AirChat is Dead, Long Live AirChat

AirChat, the social voice app I’ve been using for the last couple of months, announced that they will be sunsetting the current version, and re-launching the app with entirely new capabilities. While not unexpected, this to me highlights a larger issue with startups and with social media. It doesn’t matter what you want, for optimal results you’ve got to do what the masses demand, and in case of AirChat it was clear for a few months, they just weren’t able to grow engagement.

I’ve been admiring this YouTube channel of a woman that reviews knives. She started 8 years ago from nothing, and now she has >1M followers and 500 videos under her belt. That’s insane, if you consider that most of her videos are 30 seconds or less. She barely talks about the features of the knife at all. Her videos are not entertaining nor do they have any technical information, they are just short commercials, and she’s bringing in the dough.

Meanwhile, there’s an unlimited number of channels with dudes reviewing knives in every kind of detail, taking them hiking, cutting stuff, doing all kind of real-life testing, and in comparison those videos get no vides. Nobody cares.

I should know about videos that get no views, I have a podcast…

Back in the 90s, when the internet was small, you could write a post on your website, send it to a few friends in a chat room, and if it was any good, you had people’s attention. That was enough for you and for them. You had 5 replies, and your friend had 10, and it was cool. In 2024 that’s no longer enough, or even possible. Here I am writing this newsletter, sharing with you, and I might get one or two quick replies. Meanwhile, Elon tweets about a fart and gets 12k comments.

So what should we do? Do we cater to the masses, or do we carry on with what feels right? It doesn’t make sense to put time into something that does not get views. It also doesn’t make sense to spend time on something that you personally find to be meaningless either. Those two for me often seem to be at the different ends of the spectrum, where you have to pick one.

For now, I am fine writing newsletters and making podcasts, even if just a few people see it and even fewer respond. I am doing it out of a habit, and curiosity, but I am not convinced it’s a time well spent. I’d love to know what you think.

There’s going to be another newsletter in a few days, it will be on AI, and a project that a friend and I have been working on for a while. I hope you read it.

Kirill

p.s. Some of you might know that “Attention is All You Need” was the title of a research paper that jump-started this AI revolution we are seeing today. Ironic, how that describes an entire generation.