Sam Pressler
Appearances
It's Been a Minute
Lonely? There's an app for that... but should there be?
And essentially what's happened is we've created college as this supercharger of our relational lives. Like we have full administrative teams that are about building relationships on campus. Right, right, right. And then at the same time, we don't have an alternative pathway, right? But there's another piece, which is a structural piece in it.
It's Been a Minute
Lonely? There's an app for that... but should there be?
the returns on that degree socially have gotten even more extreme because the civic infrastructure of our communities has declined so much so in the past in the past you're a member of a church or a temple or a mosque and that provides a structure in the past you're a member of one of these civic groups in the past like you're more likely to be in a relationship
It's Been a Minute
Lonely? There's an app for that... but should there be?
And by the way, if you're working, you're more likely to be in a union. If you don't have a college degree, the stability of your job is much less solid. So you're more likely to be working in a retail industry or a service industry where you have precarious workplace. You don't know what your schedule is next week. How are you going to plan to spend time with people?
It's Been a Minute
Lonely? There's an app for that... but should there be?
How are you going to plan to be in community?
It's Been a Minute
Lonely? There's an app for that... but should there be?
It's not that anyone without a degree is worse at building relationships, but it's so much more work is put on you yourself. both to overcome barriers and then to do all this DIY community building and planning that some of these groups used to provide.
It's Been a Minute
Lonely? There's an app for that... but should there be?
Mm hmm. you know, I'm of the perspective that like the shift that needs to start is a kind of shift in what we value in terms of how we relate to other people. The second thing is kind of the structural and policy change. There's examples throughout the countries of local government offices providing grants for neighborhood dinners and block parties and these things for people to gather.
It's Been a Minute
Lonely? There's an app for that... but should there be?
And then like the final piece is community. And I think so much of this is about kind of bottom-up community building where people recognize that their particular place is worth stewarding. More people cultivating civic life in their places will make civic life more robust over a 20, 30, 40-year time period.
It's Been a Minute
Lonely? There's an app for that... but should there be?
where I begin is really that the business model of these media platforms is capturing as much of our leisure time as possible. And if the business model is capturing as much of our leisure time as possible, then who or what is competing for that leisure time? It's community groups, it's our neighbors, it's our friends, it's our family.
It's Been a Minute
Lonely? There's an app for that... but should there be?
Yeah, in many ways, what's happening is they're taking this thing that we all innately know how to do as human beings, which is connect and commune. Like they're putting a paywall up in front of it. And then they're selling and repackaging that back to you. There's also an element, which is like the venture capital model in particular, right? So what does that mean?
It's Been a Minute
Lonely? There's an app for that... but should there be?
You have certain growth targets around scale, right? Because the model of a venture capital fund is 10x plus or bust. You make money through either volume or pricing. And so if it's a volume-based perspective, what are you doing? You have to have speed and you have to have efficiency. And so that means rapid customer acquisition. And what do we know about relationships?
It's Been a Minute
Lonely? There's an app for that... but should there be?
Relationships move at the speed of trust, right? And that is slow. So there's this fundamental disconnect in the model when you're just talking about the scale piece of it and you're talking about the need for volume. But then there's the pricing piece, right? And this is where peoplehood comes in.
It's Been a Minute
Lonely? There's an app for that... but should there be?
Yeah. If you want to compete on pricing, well, then you're pushed towards premiumization, right?
It's Been a Minute
Lonely? There's an app for that... but should there be?
Yeah. What I call like the privatization of community, we privatize these types of interventions that used to be shared experiences that we all have. And so a lot of this gets really tricky once we enmesh that with the venture capital-based funding model.
It's Been a Minute
Lonely? There's an app for that... but should there be?
And to believe that there is this quick self-help fix that is going to solve these issues just reflects not a sense of the depth of these challenges.
It's Been a Minute
Lonely? There's an app for that... but should there be?
Oh, absolutely. What we've decided is kind of to apply the logic of transaction and the logic of commerce, which is all based on individual decisions to the realm of human relationships.
It's Been a Minute
Lonely? There's an app for that... but should there be?
I really do think it's worth naming across all of this is the Classified. Stick around.
It's Been a Minute
Lonely? There's an app for that... but should there be?
There's something really interesting in what he said. And I think it gets this idea that like tools are neutral, right? And what we've decided is to apply values to these tools, like growth, scale, efficiency, values of the market.
It's Been a Minute
Lonely? There's an app for that... but should there be?
two tools that ultimately if our end goal is facilitating human relationships and community those values are misapplied and so wahini what i hear in your experience is like that was actually a tool that was well designed to facilitate connection right there are other examples of that as well right there's this group that i wrote about it's in vermont called the front porch forum and they're like the opposite of next door like they are intentionally designed to facilitate slow frictionful interactions that demonstrate social trust in neighborhoods
It's Been a Minute
Lonely? There's an app for that... but should there be?
And they were able to do that because they bootstrapped that model with an intentional design of the tool to promote relationships both online but in real life. Whereas Nextdoor took $400 million in venture and private equity funding and because of those things had to hit certain targets around scale, around revenue, around growth.
It's Been a Minute
Lonely? There's an app for that... but should there be?
that then ended up pushing them away from those very values that we're talking about. So when I hear you, Wahini, that's a tool for, as Ivan Ilyich would say, a tool for conviviality. It's a tool designed for interaction and for relationship, not for the outcomes of the market. Yeah.
It's Been a Minute
Lonely? There's an app for that... but should there be?
I have so many thoughts on this. In the perspective of can this be a tool that's useful? Okay, in a period of time where you've lost a loved one, where you've experienced some like acute isolation and having something to kind of interact with in a short period of time, that feels like a tool that could be useful for people in acute periods of challenge.
It's Been a Minute
Lonely? There's an app for that... but should there be?
At the same time, if you look at apps like Replica, which is like literally... That's the one that I used.
It's Been a Minute
Lonely? There's an app for that... but should there be?
It doesn't compete with your husband yet, but apparently the models are getting stronger. But if you look at an app like Replica, they are competing to be your friend or your significant other. The business model is staying on those apps. My concern with this, and we haven't talked about it in the conversation, but I really do think it's worth naming across all of this, is the class divide.
It's Been a Minute
Lonely? There's an app for that... but should there be?
And when you look at the groups who are most socially isolated and most disconnected, the It's consistently people without college degrees. Like if you're someone who is looking for a relationship, if you're someone who is looking for connection, there is an entire economy that's now built in providing these synthetic alternatives to relationship. And that to me is like a very dystopian future.