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Essays - Benedict Evans

Essays - Benedict...
Leaving Twitter I was on Twitter since 2007, and built a meaningful part of my career on it, and I won’t be...
a year ago
95
a year ago
I was on Twitter since 2007, and built a meaningful part of my career on it, and I won’t be posting at all for the foreseeable future
Essays - Benedict...
Ways to think about AGI How do we think about a fundamentally unknown and unknowable risk, when the experts agree only...
9 months ago
89
9 months ago
How do we think about a fundamentally unknown and unknowable risk, when the experts agree only that they have no idea?
Essays - Benedict...
The VR winter continues Meta has spent at least $50bn on VR and AR so far, but we’re still in the VR winter: the devices...
7 months ago
83
7 months ago
Meta has spent at least $50bn on VR and AR so far, but we’re still in the VR winter: the devices aren’t good enough or cheap enough and the user base is flat. But no matter how good the devices get, how many people will care?
Essays - Benedict...
Looking for AI use-cases We’ve had ChatGPT for 18 months, but what’s it for? What are the use-cases? Why isn’t it useful...
10 months ago
81
10 months ago
We’ve had ChatGPT for 18 months, but what’s it for? What are the use-cases? Why isn’t it useful for everyone, right now? Do Large Language Models become universal tools that can do ‘any’ task, or do we wrap them in single-purpose apps, and build thousands of new companies...
Essays - Benedict...
AI and problems of scale Generative AI means things that were always possible at a small scale now become practical to...
9 months ago
78
9 months ago
Generative AI means things that were always possible at a small scale now become practical to automate at a massive scale. Sometimes a change in scale is a change in principle.
Essays - Benedict...
Building AI products How do we build mass-market products that change the world around a technology that gets things...
8 months ago
78
8 months ago
How do we build mass-market products that change the world around a technology that gets things ‘wrong’? What does wrong mean, and how is that useful?
Essays - Benedict...
The AI summer Hundreds of millions of people have tried ChatGPT, but most of them haven’t been back. Every big...
7 months ago
77
7 months ago
Hundreds of millions of people have tried ChatGPT, but most of them haven’t been back. Every big company has done a pilot, but far fewer are in deployment. Some of this is just a matter of time. But LLMs might also be a trap: they look like products and they look magic, but...
Essays - Benedict...
Apple intelligence and AI maximalism Apple has showed a bunch of cool ideas for generative AI, but much more, it is pointing to most of...
8 months ago
74
8 months ago
Apple has showed a bunch of cool ideas for generative AI, but much more, it is pointing to most of the big questions and proposing a different answer - that LLMs are commodity infrastructure, not platforms or products.
Essays - Benedict...
Competing in search A quarter century after 'don't be evil', a judge has found that Google is abusing its monopoly in...
6 months ago
72
6 months ago
A quarter century after 'don't be evil', a judge has found that Google is abusing its monopoly in search. But no-one knows what happens next, and whether this ruling will change anything. Will Apple build a search engine? Will ChatGPT change search? Does it matter?
Essays - Benedict...
Remaking the app store The EU has finally made Apple redesign the App Store, 15 years after we started arguing about it,...
a year ago
71
a year ago
The EU has finally made Apple redesign the App Store, 15 years after we started arguing about it, and no-one is happy with the result. In the next few years there’ll be a lot of shouting and some giant fines, but in the end, nothing much will change.
Essays - Benedict...
A month of the Vision Pro The Vision Pro is amazing, but like the rest of VR and AR, Apple seems years away from the mass...
11 months ago
69
11 months ago
The Vision Pro is amazing, but like the rest of VR and AR, Apple seems years away from the mass market. And if it gets there, how much will it matter?
Essays - Benedict...
Netflix, Shein and MrBeast What does Netflix have in common with Shein, and why is MrBeast more interesting than Disney Plus?
a year ago
Essays - Benedict...
Vision Pro What has Apple built, what is it for, what does it mean for Meta, and why does it cost $3,500?...
a year ago
69
a year ago
What has Apple built, what is it for, what does it mean for Meta, and why does it cost $3,500? Check back in 2025.
Essays - Benedict...
When tech says ‘no’ The tech industry always has a reason why any new laws or regulations are bad - indeed, so does...
a year ago
61
a year ago
The tech industry always has a reason why any new laws or regulations are bad - indeed, so does any industry. They always say that! The trouble is, sometimes it’s true, and some laws are (or would be) disasters. So which is it? Well, there are three ways that people say...
Essays - Benedict...
Competing in search A quarter century after ‘don't be evil’ a judge has found that Google is abusing its monopoly in...
6 months ago
59
6 months ago
A quarter century after ‘don't be evil’ a judge has found that Google is abusing its monopoly in search. But no-one knows what happens next, and whether this ruling will change anything. Will Apple build a search engine? Will ChatGPT change search? Does it matter?
Essays - Benedict...
Who cares about tech regulation? Tech regulation gets a lot of headlines, and seems like a big deal, but most people in tech don’t...
11 months ago
40
11 months ago
Tech regulation gets a lot of headlines, and seems like a big deal, but most people in tech don’t seem to care much. It’s boring, and years away, but more fundamentally, it really doesn’t affect what people spend their time working on.
Essays - Benedict...
The problem of AI ethics, and laws about AI Should you try to write laws, or lay down ethical principles, about a technology that will be used...
11 months ago
34
11 months ago
Should you try to write laws, or lay down ethical principles, about a technology that will be used in entirely different ways, for different purposes, in different industries? How about if it’s changing entirely every 18 months?
Essays - Benedict...
Are better models better? Every week there’s a better AI model that gives better answers. But a lot of questions don’t have...
a month ago
33
a month ago
Every week there’s a better AI model that gives better answers. But a lot of questions don’t have better answers, only ‘right’ answers, and these models can’t do that. So what does ‘better’ mean, how do we manage these things, and should we change what we expect from...
Essays - Benedict...
Do App Store Rules Matter? After a decade of arguing, regulators will change Apple’s App Store rules. How much money is...
over a year ago
31
over a year ago
After a decade of arguing, regulators will change Apple’s App Store rules. How much money is involved, what might happen next and, most importantly, who cares? This is a big deal for Spotify, but does it matter to anyone else?
Essays - Benedict...
AI and the automation of work ChatGPT and generative AI will change how we work, but how different is this to all the other...
a year ago
31
a year ago
ChatGPT and generative AI will change how we work, but how different is this to all the other waves of automation of the last 200 years? What does it mean for employment? Disruption? Coal consumption?
Essays - Benedict...
Mainframes, ML and digital transformation ‘Digital transformation’ sounds like a parody of meaningless tech marketing, but actually captures...
over a year ago
29
over a year ago
‘Digital transformation’ sounds like a parody of meaningless tech marketing, but actually captures some pretty interesting and important shifts in big company tech. It’s not as exciting as crypto or AR, and it takes a decade or two, but it’s just as big as smartphones.
Essays - Benedict...
TV, merchant media and the unbundling of advertising Amazon’s ad business is bigger than YouTube and more profitable than AWS. Shein is the biggest...
over a year ago
28
over a year ago
Amazon’s ad business is bigger than YouTube and more profitable than AWS. Shein is the biggest fast-fashion retailer in the US, with no stores. US pay TV subscribers have fallen by a third. Where do ad budgets go, where does rent go, and how many brands will there be?
Essays - Benedict...
There’s no such thing as data Data is the new oil, we are told. Every country needs a data strategy, and all of us should own...
over a year ago
27
over a year ago
Data is the new oil, we are told. Every country needs a data strategy, and all of us should own our data, and be paid for it. But really, there is no such thing as data, it’s not yours, and it’s not worth anything.
Essays - Benedict...
Antitrust posturing US politicians proposed five tech antitrust bills in June. They’re aggressive and ambitious, and...
over a year ago
27
over a year ago
US politicians proposed five tech antitrust bills in June. They’re aggressive and ambitious, and contain some important concerns and ideas. Unfortunately, some of them are also pretty naive - case studies in not doing the work.
Essays - Benedict...
Ads, privacy and confusion Privacy is coming to the internet and cookies are going away. This is long overdue - but we don’t...
over a year ago
26
over a year ago
Privacy is coming to the internet and cookies are going away. This is long overdue - but we don’t know what happens next, we don’t have much consensus on what online privacy actually means, and most of what’s on the table conflicts fundamentally with competition.
Essays - Benedict...
Notes on newsletters Email newsletters unlocked a new way to pay for content, but is this a tool or a network? You can...
over a year ago
26
over a year ago
Email newsletters unlocked a new way to pay for content, but is this a tool or a network? You can write all you like, but how do you get readers? And is the take rate 10% or 90%?
Essays - Benedict...
Metabrand Has Mark Zuckerberg rebranded Facebook, or rebranded VR? What is the metaverse? And can any...
over a year ago
26
over a year ago
Has Mark Zuckerberg rebranded Facebook, or rebranded VR? What is the metaverse? And can any company decide to build the future anymore?
Essays - Benedict...
Stepping out of the firehose What does a mailbox with 351 thousand unread emails say about Bauhaus, the Arts and Crafts...
over a year ago
26
over a year ago
What does a mailbox with 351 thousand unread emails say about Bauhaus, the Arts and Crafts movement, and the Metaverse?
Essays - Benedict...
Ways to think about a metaverse Your boss wants a metaverse strategy, but what would that be, and what does metaverse even mean?...
over a year ago
25
over a year ago
Your boss wants a metaverse strategy, but what would that be, and what does metaverse even mean? If we strip away the noise, what can we say about this, and what can we predict?
Essays - Benedict...
Back to the trend line? The Covid Rotation turns, and ecommerce penetration is back to the trend line. But which trend...
over a year ago
25
over a year ago
The Covid Rotation turns, and ecommerce penetration is back to the trend line. But which trend line, and which penetration?
Essays - Benedict...
The FTC versus tech M&A The US is fundamentally rethinking its approach to regulating competition, and M&A, and tech, and...
over a year ago
25
over a year ago
The US is fundamentally rethinking its approach to regulating competition, and M&A, and tech, and big tech buying startups. The FTC’s attempt to block Meta from buying Within is a test case for all of this. So, how many interesting problems can we count?
Essays - Benedict...
Retail, search and Amazon’s $40bn ‘advertising’ business Amazon sold close to $40bn of advertising last year - bigger than Prime, bigger than the entire...
a year ago
24
a year ago
Amazon sold close to $40bn of advertising last year - bigger than Prime, bigger than the entire global newspaper industry and probably more profitable than AWS. But is this really advertising, rent, or something else? And what does that mean for Google?
Essays - Benedict...
ChatGPT and the Imagenet moment The wave of enthusiasm around generative networks feels like another Imagenet moment - a step...
over a year ago
24
over a year ago
The wave of enthusiasm around generative networks feels like another Imagenet moment - a step change in what ‘AI’ can do that could generalise far beyond the cool demos. What can it create, and where are the humans in the loop?
Essays - Benedict...
Tech questions for 2022 Sometimes the centre of gravity in tech is very clear, but as we enter 2022 there are lots of...
over a year ago
23
over a year ago
Sometimes the centre of gravity in tech is very clear, but as we enter 2022 there are lots of areas where trillion dollar questions are wide open. These are the questions I wonder about today, from crypto to cars to fast fashion - there are others.
Essays - Benedict...
When big tech buys small tech ‘Big tech’ buys hundreds of startups, but what are they, what does that mean for competition, and...
over a year ago
23
over a year ago
‘Big tech’ buys hundreds of startups, but what are they, what does that mean for competition, and how does this fit into the broader market? How many more Instagrams are there, and how many DAOs?
Essays - Benedict...
Unbundling AI ChatGPT and LLMs can do anything, so what can you do with them? How do you know? Do we move to...
a year ago
21
a year ago
ChatGPT and LLMs can do anything, so what can you do with them? How do you know? Do we move to chat bots as a magical general-purpose interface, or do we unbundle them back into single-purpose software?
Essays - Benedict...
Metaverse! Metaverse? Metaverse!! ‘Metaverse’ is the buzzword of the moment, yet it doesn’t really exist as more than a label on a...
over a year ago
20
over a year ago
‘Metaverse’ is the buzzword of the moment, yet it doesn’t really exist as more than a label on a whiteboard, and many of the ideas it tries to combine might not happen, or not like that. This might be the new ‘information highway.’ But however it works, some kind of...
Essays - Benedict...
A decade of the Tim Cook machine In all the enthusiasms, arguments and panics around tech, Apple is the $2tn elephant in the...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
In all the enthusiasms, arguments and panics around tech, Apple is the $2tn elephant in the corner, mostly silent and serenely indifferent to the news cycle. It just ships - and it ships market-leading products, with metronomic precision, at massive scale, on a decade-long...
Essays - Benedict...
Rocket ships and tractors For some companies, revenue is a feature.
over a year ago
Essays - Benedict...
Generative AI and intellectual property If you put all the world’s knowledge into an AI model and use it to make something new, who owns...
a year ago
12
a year ago
If you put all the world’s knowledge into an AI model and use it to make something new, who owns that and who gets paid? This is a completely new problem that we’ve been arguing about for 500 years.
Essays - Benedict...
The Deep Research problem OpenAI’s Deep Research is built for me, and I can’t use it. It’s another amazing demo, until it...
4 days ago
6
4 days ago
OpenAI’s Deep Research is built for me, and I can’t use it. It’s another amazing demo, until it breaks. But it breaks in really interesting ways.