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SaaS: Self-as-a-Service
Attention Conservation Notice. It’s rant time. You see, back in the 20th century, we were taught to build our identities by choosing things — our possessions, our clothes, our brands. These weren’t just products but declarations of selfhood. But in the 21st century, algorithms don’t just observe those choices — they make them. What once felt like expression is now prediction. What once was owned is now assigned. And we’re still calling it “me.”
I saw a sign for a garage sale today and thought, they still have those?
Seriously. In an age where my phone knows I need more almond milk before I do, a garage sale feels like discovering a tribe still using MySpace. It’s a quaint, almost rebellious act of curating one’s own junk, a physical declaration of “I once chose this, and now, by the power vested in me by this faded card table, I un-choose it!”
It got me thinking. We used to hunt for things. Now, things hunt us.
The “invisible hand” of the market? Please. It’s been replaced by the all-too-visible, hyper-personalized, eerily prescient digital hand of The Algorithm. And it’s not just nudging us — it’s practically dictating the decor of our lives and, maybe, the very essence of who we think we are.
