Worlds within worlds

Some years ago my partner made a prediction that, as the natural world declines, people would retreat into virtual worlds

At the time I had an image that would involve wearing goggles and living among pixels.

These days those virtual worlds are on hand everywhere you want to go.

For example, recently I was in a public library working on an assignment and it amazed me how many times people would have a conversation on their phone.

Right there in the middle of the area where a librarian would glare and even silence people with a finger to their lips or utter "Shush!"

Yet there I was listening to personal details, at least that's what I could discern from those speaking English.

It's something that came to mind as I pondered an article about Spotify recently:

Pelly cites a former employee who recalls CEO Daniel Ek musing that the company’s “only competitor is silence,” illustrating the hubristically expansive terrain that Spotify views as its entryway into the consumer’s life. The statement reflects Spotify’s totalizing ambitions, echoing a rather similar thing Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos made back in 2017, gassing up the platform’s potential to investors: “When you watch a show from Netflix and you get addicted to it, you stay up late at night,” he said. “We’re competing with sleep, on the margins.” This echo makes sense, as Spotify and Netflix are specific expressions of how tech platforms in general have successfully colonized our entire lives.

Given the importance that I place on having moments of silence in my day and, of course, sleeping as close to eight hours a night as I can land, it's initially surprising that companies would be trying to undermine these aspects of consumers' lives.

Then again, there are many companies claiming to sell food that has been demonstrated as hazardous to health.

A doctor once told me there was more nutritional value in the packaging of a popular fast food brand.

We've always lived in a world where other humans are threatening, but it's diabolical to see the difficulty in promoting health habits when the marketing budgets for products that could harm you far exceed the investments in nutritious alternatives.