I even wrote a program to scrape the websites of my favorite radio stations (well the stations of my favorite music directors) and add the songs to a Spotify playlist.
Whenever I meet a teenager today, one of the first things I ask them is "what apps do you use most", but the next thing I ask is "how do you find new music".
The answer is usually something like "I don't know, I just sort of find stuff I guess?". Some have said they follow influencer's playlists on YouTube or Spotify, which I guess is the new version of the music director? Or they just get it from Spotify playlists.
But what's missing is a shared cultural experience. In the 90s, everyone at my school knew those 40 songs that the local stations played. They might know other stuff too, but you couldn't avoid those top songs. It's not the same today. And it's the same problem for visual media. We all knew the top movies at the theater, because it was the only place to see new movies. And we all knew the top TV shows because they were only on four major networks.
Kids don't have a shared cultural experience like I did.
This is my problem with the proliferation of streaming platforms when it comes to movies and TV. We’ve arguably got more and better content than we’ve ever had. But I find myself far less motivated to watch it. I used to watch content anticipating the conversations I’d have with friends and colleagues. Now, whenever we try to talk about it, it’s 30 seconds of, “Have you seen …?” “No, have you seen …?” “No.” Until we give up and talk about something else.
It’s made me realize that the sharing it with others part was always my favorite part of listening/watching and, without that, I can’t really become emotionally invested it the experience.
Plus almost everyone who says they want a smaller phone will just buy a larger one anyway.
The sales numbers just don't justify it. Like people who pine for manual transmissions: they're vocal in car forums and publications but they're a tiny minority and making one is a money-loser even in the sports car segment.
The problem is that smaller phones are usually fundamentally flawed in ways that aren’t about the smaller screen. Whether it’s a worse CPU, worse camera or smaller battery, people are almost never making their purchasing decision based on screen size with all else being equal. I don’t think we can conclude that most people who ask for a smaller screen don’t really want one because many just don’t want a slow phone that takes worse photos and dies by midafternoon.
I think there needs to be a recognition that bigger screens aren’t only about the bigger screens. They’re also about giving phone designers more internal space to cram in components and a larger battery.