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Yesterday Medium founder Evan Williams took to the platform to announce that his company would be laying off a third of its staff (about 50 people across sales and support, including its Head of Publisher Development) and closing its New York and D.C. offices. He also made the bold proclamation that ad-driven publishing is dead. The full quote:

Upon further reflection, it’s clear that the broken system is ad-driven media on the internet. It simply doesn’t serve people. In fact, it’s not designed to. The vast majority of articles, videos, and other “content” we all consume on a daily basis is paid for — directly or indirectly — by corporations who are funding it in order to advance their goals. And it is measured, amplified, and rewarded based on its ability to do that. Period. As a result, we get…well, what we get. And it’s getting worse.

Although it’s fair to point out the irony of operating a publishing platform open to all viewpoints that also happens to be funded in part by #SponsoredContent and the multinationals of the world, his announcement doesn’t provide a realistic alternative to the ad model. As Nieman Lab’s headline bluntly pointed out today: “Medium lays off dozens as it tries to find a publishing business model that may not actually exist yet.” While the concepts of micropayments and subscription models are options, it seems pretty far-fetched to expect that the average consumer – who is used to getting endless content for free and has found elaborate ways to avoid the New York Times’ own paywall – would be willing to dish out to read the ramblings of a long-forgotten Facebook friend or indulge in this week’s latest hate-read. If that was Medium’s strategy all along, then it would have been better suited to courting sought-after writers and editors to curate premium verticals that could potentially command a price.

To that end, Medium’s now-dismissed Head of Publisher Development did do a strong job of encouraging niche publishing networks – including ThinkProgress, The Ringer, and a personal favorite of mine, The Awl – to migrate to Medium. Although Medium offered fewer banner ads to help these blogs generate their own revenue, the publisher program drew in publishers with promises that Medium would connect them to brands seeking sponsored content. According to Nieman Lab, these ad deals are no longer an option, leaving publishers with a platform that doesn’t allow traditional side-bar ads nor has the support staff capacity to help cultivate ad deals. It’s a fairly depressing convergence of VC-backed tech “disruption” of a model that largely worked for publishers (albeit imperfectly) in the first place.

Currently on break from grad school for at least a couple more days, which has finally given me the mental space to conjure up a ~list~ of some of the good things to come out of 2016.

Some albums and songs that made this year a little brighter:

As most media outlets bemoan 2016 as “the worst year EVER,” New York Mag published one of the more interesting end-of-year hot takes by reflecting on 2016′s parallels to 2006's Children of Men. That film was one of the most impactful movies I saw during my college years. It not only featured one of my favorite directors (Alfonso Cuarón) and actors (Clive Owen) but it also presented an eerily realistic dystopian take on the perils of geopolitical conflicts, covering many of the forces I was studying in my undergraduate history and comparative politics classes. 

While the movie was largely considered a commercial flop, it’s now re-emerging as an uncanny predictor of the dynamics that would shape the horror-filled headlines this year (xenophobia, a mass refugee crisis, regular European terror attacks). In another undergrad throwback, even political scientist Francis Fukuyama -- whose own pro-liberal democracy “end of history” theory was largely disproven in recent years -- said that the themes in Children of Men “should be on a lot of peoples’ minds after Brexit and the rise of Donald Trump and a lot of anti-immigrant sentiment.” 

Vulture’s on-point retrospective includes interviews with Cuarón detailing studios’ initial reluctance to greenlight Children of Men (and how his stint directing a Harry Potter franchise flick came in handy) and how Universal dropped the ball in effectively promoting it. There’s also some interesting details on the film’s many iconic long-take cinematography shots. This afternoon, I rewatched the film’s much-renowned 379-second one-take shot, and the experience left me choked up -- what appeared far-fetched as a college sophomore has become all-too-possible today.

Per the article:

Only after speaking with Cuarón did I realize why I wept: not with sorrow, but with hope for my own future. Children of Men imagines a fallen world, yes, but it also imagines a once-cynical person being reborn with purpose and clarity. It’s a story about how people like me, those who have the luxury of tuning out, need to awaken. This has been a brutal year, but we were already suffering from a kind of spiritual infertility: The old ideologies long ago stopped working. In a period where the philosophical pillars supporting the global left, right, and center are crumbling, the film’s desperate plea for the creation and protection of new ideas feels bracingly relevant.

still one of the most devastatingly perfect songs of this decade.

Freetown Sound is the best album of 2016 thus far.

Missing the hazy, lo-fi Bethany Cosentino vibes from yesteryear

And the award for best use of a Gal Costa sample so far this year goes to...

One year ago yesterday, Facebook rolled out “Instant Articles,” which allowed partners like the New York Times and Buzzfeed to host lightning quick-loading articles directly within Facebook. By serving its users articles in a nano-second instead of directing them to slower-loading external browsers, Facebook reasoned that this new publishing format would provide a better user experience and lead to higher engagement. Soon after "Instant Articles" was announced, (some) publishers quickly bemoaned that this was the latest example of tech companies cannibalizing media distributors by controlling their ad revenue streams and gaining access to valuable user analytics. Skeptical outlets predicted that this new offering would better serve Mark Zuckerberg’s bottom line than publishers’ best interests.

A year later, the cynicism appears to have been a bit overblown. 

The dominance of mobile advertising has been pretty entrenched for the past few years but there’s an emerging mobile trend: the digital focus group. The New York Times profiled a Chicago-based company called Pay Your Selfie, an app that pings its users to post selfies of themselves completing seemingly mundane tasks like eating breakfast or brushing their teeth. The users are paid per photo and Pay Your Selfie then uses this data to generate consumer insights reports that it shares with partner companies, which include Procter & Gamble and Lakeshore Beverage. Since these photos are taken in a more natural environment, companies gain access to authentic data on, say, the most popular cereals amongst millennials or the teeth brushing habits of 30-something professionals.

James Blake always drops his gloom-filed LPs on the cusp of spring, although I don’t mind the cognitive dissonance too much since they’re consistently excellent. Just today, he announced that his next release Radio Silence -- his first LP since 2013′s Overgrown -- is finally complete. He commemorated the occasion by teasing fans with “Timeless,” a subdued electro-banger that successfully evokes both the simplistic beats from his earlier releases while still pushing new sonic ground.

Yesterday was International Women’s Day, which left me reflecting on the importance of highlighting women's voices in traditionally male spaces, particularly since I’ll soon be entering an MBA program in which male students and professors hold the majority. There are incredible programs, such as Forté Foundation, that encourage women to pursue management degrees via executive coaching and school funding. This support network allows more talented women to enter the management pipeline, but once they’re in it, it’s up to instructors, conference organizations, and hiring managers to advocate for diverse perspectives to be heard in classes, on panels, and within organizations.

Starbucks inspired some Twitter outrage a few weeks ago when the company unveiled its new customer loyalty program, which now rewards its frappuccino-chuggers based on their dollars spent rather than the previously-used metric of number of store visits. The move places Starbucks’ rewards system more in line with recent upgrades made by airline companies. Since the announcement, Starbucks’ customer buzz score – a rough indication of a brand’s customer perception – dropped from 60 to 29 (out of 100), per the YouGov BrandIndex. AdWeek also quoted several brand consultants who unanimously agreed that Starbucks’ move “erodes good will” amongst coffee-drinkers, who’d previously relied on their $2 drip coffee purchases affording them the same rewards program benefits as a triple-shot venti latte drinker. According to AdWeek, this move is seen as an opportunity for Dunkin Donuts or other down-market coffeehouses to poach peeved Starbucks loyalists.