Planet Scale
Taylor Swift had 26.6 billion streams on Spotify in 2024. Twenty-six billion, with a B. That’s about 40 streams per monthly active user according to Spotify’s latest financial statements. Even if the streams were evenly divided across all of humanity, that would still equate to around 3 streams per person. Over three billion people use a meta product on a daily basis. Google handles almost 6 million searches per minute. We live in an age of planet scale. Ignoring the ethics and moral quandaries of having companies this big, I want to address how this mentality of planet scale has seeped down into us as individuals. We think we need to reach that audience to be relevant. We’re convinced that any business venture that we start has to explode to be a success. We dream of traveling to all seven continents to feel like our life’s adventure is complete. All around us we see and hear famous people every day, because, well, that’s the definition of famous. That almost certainly will not be you or me (unless Taylor you are reading this, in which case… hello I guess?). Those who we treasure most are likely only known by a handful of people, and it is this interconnected network of relationships that makes a globalized society truly beautiful.