It's not profitable to develop new drugs and vaccines against diseases that affect people in poverty, in poorer countries, even if millions of children might benefit. Even if there's a huge economic benefit as well. It took foreign aid and philanthropy to fund the research to test it. And it literally took decades to reach the children who needed it.
It's a place where the financial incentives of the influencer economy crash right into the rigors of traditional journalism — and as regular Decoder listeners know, I have a lot of questions about how those two things work (or don't) in the modern media landscape.
It's turning all of American life into a Las Vegas table game. There's always this kind of glittering mirage of profit that you're chasing, when, in reality, it's designed to sort of demoralize and crush every regular person who plays.
6mo ago
Underscored — save the words that stop you in your tracks.
