Welcome 2022!

I’ve deleted WhatsApp from my personal smartphone. I’m not saying I’m not using it anymore; I’m just saying I’ll now use it when I decide to, via WhatsApp Web, on both my smartphone and computer. I’ll give it a batched usage as I do with emails and other social media. Let’s break down why I took that decision.

The base premise: I’m very protective of my time and attention, and I have a weakness of getting hooked up in social media features (the kind of things Nir Eyal wrote in his book Hooked).

For weeks I’ve been disgusted by the recent AI developments, despite how I like how AI can improve much of our lives. Recently I cleared up my feelings about it.

What sickens me about recent GPT-like developments is how some company owners take shortcuts in marketing content generation. If I’m a customer, I’ll feel treated like cattle and stop being a customer immediately. What infuriates me is not the shortcut in marketing copywriting itself but the possibility and the incentive to take other shortcuts that will compromise product quality. Bro-marketers say people don’t care, but I’m no person then. I do care. The temptation is just too great to ignore, and I cannot rely on the mind-strength of others to resist it.