
Until next time,
Drew