🗓 What Happened on Tech Twitter in November

🇺🇸 We celebrated Joe & Kamala, 🤔 Coinbase preempted the New York Times, 🐦 Twitter released Fleets!, 🦃 We were thankful AF

Yo! ✌️ I’m Brett! Social Studies is about trying to understand what it means to be human in the context of modern technology. It includes recaps of what happened on Tech Twitter plus deep analysis using frameworks from Psychology, Economics, and the Social Sciences.

⏱ The TLDR

Yoooo! The irony of a November roundup email half-way through December is not lost on me - sorry fam. Big changes coming in the next few weeks I’m super excited about.

Here are the top stories from November:

🇺🇸 We celebrated Joe & Kamala - Despite mostly leaning libertarian, Tech Twitter was relieved that Joe Biden won the US presidential election.

🤔 Coinbase preempted the New York Times - Coinbase released a piece ahead of a NYT article blasting the company for how it treats black employees.

🐦 Twitter released Fleets! - Twitter’s Snapchat stories clone arrived… and people didn’t hate it?

🦃 We were thankful AF - I launched $THANKSgiving, a product that gives you crypto when you say what you’re thankful for and it hit #3 on Product Hunt.

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🇺🇸 Tech Twitter celebrated Joe & Kamala

Joe Biden won the US presidential election. Despite Tech Twitter having its fair share of secret Trump supporters (at least in terms of fiscal and space policy), most people were overjoyed with the results.

§Alex Adelman 🍭 @alexadelman

There is A LOT to unpack here...

Design Twitter celebrated exactly how you’d expect them to.

Robyn Kanner @robynkanner

❤️ VICTORY GRADIENT ❤️

🤔 Coinbase preempted the New York Times

Yet another battle in the endless war between tech and media went down. Mason breaks down exactly what happened:

Mason 🏃‍♂️✂️ @webdevMason

Coinbase became aware of an upcoming hit piece in the New York Times & decided to preempt it w/ a blog post. Incredibly, this has been interpreted by some journalists as a sort of theft of the scoop, as though private companies are beholden to take their knocks to enrich the NYT.

The piece was real, and real bad, putting Coinbase in a tough position trying to be an a-political “mission-driven” organization.

jason@calacanis.com @Jason

The nyt story that @coinbase front ran is out — paints a picture of trying & failing (hard) to create diverse culture... & now spiraling to figure out how to move forward under massive scrutiny. ‘Tokenized’: Inside Black Workers’ Struggles at Coinbase

nytimes.com‘Tokenized’: Inside Black Workers’ Struggles at the King of Crypto Start-UpsCoinbase, the most valuable U.S. cryptocurrency company, has faced many internal complaints about discriminatory treatment.

🐦 Twitter released Fleets!

Twitter released it’s Instagram Stories clone, Fleets. There were obviously a lot of cynical remarks about Twitter’s slow, uncreative execution and some boomer tweets about how it’s confusing.

Paras Chopra @paraschopra

I got access to Twitter’s take on stories called Fleets which disappear within 24 hours. (See top of the app) Can’t say I’m loving it. Whenever I have something to say, I tweet it. Then what do I use these Fleets for?

But overall, people seemed to enjoy fleets and appreciate where it seems to be taking Twitter.

Casey Newton @CaseyNewton

I wrote about fleets, audio “spaces,” and Twitter’s effort to create healthier conversations through design. Featuring this block-quote from @kayvz platformer.news/p/twitter-adds…

🦃 We were thankful AF

I was feeling a little cheeky this Thanksgiving so I launched $THANKSgiving, a product that gives you cryptocurrency for saying what you’re thankful for.

And hey, we got to number 3 on Product Hunt! Turns out there are a lot of thankful people out there in the world.

Brett Goldstein 🚀🏠 @thatguyBG

🚨🦃Thanksgiving product drop🦃🚨 It's been a tough year for everyone. Giving thanks has been scientifically shown to improve your mental health. So... for Thanksgiving, I created a product that pays you cryptocurrency to give thanks. 🙏 @thethankful_ producthunt.com/posts/thanks-2

producthunt.com$THANKS - A community and token for the nicest people on the internet | Product Hunt$THANKS is a cryptocurrency you earn by simply saying what you’re thankful for. With $THANKS, you get access to a private Discord community of the nicest people on the internet.

📚 Great reads from November

Here are some great reads!

Li Jin @ljin18

Mindblowing stats about OnlyFans 🤯🤯🤯 - $2Bn paid out to creators to-date (founded in 2016!) - implying $500m cumulative net revenue to OnlyFans in <5 years (20% take) - Over 100 creators have exceeded $1M earnings - No outside investors & profitable theinformation.com/articles/onlyf…

theinformation.comOnlyFans Chief Talks Sports Ambitions and Role of Adult Content in SiteOne of the buzziest companies in tech today, OnlyFans, is about as far from a typical startup as is possible. OnlyFans has no outside investors, is already profitable and isn’t looking to raise money, according to its founder, British entrepreneur Tim Stokely. OnlyFans is a subscription social ...

Nikhil Basu Trivedi @nbt

The string of IPO filings last week from consumer technology companies — @Affirm @Airbnb @DoorDash @Roblox @WishShopping — got me thinking about a question I’ve fielded frequently in the past 5 years: “Isn’t consumer dead?” 5 reasons the answer is "no":

nbt.substack.comConsumer Technology Is Alive and WellFive reasons for why consumer doesn’t need a platform shift to thrive in the 2020s.

Sari Azout @sariazout

We are living through the emergence of a new business category which I believe will become an important part of our digital lives: community-curated knowledge networks  (a thread on why)

Blake Robbins @blakeir

The Multi-SKU Creator — @hunterwalk // The best creators have diversified revenue streams. Over the next decade, we will see tools emerge to give more power to the individual. It’s one of the many reasons I’m such a big believer in @stir. hunterwalk.medium.com/why-a-paid-new…

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🙏Thanks

Thanks yall! Have a great holiday. Here’s some $THANKS for reading 🙏

Rex Chapman🏇🏼 @RexChapman

Holiday drones. Dope...