Sound Off

The other day I was at the bar having a drink with friends. There was a lull in conversation as someone got up for the bathroom or to refresh their drink. My brain, in constant need of stimulation, instinctively pulled out my phone and opened Instagram. I clicked on a story and heard sound. In public. My phone made unexpected noise. One of my greatest fears as a millennial realized. I was furious. 

This turned out to be caused by a bug that Instagram has fixed, but I assumed in the moment that it was another attempt by Instagram to nudge users into treating the app more like TikTok. I thought were trying to be a Sound On app. 

We’ve spent a lot of time over the past year looking at online platforms and services through the Web2 vs Web3 lens. Is this service monetized by advertising or crypto? (I know there are other definitions of that difference, but this is my newsletter, and we are using the one that I think actually makes sense) However, there’s another important divide in how we use the internet that we should be paying more attention to: is this app Sound On or Sound Off by default?

The Sound Off web can easily be consumed in brief chunks at a loud bar. Twitter, Instagram, Email, etc. all offer primarily text and images for our eyes and screen readers. There’s occasional video content, but that can often be viewed and understood without audio. The Sound On internet asks for another one of our senses. YouTube, TikTok, and Netflix don’t really make much sense if you leave them on mute (at least without captions and audio descriptions). So sound is turned on by default when you open them. 

A lot of the coverage of Meta’s big shift to Reels has focused on their push towards an algorithmically driven feed. That change from “who you follow” to “what this machine thinks you’ll like” is a big one for sure, but I don’t think that’s the only axis of user behavior and culture they need to invert in this move. They are also trying to go from being Sound Off apps to Sound On apps. 

It makes sense. The world of Sound On content also gets to deliver more immersive Sound On ads. Sound On apps command more of our attention. YouTube and TikTok take up more of your focus. Twitter and Instagram can be scrolled second screen style while watching House of The Dragons. All the metrics and ad platform product marketer research decks at Meta must be pointing towards the need to dominate the Sound On ecosystem if they want to maintain their seat at the advertising duopoly table. 

There’s something really nice about the Sound Off world for me, though. Checking up on your friend’s Instagram stories while you listen to podcasts on the bus. Scrolling Twitter while you half pay attention to the meeting that should have been an email. Browsing Pinterest for recipes on the couch next to your partner when they put on that show they are really into, but you are just neutral on. Us multitaskers need the Sound Off internet. 

Maybe these experiences aren’t universal (or monetizable) enough to take into consideration when tech companies build their products. Maybe I’m becoming an old, and this is just my nostalgia for the text and image forward internet of my youth talking. But maybe I’m right and there’s a place for both modes of content consumption in most of our lives. Maybe abandoning the Sound Off folks is leaving money on the table. 

Bonus Content

Occasionally as I’m writing, my Twitter-addled brain will generate phrases that loosely connect my topic with a copypasta joke format. So here’s a little peak into that madness, as a treat: 

Not Sound On or Sound Off, but a third secret thing (podcast app)