--- title: The Booming Instant Gratification Economy and Other Fascinating News on the Web description: August 4, 2014 canonical: https://time.com/3080364/the-booming-instant-gratification-economy-and-other-fascinating-news-on-the-web/ author: Dave Pell article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-08-04T21:24:52.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:48:31.062Z og:title: The Booming Instant Gratification Economy and Other Fascinating News on the Web og:description: August 4, 2014 og:url: https://time.com/3080364/the-booming-instant-gratification-economy-and-other-fascinating-news-on-the-web/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Booming Instant Gratification Economy and Other Fascinating News on the Web twitter:description: August 4, 2014 twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # The Booming Instant Gratification Economy and Other Fascinating News on the Web > Sponsored content. 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The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically.  by [Dave Pell](https://time.com/author/dave-pell/)  ## Dave Pell Aug 4, 2014 9:24 PM UTC  by [Dave Pell](https://time.com/author/dave-pell/)  ## Dave Pell Aug 4, 2014 9:24 PM UTC  ## 1\. Now Has Arrived For those of us around during the first Internet boom, few corporate deaths were more painful than Kozmo; a service that deployed a swarm of speedy bike messengers to deliver food, movies, and other goodies to your doorstep. But the time wasn’t right. Kozmo never had enough customers or technological efficiencies to survive. All that has changed. The instant gratification economy is booming: There are lots of investors, lots of customers, lots of mobile technologies, and lots of people who may never leave the house again. _ReCode_ begins a series on the instant economy with this aptly-titled overview from Liz Gannes: [I want it, and I want it now](http://recode.net/2014/08/04/i-want-it-and-i-want-it-now-its-time-for-instant-gratification/). \+ As per usual, _The Onion_ is on top of the gratification trend: Millions of Americans [demanded a new form of media](http://www.theonion.com/articles/americans-demand-new-form-of-media-to-bridge-enter,36579) “to bridge the entertainment gap they endure while turning their heads from their laptops to their cell phones.” ## 2\. Not Just Another Pretty Face “I come before you today as not just another pretty face, but out of sheer talent.” So said James Brady during his early days as the press secretary for Ronald Reagan. The life-course of James Brady (and, to some extent, American politics) shifted dramatically a couple months later when he was shot in the head during an assassination attempt on the President. The shooting left him partially paralyzed. From his wheelchair, he became a central figure in the nation’s gun control debate. [James Brady died today at the age of 73](http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/james-s-brady-reagans-press-secretary-and-survivor-of-1981-shooting-dies-at-73/2014/08/04/4af0af70-c5da-11df-94e1-c5afa35a9e59%5Fstory.html). ## 3\. The War on Empathy In the Middle East, another truce that was supposed to last a few hours [was interrupted by violence](http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-ceasefire-by-israel-begins-in-gaza-20140804-story.html) which led, once again, to both sides claiming violations. \+ Jerusalem is on high(er) alert as [a pair of attacks](http://www.thewire.com/global/2014/08/two-dead-after-attack-in-jerusalem/375521/) have many concerned that the violence is about to spread beyond Gaza. \+ “It’s very easy to move from a person that you know, that you see the face and the suffering and everyday care and concerns — a human being like you like me — and an abstract, a general enemy, a demon” From _NPR_: Is there [any empathy left in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict](http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/08/04/337657171/is-there-any-empathy-left-in-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict)? ## 4\. What’s Next? “Our species does remember certain things ‘in our bones,’ and we have deep resonance with personal tragedies and with societal traumas. Our species is also forgetful and easily bored. So no wonder we lose interest in a calamity and go on to the next.” _Foreign Policy’s_ Lauren Wolfe: [Turn on, Retweet, Tune Out](http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/08/01/attention%5Fdeficit%5Fdisorder%5Feconomy%5Fnigeria%5Fgaza%5Fcaring). \+ “Videos that do show crimes in progress may be helpful in identifying perpetrators or in drawing attention to an injustice that might have been neglected. But the proliferation of those videos can have a numbing effect.” _The New Yorker’s_ Margaret Talbot on the always-on video culture that is turning us into judges and jurors: [Instant Replay](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/11/comment-6552). ## 5\. Human Testing How was Kent Brantly able to walk into Emory University Hospital in Atlanta only a short time after he contracted Ebola in Liberia? It seems to be due to [a very experimental treatment known as ZMapp](http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/04/health/experimental-ebola-serum/index.html), which before this week, had only been tested on monkeys. ## 6\. Cheech and Mom “At some point in the middle of my 70-year-old mom’s bong rip, as the distinctive _schalp schlap schlap_ sound echoed in the kitchen, it dawned on me that my family life had recently taken a strange turn.” From _NY Mag_: How [my parents became late-life pot moguls](http://nxt.fm/1pzt3ae). ## 7\. Mute to Kill Personal Audio is a company that doesn’t actually produce podcasts. They merely demand cash from those who do, claiming they are infringing on a patent. Last week, the company dropped one such lawsuit against comedian/podcaster Adam Carolla after realizing he doesn’t make all that much money. But here’s the thing. [Carolla won’t let them drop the case](http://www.slate.com/blogs/future%5Ftense/2014/08/01/adam%5Fcarolla%5Fwon%5Ft%5Flet%5Fpersonal%5Faudio%5Fdrop%5Fpodcast%5Fpatent%5Finfringement%5Flawsuit.html). He and his company intend “to continue to vigorously defend Personal Audio’s lawsuit and to pursue its counterclaims against Personal Audio, which include a request that the Personal Audio patent be invalidated so that Personal Audio cannot sue other podcasters for infringement.” How did Personal Audio get the patent in the first place? Well, they used to release magazine articles on cassette tapes. ## 8\. Won’t You Stay… “Reps are also encouraged to build rapport with customers with lines like, _Enjoy Game of Thrones_ tonight.” _The Verge_ takes a look at Comcast’s internal handbook for [talking customers out of canceling service](http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/4/5967255/this-is-comcasts-internal-handbook-for-talking-customers-out-of). ## 9\. Time for Reflection “It’s the American view that everything has to keep climbing: productivity, profits, even comedy. No time for reflection. No time to contract before another expansion.” That was George Carlin back in 1982\. Imagine what he would have thought if he looked out and saw an audience filled with people holding up their cell phones. _Longform_ has reprinted [a great old interview with Carlin](http://longform.org/stories/playboy-interview-george-carlin). ## 10\. The Bottom of the News “For weeks I’d been wanting to write a straw man argument takedown, but I couldn’t find the right argument to oppose. Then my four year-old said something totally wrong about String Theory.” For the good of journalism and the future of media, I’ve decided to share this list (yes, of course it’s a list): [An Internet Journalist Shares Eleven Breakthrough Moments](https://medium.com/sample-collection/an-internet-journalist-shares-11-breakthrough-moments-7966240087a2). \+ _Quartz_: The next era of the public payphone [is about to begin](http://qz.com/244099/the-next-era-of-the-public-payphone-is-about-to-begin/). \+ Congrats to Syracuse, this year’s [number one party school](http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/syracuse-university-ranks-party-school-24834468). \+ “Nobody eats the green melon.’ So why even serve it? ‘It looks nice next to watermelon, cantaloupe and pineapple.'” The _NYT_ [takes a stand for Honeydew](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/03/upshot/that-honeydew-melon-looks-good-but-does-anyone-eat-it.html).  ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3080364/the-booming-instant-gratification-economy-and-other-fascinating-news-on-the-web/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3080364/the-booming-instant-gratification-economy-and-other-fascinating-news-on-the-web/"},"headline":"The Booming Instant Gratification Economy and Other Fascinating News on the Web","datePublished":"2014-08-04T21:24:52.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:48:31.062Z","description":"August 4, 2014","url":"https://time.com/3080364/the-booming-instant-gratification-economy-and-other-fascinating-news-on-the-web/","keywords":["Newsfeed","NextDraft"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Dave Pell","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/dave-pell/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3080364/the-booming-instant-gratification-economy-and-other-fascinating-news-on-the-web/","name":"The Booming Instant Gratification Economy and Other Fascinating News on the Web"}}]}] ```