Make Things That Are Good For The World
What does that even mean?
An Odd Question
In a post-Thanksgiving coma feeling both a little sleepy and a lot thankful, I checked in with my Facebook to wish my friends for the holiday. As soon as I popped open the app, this very odd question took over my screen. Do I think “Facebook is good for the world?”
Hmmm…It’s complicated
The Good the Bad and the Ugly
The original use case for Facebook the product is pretty solid. I like seeing what kind of stuffing others had at their Thanksgiving table. In moderation, it’s a fun hobby assuming I’m not using it as a proxy for grappling with sadness or actually spending quality time with people I care about. Beyond that, Facebook the company and all other “free” online social services and the way they wield their products and arsenals of big data are problematic.
Current social sites and apps serve us a powerful cocktail of temporary scratching of an emotional itch that we spend hours a day trying to fully satisfy but end up generating data that those sites sell for billions of dollars a month — with zero compensation to us.
What’s “Good for the World?”
Anything that empowers rather than exploits humanity
Not only do products that are good for the world forgo preying on depression, loneliness and despair but they help make us our best selves rather than help us present a version of ourselves we want our friends to see.
Products that are truly good for the world trigger our positive internal motivators — autonomy, mastery, purpose
Autonomy: Products that are good for the world make us feel valuable
Mastery: Products that are good for the world make us proud of our abilities
Purpose: Products that are good for the world make us feel unique
Products that are good for the world work for us — we don’t work for them.
Make sense? Good :) I am lucky to work for an organization that embodies the principles above and I invite you to join the thousands of makers and developers who have joined us to make SENSE⚡
Open Letter to Makers
Makers, Entrepreneurs:
Ready your slingshots. Goliath has shown a vulnerability and it’s time to take it down, category by category.
We need:
Social apps that are good for the world
Media apps that are good for the world
Events apps that are good for the world
Marketplace apps that are good for the world (many, many of these)
Messaging apps, bots and agents that are good for the world
AR and VR apps and platforms that are good for the world
Business to Business and Consumer apps that are good for the world
What’s good for the world?
Anything that empowers humanity rather than exploiting it
Where do we start?
By replacing depression and anxiety as triggers to use apps with more positive internal motivators — autonomy, mastery, purpose
How do we start?
See makesense.com
Humanity, hang tight. We got your back :)
Let’s roll
Ariel
PS — You know what’s cool? 2 billion friends sharing selfies. You know what’s cooler? 7 billion strangers transacting their most valuable assets
