It was a little more like that before, say, summer 2020. Lots and lots of people have been onboarding in the last couple months, I assume because of the VC money and pressure to expand. At this time, it's less like you describe and more like "influencers" cannibalizing each other with constant rooms with a thousand or two people listening on "the success mindset" or "how to build a brand identity." I don't really log in anymore.
That was my thought, I was wondering if it did ANYTHING that isn't already in Mumble/Teamspeak/Ventrilo/Discord-- about the only thing I can come up with is that it's probably easier to set up for non-technical users (the one place Mumble/TS/Vent fall apart at) but even there I don't think Discord loses out on that.
And that’s what I find compelling about it. I’ve never been to Davos or worked in Silicon Valley, yet I felt like I was in that environment. I don’t expect it will last. But it felt nice.
As the article mentions, it's not limited to Silicon Valley types, but even if it were I don't know if there's really a "just" about Davos in your living room. A direct line to the thoughts of top Silicon Valley people is a pretty powerful pitch, no?
Books yes, youtube no, except the occasional funny animal/baby video with my wife. Even books need to meet an expected quality threshold before I elect to dedicate tens of hours of my attention, and I am willing to grant it because the thousands of hours or years worth of thought put into a book are often worth the brain space consumption trade-off. I try to be very selective in the content I consume, with exceptions for pure entertainment when I need it.