In search of the Lofi aesthetic

This past Sunday morning, we lay in bed listening to Lofi Lofts music and dozing. I felt like I was living out something more than the music itself: some aesthetic of Lofi-ness. We were seeking to embody a life of coziness and stillness.

Something like wanting to be the Lofi Girl.

Instead of listening to the rest of this blog post, instead listen to the Lofi Girl:

Link

The Lofi Girl has been sitting and writing in for over a year now. She was around before then. But she’s been live ever since February, 2020, around quarantine in the USA.

The soundtrack beats onward with different tunes. But the feeling is the same. Here eyes are relaxed, on the verge of drifting into dreaming. Her head slumps into her hand. A bit of writing and turning the page. It’s dark inside, but not gloomy. It’s calming, but focused.

The pieces settle together like they weren’t organized there deliberately. The books are scattered on the desk and shelf. But everything rests exactly where they are without tension.

There’s no activity outside. The sun rises and sets, the seasons change, but the girl and her cat still persist. There’s nothing else she’s missing. There’s nothing else worth doing than what she’s doing right now.

The girl looks up at her cat, and we expect something to happen. But no: its tail swings lazily. The cat is perfectly content where it is.

That’s really it: being content where we are.

We live in a disorganized world. But when we sit still in the early morning, we can gaze outside at nothing in particular. We realize there’s nothing under the bed or in the closet out to get us. There’s nobody waiting to knock on our door and send our life into a tailspin.

In that moment, stillness hangs in the air.

That’s what we felt when we slept in. Like we could wake up, yes. But we’re not missing anything. Why not appreciate the stillness as such. The world will still be there from one moment to the next. Right now is the perfect time to settle into something or nothing. Simple, straightforward, and slowly.

Fighting Against the Current: A Case Study of Daylight Savings Time vs. A Global Market

Daylight Savings Time comes and goes again in the USA. Our representatives again are trying to introduce a bill to stop it. Will this be the year that we break the habit? Or will we kick the can down the road again?

It started with best intentions in mind. The idea was to reduce fuel usage during dark hours. But in the contemporary world, is Daylight Savings Time useless?

Something new for me in recent years is the global element of time zones. For some people living in the Americas like me, our clocks changed on March 14th. For Europe, the Middle East, and some other areas, different changes happen on different dates. The remainder of the world does not alter their clocks. Since one region changes at a time, this means that when the US changes its clocks, most of the rest of the world hasn’t. This causes friction when you talk to people in other time zones.

Listen to this post here!

As part of my work, I meet on virtual conference calls with people around the globe. Twice a year I have to reschedule my calls to address overlaps caused by Daylight Savings Time. I know it’s not just me. The number of companies working in a global marketplace is rising more with every year. So this issue will only increase.

Let’s estimate the costs of this:

Suppose 15 minutes to find free time to reschedule all my recurring meetings

Suppose 15 minutes more from follow-up scheduling or meetings missed due to miscommunications

Doing this twice a year costs 1 hour of time annually.

Suppose the individuals involved have an average annual salary of $50K USD and work a standard 2,080 hours per year.

That hour costs $24 with those assumptions.

Assuming a global workforce of 1 billion people, let’s assume half are affected by a Daylight Savings Time switch twice a year.

That’s 500M people spending $24 each, which is $12 Billion. Ranking this $12B amount compared to the GDP of other nations would place it at number 132 out of 190, behind Brunei and in front of Armenia and Madagascar (which has a population of 25 Million people!).

$12 Billion from rescheduling meetings due to Daylight Savings Time. My numbers may be off, but by how much? My next question is, what’s the value of the fuel saved from those participating in Daylight Savings Time? Are we saving $12 Billion in fuel per year?

Network Effects and Virality are not the same – Re: Platforms

I’m reading the book Platform Revolution to better understand how platforms change markets. For the longest time, I thought that network effects and virality were the same thing. However, according to the authors:

“Virality is about attracting people who are off the platform and enticing them to join it, while network effects are about increasing value among people on-platform.” (23)

Photo by JJ Ying on Unsplash
Listen to this blog post here! Network Effects and Virality

I had assumed that what attracts people into a network is the value they get from the network. But in fact, this oversimplifies the interaction between user and platform. The reason for joining could be the same as sticking around. But often, it isn’t.

Suppose a marketing initiative gives users $10 to refer a friend to join. Or, registering could require the user to input their contact list to the platform, to be used for more invites. These examples show virality to grow a network, but not value creation within a network. Just because a platform has a network and goes viral, does not mean that it adds value to users upon joining. Virality used to get more hype, with value coming from how fast you could grow. But now, the value of platforms comes from how they retain users just as much as obtaining users.

Network effects depend a lot on the platform itself. For YouTube, virality could be sharing a video link. But network effect benefits would be the improvement to the video recommendation algorithm coming from more behavioral data from more users. This recommendation keeps users coming back.

It’s possible that a platform has both virality and network effects, such as Facebook: people joined Facebook because of the viral effect of “Fear of Missing Out.” Our friends were connected, so we wanted in as well. Once online, people stayed on for additional features like Facebook Groups and Facebook Marketplace, which grew more valuable as more people joined. Now, the long-term value of Facebook is “active” users, not just “new” users. And activity comes from those valuing the service and going back for the network effects.

As I continue learning about platforms, I’ll pay more attention to the difference between why to join a network vs. why to stay on it.