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The Amazon tax
It’s not technically a tax. Taxes produce valuable public benefits, like medical research and parks. This is simply legal theft. Amazon makes nearly a billion dollars in profit from search ad…
Seth Godin
Seth Godin's Blog on marketing, tribes and respect
- Popular posts
- 18
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- 5,942
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- 3,800
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- #163 personal
Visit seths.blog → On Hacker News Jun 2018 – Aug 2026
Tech Industry & Business 12Life, Learning & Writing 11Society, Policy & Culture 6Systems & Performance 1Crypto & Blockchain 1
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NFTs Are a Dangerous Trap
Like most traps, they’re mysterious and then appealing and then it’s too late. An NFT is digital treasure chest, a status symbol and an apparent item of value. Like a Pokemon card, or a…
3
How to win an argument with a toddler
You can’t. That’s because toddlers don’t understand what an argument is and aren’t interesting in having one. Toddlers (which includes defensive bureaucrats, bullies, flat e…
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Don't Waste the Good Days
If you’re feeling creative, do the errands tomorrow. If you’re fit and healthy, take a day to go surfing. When inspiration strikes, write it down. The calendar belongs to everyone else.…
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Shields Up
Years and years ago, I helped the Weekly World News make a book. While their periodical was weekly, it certainly wasn’t news. They were just four people in a small office in Florida. They gle…
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Stop Ruining It
Paul McGowan makes stereos. To paraphrase his insight: The musicality isn’t a feature you add to an amplifier. It’s what’s left when you stop ruining it. To expand: Customer delig…
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Hard work vs. Long work (2011)
Long work is what the lawyer who bills 14 hours a day filling in forms does. Hard work is what the insightful litigator does when she synthesizes four disparate ideas and comes up with an argument …
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Attention is a luxury good
Luxury goods are special: they are scarce and expensive, and they earn us status with some folks because it shows that we paid more than we needed to. Luxury isn’t about quality, suitability …
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Other People’s Problems
It’s surprisingly easy to be generous and find solutions to our friend’s problems. Much easier than it is to do it for ourselves. Why? There are two useful reasons, I think. FIRST, beca…
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On paying for software
The business of software is a bit of a miracle. Properly designed, software isn’t more expensive to create when more people use it. In fact, when network effects are involved, it’s actu…
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Ignore Sunk Costs (2009)
The most important decision-making rule you learn in business school is still largely misunderstood. When making a choice between two options, only consider what’s going to happen in the futu…
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Don't Shave That Yak (2005)
The single best term I’ve learned this year. I want to give you the non-technical definition, and as is my wont, broaden it a bit. Yak Shaving is the last step of a series of steps that occur…
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Half Baked
If you care about a creative practice, my guess is that you’ve already seen Peter Jackson’s new Beatles movie. If not, go check it out. It’s a miracle that the movie exists at all…
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Quality and Effort (2018)
It seems as though the opposite of “careless” ought to be “careful.” That the best way to avoid avoidable errors is to try harder, to put more care into the work. This means…
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Trading trust
The Brookings Institution did a fascinating survey series over the last five years. I have two takeways from this: The first is that focused and persistent propaganda is able to shift public opinio…
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Amazon Smile Gets a Frown
I’m pretty sure how the first meetings went almost a decade ago: “Well, we’re paying our affiliates 5% for referrals. If we pay charities a tenth of that and call it a donation, i…
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Replacing bad systems with bad systems
A metaphor involving parking meters. Over the years, parking meters in town have evolved into a cumbersome, awkward system. Coins are heavy and you need to have them handy, meters need to be reinfo…
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The Le Guin Precepts
Fabled author Ursula Le Guin had a sign over her desk: Is it true? Is it necessary or at least useful? Is it compassionate or at least unharmful? Not a bad place to begin.