bjpless

I've been contemplating this question on the heels of the passing of an older relative.

It dawned on me that most people know little about their grandparents and that deficit is likely much greater when looking back further generations.

Given that most people are afraid of death / non-existence, how valuable is confidently preserving one's legacy over long time horizons? Meaning, how will future descendants learn about your experiences, values, personality, etc.?

Will you have to make your Instagram public before your death and hope that that service remains popular / available? Will you share your email credentials? Will you count on Google indexed pages persisting hundreds of years from now? Will you deputize family members to collect artifacts (images, text, etc.) in a Google Doc and manage access over generations?

Is this generally a problem that others have considered / valued?

In the course of brainstorming about a product, I've been forced to check out my Gmail Promotions tab.

I normally avoid it as I find it too noisy -- filled with repeat emails from brands that I don't care about. It feels like too much work personally to unsubscribe from all irrelevant senders. And yet, while browsing it, I did notice a lot of latent value in relevant deals and discounts.

Would any UX changes unlock value from this tab? Some that come to mind include:

1) Better UI to declare which brands I care about.

2) Order messages based on promotional value rather than date received (admittedly weird for the email context)

3) User controls for how many messages received per brand per time interval.

4) Option to automatically unsubscribe if user does not respond to N messages from a given brand.

5) Rules to filter out deals / discounts that do not clear a specified threshold (i.e. save at least $20).

I've been doing the remote work thing for a couple of years now and it's obviously quite socially isolating.

I'd love to travel and co-work with friends regularly but my personal network is only so deep to reliably count on those known travel companions.

Is there a world where others in a similar position would trust 4-6 (identity verified) strangers with similar preferences to leisurely travel or co-work out of a shared AirBnB and generally socialize in the evenings or around shared hobbies (i.e. surfing, rock climbing, meditation, a book club, etc.).

I think that a shared house and a 4-8 person group provides the most cost effective and socially conducive environment -- they are genuinely the most fun experiences of my life. Clearly, though, they require sufficient trust and safety.

If strangers are a bridge too far, would you self-organize trips like this with co-workers if planning were simple?