Ben Gilbert: prediction

Transcript context

…I mean, I think this is a consequence both, as you were saying, of the shift to everything on demand and subscription versus ownership. But also of the massive, massive broadening of reach of social networks, of Instagram, of Facebook and of Snapchat in its own way too. I mean, I think a lot of while it opens up communication and the possibility to be seen and heard to so many people to so much wider of an audience, it also at the same time has a homogenizing effect. Yeah, totally. It’s interesting to start thinking more about like things that haven’t been homogenized yet that could be. Like you see signs right now, like everyone gets the same opportunity to post an Instagram shot and you just get to pick like what pixels, are you lighting up what colors in that square that make you an individual. And there’s all these people that do food photography. Then on other side of the coin, there’s people drinking Soylent and like deciding that “Oh, what the guy eats... I don’t need to differentiate myself on what I eat and I don’t actually take that much joy in it. So whatever, I’ll just drink Soylent and it is ‘nutritious’ and everything that I need.” It’s interesting that I think about like there’s people that pride themselves on taking the photos of food and there’s other people that have written that off. They’re like, “No. That's the way that I’m going to be the same as everyone.” And it's almost like when you think about a business, like where are we going to differentiate and where are we going to be world-class and where are we going to just try and outsource our non-core competencies. There will be table stakes in these areas that aren’t core competencies. As you point that to people, do you think that we’re getting less and less opportunities to be different and define our own core competencies because there’s an ease of availability to the table stakes and everything else because there is everything as a service or you sort of can outsource everything. Yeah. I mean, I really think so. The really interesting question is, like, are we at the crest of the wave here or the nature of the wave in terms of is individuality and individual expression especially in physical things and collections, is it going to continue to decline, or is there going to be a reaction a pushback to this homogenization to the extent that people are feeling it and people are going to want to go back. I think this might be why you’re seeing physical album sales and LPs, vinyl is coming back.…

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