In seeking new ways to repackage debt and sell it to millennials and Gen Zers - who are now not only disenfranchised from, but also increasingly disinterested in, the traditional debt traps of home-ownership and higher education - services like Klarna have emerged as the latest financial instrument to make the accumulation of debt feel not just normal, but desirable.
"We live in a time where constant technological advances are changing the fabric of the world around us at every level. In the last couple of years, the realities of this have made themselves all too clear, and we’ve finally been seeing greater calls for state intervention in the world of tech. The only problem is, how can we expect any progressive change when those in charge of doing the regulating apparently have the technological know-how of someone that’s just came out of a fifty-year coma?"
"Navigating this often-overbearing, information-driven society we live in and trying to find truth in it is an increasingly difficult task but, while scepticism and being autonomous in our search for knowledge is perfectly healthy, we must be wary of letting contemporary thought be hijacked by those with divisive, polarising agendas."
Snapstreaks, group chats and ghosting: read receipts are changing the way we communicate
"It's clear that there’s a lot to be gained for certain parties with our drunken behavioural traits being added to the swarms of data we already outpour... it’s a pessimistic vision but it feels like an inevitable step in the profit-driven quest for Big Data to colonise all corners of human social experience, carving out a whole new data set for any interested party to play with as they please."
"The most urgent threat we’re faced with goes much deeper than taxing revenues appropriately. Rather, the real danger lies in the colossal social, economic and political power these few tech companies hold and exploit for financial gain."
Last month Netflix's CFO David Wells announced that in 2018 alone the streaming giant would be forking out upwards of $8 billion on producing 700 original titles. For relentless binge-watchers and professional procrastinators alike, this was probably equally exciting and daunting news. However [...] this is in many ways emblematic of the attention-driven digital economy we now find ourselves in, defined by sheer excess and algorithmic consumption, and its effect on how we consume culture.