I collect something as a hobby.
Among that, one piece caught my interest — over 20 years old — so I googled and searched YouTube for cultural background, but only shallow info came up.
A magazine from about 20 years ago had featured it, so I bought a used copy on Amazon for around ¥1,000.
Conclusion: the information volume was very satisfying, and the reporting power surprised me.
That said, would I keep buying magazines? No — video is clearer and easier to access, so I'd lean that way.
Still, content that pros spent time reporting and vetting — a mass of information with love in it — is exciting to read. Even as media change, curated content like that will keep some demand.
Lastly, the last magazine I subscribed to was POPEYE, until around college. Then I noticed d Magazine let me read other magazines unlimited for ~¥300/month, stopped buying, and eventually stopped reading d Magazine too. I also lost interest in fashion.
In recent years information volume itself grew and categories keep fragmenting.
Everyone fights over consumers' attention channels.
Consumers are exhausted by information, so demand to dig into each thing one by one shrinks.
Even a lucky "wow, this YouTube channel is great!" fades a week later when another channel moves you — and you forget what moved you about the previous one.
On the creator side, even if you deepen content for a limited target who might understand deeply — people don't watch. Cognitive load is too high; most people aren't even interested. So creators' output costs stop paying off.
(Exceptions: idol "oshi" culture or social games where a small fandom can drive huge spending. On that frenzy, Ryo Asai's new novel "In the Megachurch" was interesting — recommended. One viewpoint on immersing in story-as-fervor.)
Even when you're noticed, deep penetration is hard (doesn't pay) — so the nuance is less "effort to be liked" than "effort not to be forgotten."
SNS algorithms favor frequent, instantly graspable posts matching user taste, so creators have to follow.
From that competition, production cost by humans has bad cost-performance; without generative AI it won't pay. Before payback, completeness may be higher with generative AI too. Layoffs of artists and engineers at production houses won't stop.
In the end, magazine-like culture that conveys deep culture and story will be less demanded, and as business less profitable.
Until a few years ago, with COVID, things went global and borderless, and profit was scraped via geographic cost arbitrage (e.g. offshore development) — that barely works now either. Some people as AI operators will still be needed, so not zero — but the impact is tiny.
Feels like I've been writing the same thing lately. End.
I read a few business books for the first time in a while.
Susumu Fujita (CyberAgent founder), "Shobuugan" (勝負眼)
Takao Yasuda (Don Quijote founder), "Luck" (運)
Yusaku Maezawa (ZOZO founder), "Hypocrite" (偽善者)
Reading business books, more than re-experiencing their lessons, I enjoy reading the events themselves with rubberneck curiosity.
Success and hardship stories of people who built big businesses are entertainment. Probably the same brain chemicals as people hyped by weekly magazines' celebrity scandals.
Jokes aside, I'd been worrying about roughly the same things lately and was mentally tired, so through these books I felt I borrowed a bit of successful people's vantage and could look down at problems in front of me.
Same feeling when I periodically dine with a business leader I respect. Usually I'm the one getting scolded/encouraged, but hearing large-scale talk makes my own worries feel small and lightens me.
Still, reality is harsh: sleep, wake, and the problem is still there with presence — as I worry again that feeling resets.
Most interesting among them: Maezawa's "Hypocrite." Less for lessons than for peeking into a successful person's world with rubberneck curiosity.
As a birthday surprise, aides, close acquaintances, and former subordinates were interviewed about their image of Maezawa — originally an in-group project that got published outward.
Maezawa is a well-known big success, interviewed by close people, so the vibe is "(for better and worse) selfish but genius-sense Maezawa, and me getting spun around by him."
Being originally in-group, nothing odd — but depending how you read it you may repeatedly feel "what am I being made to read..." Still, like Fujita's book, the world he lives is so intense it's fun to read.
Even with that wealth, how many others would spend on space, art, a racing team, and endless activities? Probably few.
Curiosity, stamina, and not only assets — you need an asset-management company with excellent people, and the personal magnetism to dump unprecedented hard problems on them and have them follow.
While doing those activities, he's also trying in parallel to take Kabu& (I honestly don't know the insides well) to IPO.
Masayoshi Son going fully investment-company is already intense, but Maezawa's creative-focused investment (more interest-weighted than exit portfolios) plus still building operating companies — just thinking about it is dizzying, and aides must find it stimulating. In originality it felt world-class. (※ Reality is probably not glittery but dull and stressful — I couldn't copy it.)
I wondered how objects of public attention and aspiration change.
Celebrities and athletes were stars.
Then IT founders got attention.
Then influencers led by YouTubers.
Then SNS politicians (Ishimaru, Tamaki, Kamiya and others who fit SNS).
Public attention points seem to have shifted that way.
Politics getting attention has a lot to do with fitting the SNS platform — but also Japan getting poorer, population anxiety and closed-in feeling growing, a kind of reset desire, or extreme chaos wish, getting stronger.
So what's next?
If that flow is right, expectations of politics probably won't be met — or the payoff won't match expectation. Less about politicians' ability than that no country changes that drastically.
Literally changing the world enough that people feel it day to day takes execution power only a dictator would have.
So next may be AI founders with astronomical wealth from the AI bubble — Sam Altman, Elon Musk types — almost philosophers with money, power, and tech, pouring private wealth into beyond-human development (universal medicine, fusion power, etc.), inventing things that truly change the world, not the superficial "change the world" slogan of startups.
And if that becomes possible, nation-states may matter less; such individuals build utopias at personal scale, with execution controlled entirely by technology.
Sounds unreal and leapfrogging — but a fun topic just to think about.
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