I’m not interested in playing The Algorithm any more. Here’s why.
When one submits to the SEO myth, one automatically places oneself at a competitive disadvantage, oogling a slice of pie that just got smaller because you also want to stick a fork in it. Same goes for buying clickbait or stuffing one’s content with expensive keywords.
Niching down? Another Algorithmic ruse, carried over from Marketing 101, that modern geniuses like Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos eschew in favor of…better assumptions. And their results are obvious (I hope). Sure: niche down and find niche customers…and you’ll also find fewer and fewer of them with more and more of your competitors vying for their attention. Not the zero sum game I care to play, thank you.
And speaking of attention, what does it mean when a platform rewards your efforts to build audience by making it too costly for your content to actually reach them (hello, Facebook for Business)? Or fails to provide you with industry-standard easy ways to convert likes into actual paying customers (Instagram)? Or hides good-enough data mining behind a paywall (LinkedIn)? Or deprecates your effective evergreen content that violates the latest revision of its “community guidelines” (YouTube)?
Let’s not even start talking about paid advertising, which has allowed the Big Boys to ruin everything from news to recipes to the streaming services we chose because they were once ad-free.
How big is the industry that has grown up around hacking The Algorithm? And what is its real motivation? Like all businesses, Professional Algorithm Hackers (some call themselves “marketers”) are motivated by sustainability, and while Meta and Alphabet and Microsoft continue to enable that by changing things up when it serves them, how many times does any real business truly need to refresh its website, update its profile, or cow-tow to the latest Algorithmic quirk?
Same goes for that made-up ruse: “your personal brand” – that fine line between how close you can approach professional legitimacy while still offering just the right amount of click bait (or conflict) to hook The Algorithm.
And speaking of conflict, The Algorithm almost exclusively feeds on it first, even before clickbait. If what you do isn’t grounded in ongoing conflict (real or imagined), The Algorithm will ignore you. And, for completeness, The Algorithm doesn’t see any conflict in the obvious tension between the genuine article and the two-legged ladder of conspiracy theory and AI-induced sameness, because more is obviously better damn the quality full speed ahead.
Which also means we have to look at the double-myth-whammy of scarcity and FOMO. I’d LOVE to use software that isn’t broken, and there’s just no way to easily go back to a version of any given app or OS that worked better than the current one. Of course I want all the new features that slow the latest and greatest releases of hundreds of tools way down and make them virtually impossible to use! Not.
If there’s one assumption that developers have made that’s more destructive than any other it’s that everyone wants the latest. Now. And that we’ll pay extra for it. Exhibit A is Google in, say, 2023: it was still a search engine, even though heavily encumbered by sponsored “results.” Or Spotify’s ever-malleable user interface that’s still not useful. Sadly, too many of us ante up for FOMO. Or grab as much crap as possible during any of the online incentive-based sales that run 24/7 ad nauseam.
Apps? They’re just funnels to suck you further down a FOMO rabbit hole. Unless they purport to be about mental health, which is ironic considering how the Information Age assaults us with so many demands that we’ve become a human commodity bought and sold for our ever-shrinking attention spans, provided we can pass the Captcha to get to the data we really wanted in the first place.
I know I know: some apps are for entertainment purposes, and many of those are doing really well…at teaching kids any social skills at all, or tapping the vast well of humanity that civilization needs if it will outlive The Algorithm.
So I’m cashing in my last few chips at The Zero-Sum Casino. Tossing treasure at sports gambling or playing the lotto might actually be more productive than attempting to fool one more venture capitalist with analytics. And, by the way, VCs have the same problem I do, except in reverse.
Let’s return to bottom-line metrics: is what you do actually good? Great? Does it solve any real-life problem in a meaningful way? Can it operate without sacrificing itself to The Algorithm? Do you, Dear Reader, provide your authentic product or service with a conscience that’s unplugged from everything Algorithm?
If, as you read this, you cannot separate your business from the built-in online codependency we have all been encouraged to use since, say, 1995, I have a question: is riding The Algorithm a risk you still want to take? Unless you’re tied to Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft, or SpaceX, you’ll need to answer that question soon; not even Big Government is a safe investment any more.
And yeah: I hope this sounds angry, because I am when I consider all of it. I also hope you’re as angry about it as I am. If we can channel that anger, there’s hope, right? Let’s just keep it out of The Algorithm’s sight so that when our perspective becomes a popular movement we aren’t de-platformed by community standards that were re-written overnight by The Algorithm just to keep the light of day from showing through its cracks.
Oops…too late.
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Over the course of more than 40 years of paying attention to how music works on us, Bill Protzmann has rediscovered the fundamental nature and purpose of music and accumulated a vast awareness of anthropology and sociology, as well as the effects of music, the arts, and information technology on human beings. Bill has experimented with what he has learned through performing concerts, giving lectures, facilitating workshops, and teaching classes. He first published on the powerful extensibility of music into the business realm in 2006 (here and abstract here). Ten years later, in 2016, he consolidated his work into the Musimorphic Quest. In this guided, gamified, experiential environment, participants discover and remember their innate connection to this ancient transformative technology. Also, The National Council for Behavioral Healthcare recognized Bill in 2014 with an Inspiring Hope award for Artistic Expression, the industry equivalent of winning an Oscar.
In addition to individuals, Musimorphic programs support personal and professional development and wellness for businesses, NPOs and at-risk populations.
