Curated Content | May '20
Hi There!
I hope you're indoors and are keeping safe.
While I thought I would have this included in this month's newsletter, I could not resist sharing this earlier with you.
Today I bring to you, two articles, one great podcast & a fun chrome extension I discovered during the fortnight gone by.
The Articles
1. Can Independent Journalism Thrive under Paywalls?
Paywalls divide the public sphere by exacerbating information inequalities and thwarting a common understanding of what constitutes a public good, thereby hurting democracy.
Quality journalism in digital media can no longer be supported by an advertising-driven business model. As competition for viewer attention grows more intense, several digital new-media organizations are resorting to sensational journalism and generating “clickbait”, which has been degrading the quality of news online (McDonald 2016). Read this detailed piece here.
2. Ventilator Procurement Problems
Maruti, Mahindra & Mahindra, AgVa and a host of other companies have been in the news for the last few weeks.
All of them have been claiming to make low-cost ventilators to make India ready for Covid - 19.
Well, things may not be quite what we would have thought them too.
Read the article here. You may have to signup with your e-mail id to read this, it's a free read by The Ken.
Podcast
The legendary value investor Mohnish Pabrai, gets into an hour-long conversation talking about value investing and philanthropy.
Pabrai got in touch with Mr. Anand Kumar (Super 30 Professor) and has taken his model to a nationwide scale through his charity arm.
Pabrai gives an interesting perspective to what every investor in the world is going through right now -
"If you lose wealth, you lose nothing, if you lose health, you lose something but if you lose your character, you lose everything."
Watch the hour-long conversation on YouTube here.
Chrome Extension - ScrollTrotter
How many miles do you think we've all scrolled today? This extension tries to answer this question precisely by: - counting the no. of pixels you've scrolled down on a webpage and converting them into an actual physical unit of distance (in mi/km) - logging your scrolling adventures across the web and displaying the metrics in a very big font (in a non-shaming way) - displaying the list of your top scroll destinations on the web I have been using this personally for about 16 days now and it does help me keep my browsing activity and sites in check. (Side Note - This can get really addictive and is really simple to use, so proceed at your own risk :D) You can install the extension from here.
Updates on the Blog
Thanks to you, the blog crossed 10,000+ views today. There are 3,000+ active users and people are spending anywhere between 3 to 12 minutes on my website.
But you guys are pretty exclusive - you are a part of the curated 260+ members who are active subscribers to the website. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you all :)
In the last 15 days, I got a chance to be on international television, have my article published for Moneycontrol.com and also contribute as a guest to CapitalMind's blog.
If you wish to access the clip or read the articles, feel free to check the About section that has been updated.
Signing Off,
Saket Mehrotra