What goes around, comes around ...
Thomas L. Friedman’s The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century has been a well-read and oft-quoted book on the impact and effects of globalisation. It was first published way back in 2005 when Google was not even 10 years into existence. The iPhone, and as a consequence the smartphone category, was still in its conceptual stages. Facebook had just launched, but only on the Harvard campus. YouTube had just launched, but was yet to be bought by Google. Only Amazon was more than a decade old, but still largely focused on selling books and music CDs. Long story short, digital was advancing, but it hadn’t become a way of life.
The subsequent exponential advancement of digital has had a massive impact on all aspects of how we live, how we behave, how we function, how we consume things, how we buy, how we eat and what we eat. It has led to an upheaval and upending of many things traditional whose death knell was sounded multiple times with every new ‘buzzy’ thing that was being introduced in the market at warp speed. Every new service or product that was being introduced came with the lofty promise of changing the world as we knew it. And sure enough, with so many things and services and products and experiences and apps being introduced every other day, the world has changed quite a bit from what we knew of it say about half a decade ago. Things as we knew them suddenly became archaic, and so did the things that were newly introduced meeting the same fate. We were given to believe that wastelands of digital and physical has-beens were growing with every passing day.
Technology forced a lot of people to learn new things with an urgency of being a pro yesterday, so that you could live a peer-pressure-free today.
With the advent of digital, interoperability and the interdependence between diverse economies only went on to make the world flatter and flatter. But at the same time it started changing in its structure in more ways than one. If Friedman were to do a series of books on how the world has been since 2005, he would possibly have successive titles like The World is Zooming, The World is Friending, The World is Compressed, The World is Byting, etc etc etc.
And yet … and yet … things as we always knew them, or at least as far as GenXers knew them have been making a quiet comeback. Or rather, are once again claiming their place in the new world order. David Sax in his authoritative work on the subject has called it
I wouldn’t go so far as to call it an out and out revenge. I would put it as, in milder terms, a peaceful coexistence of all things digital with their non-digital counterparts.
This slow, steady and sure comeback into existence and into public consciousness is leading to a wave of cheer amongst those who missed the simple, and largely unwired, ways of living. For the Gen’s that followed the Xer’s, these things have a novelty factor, or as they say a ‘coolness quotient’ to these comebacks. It is leading to a happy coexistence of all things digital with their non-digital counterparts.
Take the case of books. Digital prophets had all but written off the publishing industry when the technology for e-books was introduced. E-books were meant to have killed the publishing industry. Even the act of writing was being seen as a has-been vocation to get into. And while the Kindle and other e-book readers have been amping up their presence in our lives, and are increasingly getting accepted as well, their quest is to come close to the actual book reading experience. Because they realise that while a tap will turn the page in an e-book reader with an accompanying sound effect as well as visual flip of the page, it will never come anywhere close to actually holding a piece of paper in your hand and flipping it over in a book. Little wonder then that one is seeing a steady rise in the number of books being published by printing, newer and newer authors are hitting the bestseller lists, bookstores selling physical books are having a happy coexistence with their own websites and apps. And writing as a vocation is seeing newer and newer converts to its fold. What would be surprising for you to know is that at Google there is a mandatory course on how to draw product designs on paper!
Or let’s talk about music. This has been the most fascinating of journeys of any category, just to ensure that to enjoy listening to music one shouldn’t have to invite the performer home.
Not only did each format give way to the new kid on the block, within digital too we saw tremendous amount of disruption. For the longest time the MP3 format was the be-all and end-all of listening to music. But it necessitated having a portable music player because by that time the Walkman had spoilt people into carrying their music everywhere. But having MP3 music was akin to carrying narcotics – it was illegal to rip music off legal CD’s and then officially sell them. What Sean Parker couldn’t do with Napster, Steve Jobs managed to do with the iPod and iTunes. As a gradual and logical progression on portable music, ever-increasing bandwidths, and powerful processors in smart phones, along came streaming. In the case of the iPod and iTunes, there was still an element of owning your own playlists since you were able to buy even individual tracks. With streaming all that you now own are virtual playlists that you can call your own, but not fully own them because they all are residents of the cloud based ecosystem. The offering in streaming music was then bettered by Daniel Ek’s Spotify in terms of using AI to determine playlists on behalf of the listener. Is it really better to let someone else decide your choices for you? The jury is still out on that one.
The purists within those listening to music in the digital format then started seeking an elevated music experience through lossless formatting of digital music. The very fact that it was being called lossless was as open a confessional on the loss of a certain level of fidelity while compressing analog music into digital formats. This need was fulfilled by an obscure Norwegian music service called WimP, which was later rebranded TIDAL whose potential was tapped into by Jay-Z (after all it takes a musician to know what’s good quality sound) who bought it out and then shared equity among fellow musicians (the veritable who’s-who of the music business - Alicia Keys, Arcade Fire (Win Butler and Régine Chassagne), Beyonce, Calvin Harris, Chris Martin, Daft Punk, DeadMau5, Jack White, Jason Aldean, J Cole, Jay Z, Kanye West, Madonna, Nicki Minaj, Rihanna and Usher) making it the most glamorous board of directors, ever! (Phew! That last sentence was rather long.) But I digress. Lossless streaming music was like listening to CD quality music without owning one. If there ever was an overt admission by musically savvy techies feeling the suboptimal experience of compressed digital music and therefore bending technology to create a close-to-analog listening experience, then the lossless format was it. But all along, whilst these ‘we will change the world of music’ tectonic shifts were happening, vinyl has been making significant inroads back into music listenership. Every big new release of an album (yes, artistes still release albums though the advent of each song for 99 cents in the iTunes store had also prophesised the death of the music album as well) comes with a CD as well as a vinyl edition. Just a ‘drop’ of a new album on some streaming platform is suddenly so passé.
And while talking of music, can music players be far behind? As is evident from the graphic above, music players too have had their own journey and ups and downs. Since the birth of consumer electronics as a category, the quest of all manufacturers has been to either miniaturise or make power-packed and feature-packed music players. The advent of digital only took it to the next level with gigabyte capacity taking precedence over quality. The introduction of Bluetooth unshackled us from the dangling wires of our headphones. What that led to was a compromise in the aural quality of the music one was listening to. But little did we know. Now, I am not a purist when it comes to either the science of listening to music or the technology behind the players. I rely on my ears and just like the eyes never lie, neither do my ears. The portable Bluetooth speaker from one of the most reputed popular brand wasn’t really cutting it for me. I was missing an elevated experience while listening to music. And so I decided to invest a little into buying a good music system – for music only purposes, not to build a home theatre.
When I entered the market to get myself one such system, I was blown away by the range and depth … not of the sound quality alone mind you, but of the never-heard-before names of brands. There were sit down listening sessions that were being organised for me at various outlets that were not like traditional electronics stores. These were more like lounges, with recliners. And there would be an array of speakers and amplifiers and what not that would be plugged in, demo’ed, unplugged and another combination would be set up and demo’ed. They had inventory that ran into crores of rupees. I was given demos of systems that made me drool, till such time I heard the price tag … upon which the throat would be as parched as land that hadn’t seen water for years!
When I started off on this expedition, I thought that armed with a budget of a couple of lakhs I could be counted as one of those eclectic aficionados. By the time I zeroed down on a configuration, I felt like I was at beginner level, not just in terms of my spending power but also in terms of not even having scratched the surface of what a good, proper sound system could/should be. The point here is that bang in the middle of the era of miniaturisation and digitalisation, there is also a thriving marketplace that is about tower speakers made of solid wood, gold wires and connectors, analogue amplifiers to which digital audio converters need to be connected, CD players and turntables that belt out rich, warm and pure sound. Tantalising and extremely inviting like the mythological Menaka … seducing you like she once did Vishwamitra. Believe you me, it is very difficult to maintain control, especially when the pockets are not that deep.
Another category that has been on a continued resurgence in spite of its limited utility has been that of watches. Today hardly anyone has any practical use of a traditional wrist watch. Technologically they have been replaced by mobile phones as well as all sorts of wearables. Wrist watches were doomed to become vestigial appendages. But not only are we witnessing significant horological advances – I have no clue about the technical details and terms like tourbillon and stuff like that, the materials that are being used, the number of extra meters they are able to withstand pressure below the sea, or their accuracy in milliseconds, but it just makes for fascinating reading, and using the term horological advances just makes me sound so knowledgeable.
Many of you will be aware of most of the brands in the collage above. Some of you will also be proud owners of some of them. But I will bet my bottom dollar that names like MB&F, Philippe Dufour, Laurent Ferrier, De Bethune, Romain Gauthier, Greubel Forsey and whole lot of other such difficult to pronounce names, leave alone being able to buy their watches, are something that you are hearing for the first time. These are watches that start upwards of USD 200,000. What explains this resurgence? And if you thought that this was happening only in the highest-end watches, perish that thought. Go to Kickstarter and you will be zapped seeing the number of projects that are currently seeking funding for launching watches. Not to be left behind in the technology sweepstakes, traditional analogue brands like TAG Heuer, Breitling, Frederique Constant and their ilk have also joined the smart watch bandwagon.
High end writing instruments, aka pens, are like high end watches. These too are seeing a never-seen-before boomtime. Newer collections. Newer shops. Newer brands. And for what? Who exactly is writing with a pen and paper out there? Why do people buy pens anymore nowadays? Just to sign some papers? And this boom is happening when every phone is a mini notebook, a tablet with a stylus is a pen and paper of a different kind, and a digital notebook interprets your handwriting into typewritten notes!
And connected to writing instruments is the act of writing. Many of us grew up writing letters to communicate. There was a certain joy, and a lot of personal touch to the process of writing. For a brief period of time in the last 15-20 years writing long mails was an easy alternative to writing letters. That got replaced by texting in the last decade or so. And today it is down to emojis. The art of writing long, heartfelt letters is a dying one, if not already dead. Of late, it has gotten replaced by blogs and newsletters like this one. Letters and mails were about communicating to your close ones. It was a closed circuit. Blogs and newsletters are like broadcast media – except that they talk to like-minded people. Which in today’s social media age is the equivalent of one-to-one communication. In spite of the advent, and settling down, of digital writing, writing on paper continues to thrive. Following is an excerpt on the brand Moleskine from David Sax’s book which I found quite fascinating (especially the fact of when it was launched) -
“While paper use may have shrunk in certain areas since the introduction of digital communications, in other uses and purposes, paper’s emotional, functional, and economic value has increased. Paper may be used less, but where it is growing, paper is worth more. No product better captures this niche than the Moleskine notebook and the company behind it. It is the defining paper object and brand of the Internet age, growing parallel to the digital technology that was supposed to supplant notebooks (the PalmPilot digital planner came out the same year as Moleskine’s first notebook). Not only did the Moleskine notebook succeed in the face of disruptive digital competition, it situated itself as the ideal companion to smartphones, tablets, virtual note management services, and digital illustration software. It grew so successful that it has changed the behavior of a generation that was supposed to eschew handwriting into one where the paper notebook is omnipresent. Moleskine today is a profitable, publicly traded company worth several hundred million euros, with annual sales of over €100 million, seven- hundred-plus products sold in over a hundred different countries, and more than two hundred employees spread between global offices and its rather anonymous headquarters in Milan (tucked into a courtyard, with no sign on the street).”
I am sure there are many more categories that are also seeing a resurgence of the traditional ways of existence and consumption. What could be the reasons for this peaceful coexistence in an otherwise ruthless world filled with ambitious, go-getting people who populate equally ruthless conglomerates, for whom shareholder value only comes from looking towards the next quarter, not at the last quarter of a century to get their next big moment?
I think there are three main reasons for this phenomenon.
Firstly, technology has made things, and access to things, far easier and simpler. This has led to what can be called the Creator Economy. Anyone with an idea, a concept, and with the right amount of knowledge of technology is a Creator. This has led to the democratisation of what we create and how we create. The inhabitants and proponents of this Creator Economy are themselves a good mix of those with technological and technical savvy, but are not blinkered by a belief that anything non-technological is sludge. This has led to a confluence of trying to bring in the best of both worlds – the physical and the technological/digital – to invent better versions of those that exist in both worlds in silos.
Secondly, there is an element of the sensory. There is a certain ritual to things when they existed only in the physical world, not digital. For example, the act of putting on an LP, leave alone the quality of the output, is in itself an experience. First you open the turntable lid. Then you gingerly pull out the LP from its cover. Then you clean it with a felt cleaning cloth/brush. Then you place it on the turntable. Then you switch it on. Watch it spin. Then gently place the needle. And then … you are transported to another world. It may not always be to do with the quality of the musician, but the process itself is a transporter. This sensory gratification is also evident in the act of winding a mechanical watch (did I mention that mechanical watches are the new favourites amongst watch collectors?) that creates a moment of intimacy between the watch and its wearer. Accessorising your latest top-of-the-line specs Apple Watch with an Hermès strap and an Hermès watch face still does not cut it. Same goes for the experience of holding a book in your hand, flipping its pages and being able to smell the unique fragrance of its ink soaked pages as against just tapping a tablet while reading. And who can forget the sense of small accomplishment in filling ink in a fountain pen and wiping away the extra drop of ink against your hair? And then writing a few lines or filling up an entire journal!
Finally, it has also got to do with pride of ownership. Humans have a primal instinct of wanting to own. To possess. To collect. To romance. And to romanticise. To be seen as different from the rest. Per me that is the reason why all things keep making a comeback. And when they do, they communicate a certain language about the owner. They become channels to announce your station in life. They are also representatives making a case for eclectic taste that only a certain level of income coupled with a certain level of exposure to, and understanding of, the good things in life. The taste of that experience – aural, visual, experiential, emotional – comes at a premium. Ever increasing levels of disposable incomes and burgeoning ranks of the uber middle class (they are one notch above the upper middle class) and HNI’s have brought a lot of hitherto forbidden territories well within reach.
David Sax simply puts it down to this undeniable fact:
"We are gravitating towards that physical experience because it makes us happy.
It gives us something tangible. And it is something that is deeply, inherently human and relates to who we are as consumers. We like physical matter; we want to be able to buy things and give things and play things and have things strewn about our house and hold things in our hands. The psychological and emotional rewards are much higher, and we are willing to pay for that.”
A potent combination of the Creator Economy, technology and pride of ownership has led to a long tail of things that are niche right now, with a limited but discerning audience, and which stand a good chance of becoming mainstream. It’s a continuum that will always see peaceful coexistence of the way things have been and the way they could/should be - however advanced and cutting edge technology will get. Thomas L. Friedman could very well write another seminal work titled The World is Round: A Brief History of What Goes Around, Comes Around! But wait … David Sax already got there first.
Be braver. Be kinder.
As an avid follower of Formula 1 racing for close to 25 years, the review this time is of a series that is not just close to my heart, but is also a prime example of the peaceful coexistence of truly cutting-edge technology that has perfectly coalesced itself into the traditional, glamorous world of Formula 1 racing where everything has changed, while at its core nothing has changed. With years of resistance to change, and with declining viewership globally, this series has been single-handedly responsible for igniting a passionate following among the young as well as finally cracking the U.S. market where the sport was all but non-existent.
Full disclosure #1 - this review is based on intermittent viewing and jumping through seasons. Full disclosure #2 - I have been a huge F1 fan since the last 25 years; so obviously the review is biased. This is a riveting series that delves deep into the fast paced world of F1, but from a behind-the-scenes perspective that leads up to the races. It exposes the drive of the drivers, their insecurities, the intrigue and machinations of the powers that control the teams and the sport. It tells you the importance of every second and how fortunes and reputations can take a hit in that one second, and about the decisions that need to be taken ruthlessly in the moment. Fascinating for someone who’s been following the sport, it’ll make the non-interested into converts. Guaranteed.
Formula 1: Drive To Survive | Netflix | 5 seasons and running
It’s difficult to control when you have deep pockets. Without deep pockets, automatic constraints come into play and make you want to turn down the volume. What you mention for music players is now true for many items viz cameras, cars, phones, holidays, etc. Guess the pandemic had a role to play in the same. Maybe you can write a book on it rather than Thomas or Sam.