“26% think that the sun goes around the Earth. For these people, talking to a chatbot is likely to leave them with a MORE accurate view of reality.”
This is a great example of a common phenomenon that needs a name. Does it already have a name in the literature? Similarly, Sesame Street didn’t have much effect on the literacy of children of parents who talked to their kids a lot, read to them every night, etc. (Watching TV might have even been mildly negative for some of these kids, as the real-world alternative was available and better.) But it had a powerful positive effect on kids whose parents hardly spoke to them, didn’t read to them, etc. This effect – negative at the top, neutral in the middle positive at the bottom – tends to wash out to nothing statistically. But it’s actually having lots of different effects! And arguments about it are extremely frustrating, because people can always just point at one end of the distribution, and ignore the other.
Anyway, great post, as ever. Full of juicy informational goodness.
Re #11 - Using the simplest measure of evaluating Spotify's spin, the number isn't 13,800 *artists* getting paid more that $100k, it's 13,800 rightsholders. Meaning for 13,800 artists' work, Spotify pays that much, but that payout then gets split based on the label/distributor/songwriter/artist split. They also seem to switch between "artist" and "rightsholder" in that Loud and Clear site in a way that obscures where and how the money actually flows. And they argue they are increasing the revenue pool for royalties, but if that is accomplished by including more artists without any increase in payment from users then the growth is essentially from an increasingly diluted, commoditized pool of music. It might still be true that Spotify does increase payouts to artists, and that complaints about streaming revenues are motivated more by philosophical objections or perceived lack of fairness in payouts, but that report still seems like it chooses the noisy way to prove their point than the good way. Which, I've read, means they probably couldn't prove it the good way to begin with.
#5 - this article from New York Magazine (5/15/26) https://archive.is/3ixJc talks about how social media is a lot of subtle advertising, whether in music or other areas
“26% think that the sun goes around the Earth. For these people, talking to a chatbot is likely to leave them with a MORE accurate view of reality.”
This is a great example of a common phenomenon that needs a name. Does it already have a name in the literature? Similarly, Sesame Street didn’t have much effect on the literacy of children of parents who talked to their kids a lot, read to them every night, etc. (Watching TV might have even been mildly negative for some of these kids, as the real-world alternative was available and better.) But it had a powerful positive effect on kids whose parents hardly spoke to them, didn’t read to them, etc. This effect – negative at the top, neutral in the middle positive at the bottom – tends to wash out to nothing statistically. But it’s actually having lots of different effects! And arguments about it are extremely frustrating, because people can always just point at one end of the distribution, and ignore the other.
Anyway, great post, as ever. Full of juicy informational goodness.
Re #11 - Using the simplest measure of evaluating Spotify's spin, the number isn't 13,800 *artists* getting paid more that $100k, it's 13,800 rightsholders. Meaning for 13,800 artists' work, Spotify pays that much, but that payout then gets split based on the label/distributor/songwriter/artist split. They also seem to switch between "artist" and "rightsholder" in that Loud and Clear site in a way that obscures where and how the money actually flows. And they argue they are increasing the revenue pool for royalties, but if that is accomplished by including more artists without any increase in payment from users then the growth is essentially from an increasingly diluted, commoditized pool of music. It might still be true that Spotify does increase payouts to artists, and that complaints about streaming revenues are motivated more by philosophical objections or perceived lack of fairness in payouts, but that report still seems like it chooses the noisy way to prove their point than the good way. Which, I've read, means they probably couldn't prove it the good way to begin with.
#5 - this article from New York Magazine (5/15/26) https://archive.is/3ixJc talks about how social media is a lot of subtle advertising, whether in music or other areas
Thanks for the shoutout.