(This post is a work-in-progress. Come back later.)

Nice things we can't have

  • Uber apps without video ads
  • Uber rides without tablets to blast you with ads
  • Gas pumps without ads
  • Durable and well-designed, practical products (Instant Pot company fails due to PE brand development strategy)
  • Productive conversations on social media
  • Going outside in an American city without encountering unwell people
  • General-purpose social media with positive externalities
  • Successful company exits that create conditions for enduring operation without going hostile against customers or benevolent actors
  • Youthful people in political offices
  • Young people who own their home
  • Human-oriented cities
  • Default-literate Americans
  • Society even vaguely disabused of organized religion and other magical/deranged thinking
  • Food that's actually food, and that's not priced obscenely
  • Consensus that we ought not destroy our host planet
  • Trust in institutions
  • Enough of the “tipping” bullshit in America
  • Any Google product enjoyed by its users for being convenient, easy to use, and win-win (RIP Google Domains)