Due to email size restrictions, this email can only provide an excerpt of the essay. To read the full writing, please visit my website at hoangviet.co
Last year, I canceled my Spotify Premium subscription.
This decision came as I lost grip on the music I liked and stopped remembering artists whose sounds I appreciated. It was part of an attempt to distance myself from my already tech-entrenched lifestyle. I hoped to divert that spending toward smaller businesses and artists. Little did I know how uncomfortable and confronting this attempt would be.
Without “premium,” the daily routines or moments of intimate joy I thought were mine revealed their master; anyone but me. Singing in the shower became reciting ad jingles. My curated playlists became chaotic shuffles. Waking up to my favorite song no longer existed, now that I couldn't immediately play the song that I wanted.
A few weeks ago, I made a reservation at a pizza parlor. Their Instagram suggested a chef-curated Spotify playlist. I checked it out. Before the playlist finished loading, an ad appeared. Against a blue gradient background, the headline read, “Be your true self with Premium.”
I laughed and thought, “Maybe it was right.”
Maybe, there is a sense in which I cannot be my true self without “premium.” Unconsciously, my self could have been so tethered to the algorithm engineered to please and approximate me. Maybe, my music taste is my Discovery playlist. My beliefs echo my “For You” page. And my style? Maybe it’s but a salad of organic and sponsored posts on my Instagram feed. “Premium” and the world of tech-enabled commerce have given me access to everything; perhaps, none of which I can truly call mine. Days before this essay was published, I returned to Spotify Premium.
So much of our life has been and continues to be, shaped through online commerce. Half the time, it is miraculous; the other half, it is fleeting and overwhelming. In this essay, I compare our enigmatic relationship with eCommerce to the spectacle of a magic show, one that is staged together by the many "premiums" and online purchases we string on ourselves.
Our infatuation with and reliance on the magic of eCommerce is the premise of my research. To assess our relationship with online transactions and their magical effect, I conversed with consumers, creators, internet hustlers, business owners, and tech entrepreneurs. The outcomes of these conversations were then complemented with secondary research to give you the Magical Trilogy of eCommerce:
Part 1. eCommerce Tricks of Transformation
In this first part of the essay, I’ll investigate five magic tricks through which we become enthralled by modern commerce. These tricks are:
The Mysterious Hat of Algorithm
The Telepathic Trick of TeleCommerce
The Magician’s Assistant
The Next-Day Manifestation
The Vanishing Waste of eCommerce
Part 2. When Tricks No Longer Treat
In the second part, scheduled for publishing in April 2023, I hypothesize how our love affair with magic commerce transforms our world at the individual, community, and societal levels.
Part 3. Must The Show Go On?
For the finale, I will share highlights from my conversations with innovators and critics about whether—and how—the current show of magic commerce can continue while reducing its havoc. This part will be published in May 2023.
Due to email size restrictions, this email can only provide an excerpt of the essay. To read the full writing, please visit my website at hoangviet.co