Reading up on consumer-technology

Assorted things I've been mulling over regarding agents in the economy: • Companies are in some sense the original superintelligence. It's often the case that they can use their amortized cognitive surplus to advance their interests against those of certain consumers: relative to the optimization capacity of companies, consumers can be inattentive, underinformed, irrational, etc. (Think, say, of some of the classic insurance upsells at the end of a booking process, which is typically priced substantially above what a regular policy would cost.) Herbert Simon introduced the idea of bounded rationality, and firms often end up benefiting from it. Thanks to personal agents, we will probably get somewhat more rational in how we engage with companies. • How exactly will outcomes change? Well, certain kinds of price discrimination will work less well (how do coupons work if every agent hunts fastidiously for them?), and certain kinds of customer cross-subsidy will change (today, people who forget to cancel subscriptions subsidize those who don't). Taken across the economy as a whole, I'm not sure what the incidence of all of this will be. • In corporate strategy, people have long debated the relative importance of distribution and product quality. Perhaps you've made something better, but does anyone know about it? Won't people just continue to buy the ACME Corp Mousetraps? Personal agents will, I think, act as a kind of structural subsidy for product quality. How would markets look different if individuals always spent at least 10 hours researching their purchases? On the margin, focusing on making a product better is, I think, going to become a more effective strategy for companies. This is good! • It true, a corollary is that information about product quality will become more important and impactful. Today, most people have very limited ability to aggregate and integrate such data, but agents will have insatiable thirst for such signals. (It's often said that data is becoming more valuable because it helps in the training of models. That's obviously true, but I think there's a secondary way in which it's more valuable simply as a complement to cheaper intelligence.) • A big question is whether agents will increase superstar effects (rational agents all settle on the same product) or increase dispersion (because everyone has slightly different tastes and preferences, which agents are good at eliciting, finally overcoming the artificial clustering we've been subjected to). • Many internet companies have monetized demand routing, which is in turn often predicated on short attention spans. "I'll click on the first thing I see." This has led to some amount of inefficiency, as companies try to propitiate capricious ranking algorithms and incur various placement fees. It's not all deadweight loss (willingness to pay is itself a kind of signal, which is valuable to buyers), but it's not great. How will the nature and value of this routing change in a world of personal agents? I don't know the answer, but I think that the effects might be pretty big. • Much of what I'm writing hinges on the assumption that personal agents will be on the consumer's side. I suspect that that will be the winning strategy, but whether it's true, and what it means to be true, involves a lot of other questions. Taken as a whole, the market is a massively parallelized, decentralized, and highly imperfect value attribution machine, and, taking stock of all of the effects, it seems to me that the quality point may well be the biggest: that agents will change the nature of the backpropagation such that the rewards for better products increase. Maybe this is too optimistic, but I suspect (and hope) that companies that make things that they're proud of will feel that the universe is a little more partisan in their favor.

@patrickc

Silicon Valley keeps building me a husband when what I really want is a wife lol I don't want an agent that only does one-off, random tasks that are nice but not life-changing: booking flights, making dinner reservations, or buying tickets I want an AI wife who knows what’s on the family calendar, remembers there’s a birthday party Saturday and we haven’t bought a gift then sends me options, realizes we’re almost out of diapers and buys them, knows which bills are coming up, remembers someone needs a dentist appointment and books it, figures out what the hell we’re eating all week and what we need from the grocery store, and generally keeps track of the 47 things that need to happen before anyone else even realizes they need to happen. So, who's building me an AI wife that carries the mental load instead of an AI husband that waits for me to give it a chore??

@SoniaBaschez

Watching this with my husband who works on AI for Google just absolutely slack-jawed.

@ebonylewkovitz

what we've shipped: muse ♥️ ton of connectors 🔧 muse invite codes 💌 muse phone call beta ☎️ muse for mac  muse in canada 🇨🇦 muse connector platform 🛠️ muse mac computer use 💻 muse for small business 💼 muse gadgets 🕹️ muse memes 🤡 no butthole 🍰 what should we ship next?

@alexandr_wang

Instinct in group chats Starting today, early access users can add Instinct to group chats. A new Instinct joins and works for the whole group. Making plans with friends usually turns into a frustrating back-and-forth over times and places. With Instinct in the group, you can explore options together, agree on a plan and get it done, all in one thread. Your friends don't even need Instinct to join in. A few things it’s good at: - Planning a weekend trip with friends, including dates and arrival times - Coordinating logistics with a roommate - Getting tickets as soon as they go on sale, then splitting the cost and sending one to everyone - Running a fantasy league, keeping standings, settling rules disputes, and reminding everyone to set their lineups - Sorting out carpool schedules - works out who’s driving each day from everyone’s schedules - Organizing Thanksgiving, keeping track of who’s bringing what and ordering the shopping list Group chats are new territory for Instinct, and we put a lot of care into getting the permissions right. Here’s how it works: - Your personal Instinct asks before connecting with the group’s Instinct. You choose which groups to trust and can remove trust at any time. - The group’s Instinct has no direct access to your personal accounts. Your Instinct checks your permissions before sharing information or taking action. - If someone new joins the group, all pending replies from your Instinct are held until you grant it permission to share with the expanded group. Group chats are available to all of our early access users, and will be rolling out to everyone soon. To join early access for this release, ask your Instinct to put you on the list. Great work with @GajanNagaraj @anuda_w and @saagarwashere

@noahrshinn

"Not only am I uninterested in the company’s home device, I can, for the first time, envision a future where I don’t buy Apple by default. Indeed, this already happened..." Anyone into the age of agents will eventually realize Apple is a bad fit. https://stratechery.com/2026/apple-and-a-hackers-future/

@dhh

We are now entering into an era where any product can be created exactly to a consumer's preferences & needs. I vibe-fabricated a dog door with a wifi-controlled lock, perfectly to the specifications & design of my house. I know nothing about metal fabrication or electrical engineering. It's now getting manufactured and delivered in 2 weeks -- for almost the same cost if I bought a mass-produced item off-the-shelf.

@nikitabier

Ryan Rusnak left Gmail (and a short Proton trial) for HEY, and wrote it up: https://ryanrusnak.com/getting-my-personal-email-under-control-with-hey/

@jasonfried

Very, very excited for this.

@excid3

got a new wallet in the mail today from @ridgewallet and a power bank very premium quality which i’m not used to as i usually buy in the single digit range for wallets can’t even feel the wallet in my pocket at times- it’s much smaller than my already small wallet!

@jackfriks

MacStories is cool. Thanks for featuring Bear in the list! 🐻❤️

@BearNotesApp

When I switched to Omarchy, this was one of the things that was stopping me: I really want my (latest) iPhone pictures available from a native Omarchy app. Mostly because the website for iCloud Photos really sucks.

@jankeesvw

The problem with all of these AI personal assistant things is that people don’t actually want to do stuff. You fucking get that right? Do you understand that? Just like AI tools in the workforce, AI assistants don’t actually abstract decisions for you, they let you accelerate decision making. So instead of making one decision a day and then lamenting you can’t do more, AI assistants are going to let you make ten decisions a day and act on all of them. A miracle? Nah dog, a fucking nightmare. Nobody except type A strivers who need Twitter fodder actually want that. Let me tell you a story. When I got back from college I was inspired. If I could take on an elite university with grit and determination, so could everyone I know. I was all razzed up to get people I know to achieve their potential. What I learned after many years of trying is that absolutely nobody wants to realize their potential. People want to hang out with friends and complain. That’s how the world has worked for ten thousand years. This weather fucks. Can you believe the cows walked off. People don’t want enablement. People don’t want you to take all of their excuses. TV is mindless passive activity. AI assistants are not. They’re telling people that they can achieve more. And people absolutely do not want that. Let me tell you another story. Once upon a time I lead a big process overhaul at work and it was great. Two years later I hired a contractor to do something similar. But I personally didn’t want to have to do a bunch of work. Within a week I knew I fucked in. This contractor kept coming to me with decisions I needed to make. Dude I wanted to not have to think about this. Again, a helper when you don’t actually want help is a disaster. None of these AI assistants will take off because people don’t actually want assistants.

@staysaasy

We are excited to announce we are partnering deeply with Muse to enable agentic checkout with Shop Pay on all Shopify stores, offering people an easy and delightful way to shop and check out with Muse.

@tobi

Ok Muse is actually useful. People are using Muse to get their money back, save on bills, get efunds. 10 wild examples:

@minchoi

Freedom in your schedule. Technology in your hands. Peace on your own terms.

@Dea_rMindset

used wispr flow for a long time but not anymore. aside has dictation now and it's 100% local → https://heyaside.com

@dominikmartn

Woz is back! I am his first customer. He got my career started. I stuffed so many of his motherboards as a kid. While we sat around and watched TV. My dad built custom holders so we could stuff them while sitting on the couch. And a custom set of wires to take away any static electricity. I once got to interview Woz in front of UC Berkeley’s business school. Said they had fewer failures than the ones built in its own factory. What we didn’t discuss is how much love we put into them. They were technology from an alien world. There wasn’t anything else like it in my life. Woz is still the nicest founder I have ever met. And the original nerd. As I get older I realize how special those few hundred hours spent with him were. Not to mention he gave me $40,000 worth of Mac’s to run the school paper on. And I remember thinking to myself, as we sat in the cafeteria of West Valley Community College, “can’t get that kind of education at Stanford.” When @elonmusk talks about putting love into his products, I get that deeply.

@Scobleizer

We're kicking off a new series on MacStories today: Our favorite indie apps for iOS 27. Check it out: https://www.macstories.net/roundups/our-favorite-indie-apps-for-ios-27-vol-1/

@viticci

I just bought a new Model Y and can confidently say cars and Teslas are no longer the same product. A car is like a pony or horse. I still like driving a stick shift, it’s fun! Tesla with FSD is a transportation robot. I had one of the first Model 3s in 2017. FSD was basically slightly better cruise control. Great on the highway. But honestly felt oversold. So I have been driving a BMW for the past 3 years. Great horse, fun to drive. But tried FSD recently and holy shit — it’s a personal Waymo. Works perfectly. I just went to the Fremont factory to get my new car, entered my address 30+ mins away, pushed a button, and got home without doing a thing. I don’t think most people realize how good this is, probably because they only experienced an early version previously. This is 1000x better. Metaphor for AI writ large. Like trying GPT 3.5 and thinking it’s cute and hallucinates, and dismissing it…while Astra launches in 2026 and is orders of magnitude more capable.

@arampell

If you're going to buy an Apple product now, NEVER choose: ・iPhone 18 Pro Max ・MacBook Pro ・iPad Pro ・Apple Watch Ultra Instead, choose:

@colenoxrage

e-ink display on my fridge that shows my macros 😋 I log my food through my Telegram bot, which then updates the ZecTrix device through their API

@marckohlbrugge

Costco is insane I just traded in an iPhone 14 for $1200 off and iPhone 18 pro + $100 costco gift card AND my bill went down $20 a month. How does that even make sense 😂

@Ebatez_

If you think at it, there are very little reasons to spend the same money for a Mac Studio M5 Ultra with 256GB of RAM if you can get, for the same price, 2x Macbook Pro with 128GB RAM and an RDMA cable. It is just a matter of developing good inference software. Do you agree?

@antirez

Your pet has a job now. Pets help you keep track of your chats while you’re away from the desktop app. Now, you can start a new chat right from your pet, too. Not a pet person? Meet Mini: the same shortcuts and updates, taking up less space on your screen. Pick your pet—or go Mini—in the ChatGPT desktop app settings.

@ChatGPT

A guy will buy the iPhone 18 Pro Max this month. He'll transfer his data from his old phone. He'll set a wallpaper. He'll arrange his apps. He'll open Instagram. And for the next 2 years, he'll use the most advanced smartphone ever built to scroll social media, send texts, take photos on auto mode, and check email the same 5 tasks he performed on the iPhone 13 Pro he's replacing. He won't discover the variable aperture camera that gives him DSLR-level depth-of-field control for the first time in iPhone history. He won't configure the Action Button that replaces 3 daily app-hunting routines with a single press. He won't set the battery charge limit that adds 2 years to the battery's lifespan. He won't use Back Tap to launch shortcuts by tapping the back of the phone twice. He won't adjust the flashlight beam width from spotlight to floodlight. He won't activate the keyboard trackpad hidden inside the spacebar. He won't turn on StandBy mode that transforms the phone into a bedside smart display while charging. His coworker a former Apple Store Genius who spent 4 years watching customers use 20% of their iPhones told him the iPhone 18 Pro Max ships with iOS 27 and approximately 400 features most owners never open. "The phone doesn't need to be more powerful. You need to explore more than 20% of what's already there." She showed him 11 hidden features that transform the iPhone 18 Pro Max from a $1,499 social media scroller into the device Apple actually built. Here's the full playbook 🧵

@jackcoder0

I am so confused why people don't understand this, I keep getting these replies Don't you get it? Normies don't vibe code, they just ask something like "do my bookkeeping" or "file my tax" or "organize a movie night and send invites" or "generate a flyer for movie night" or "edit my video" They don't ever see code, vibe code, or do anything with code, their AI chat app just does it for them Most of the software layer has already disappeared or will completely disappear for normies Just like building personal homepages permanently disappeared for normies when Facebook launched ~2005 A lot like this picture where functions of individual devices all got replaced with a single device Same happening with apps now

@levelsio

this looks good, apple

@tobi

Introducing - Lapis One We believe everyone should have a small Linux computer at home, and we’ve been thinking about what your first mini PC should look like in the age of AI agents. At Pamir, we want to bring a new wave of fun, hands-on tech to everyone.

@pamir_ai

1. Native acces to Instagram DMs seems valuable for a lot people. WhatsApp inbox in the future? 2. They already have a version in WhatsApp. Instagram -> Threads distribution potential.

@dwr

The Dell outlet can be a great place to pick up an XPS if you're okay with a refurbished unit and want to save some money with the industry-wide price increases. https://outlet.us.dell.com/GDOOnline/Online/InventorySearch?c=us&l=en&pFilter=eyJQcm9kdWN0QnJhbmQiOlsiMTAwNzAiXSwiRmFtaWx5TmFtZSI6WyIyOTE0OSJdLCJQcm9jZXNzb3IiOlsiNTc5MDA5Il19

@SpencerGBull