Rant that no one asked for: My general take about consumer AI is that 99% of the things we've seen so far are super far-removed from reality Most people feel like they don't have money to spend right now, so the use-cases around agents booking flights or trips or booking reservations or shopping just don't appeal to the average American consumer I would argue that things that consumers purchase or "do" frequently enough (like ordering on Amazon, or calling Ubers, etc.) were obvious/annoying enough/frequent enough use-cases where we built amazing software UI/UX over the last decade that's been optimized to near ultimate efficiency that adding AI or agents on top would actually be making it *less* efficient. Like really *worth-it* use cases are generally "one-clickable" by great consumer products/platforms already There's a lot of magical moments/wow factors/sci-fi things with agents that come from super annoying workflows (like booking flights or wrangling personal errand stuff in gmail or etc.) but are just not frequent enough for the average person. They're actually the long-tail. For example, 20% of the world's population has flown on an airplane at least once in their lifetime, meaning 80% of people globally have never set foot on a plane. Only 11%-15% of the global population flies in any given year! This is not me saying that consumer AI is dumb, I'm actually extremely excited and optimistic, but it kind of goes back to things we've always known about consumer, which is: 1. Save/make consumers money 2. Make consumers entertained or famous (And, of course, vices) Even like, regardless of your views on prediction markets/sports betting, I think you have to understand that comes from a place of the average person feeling like they 1) don't have enough so 2) they want to do what they can to jump the socioeconomic rungs Anyway, there's an extremely *wide* space of opportunity and I'm very excited to see the absolutely insane new AI/innovative stuff that builders come up with, but also I really want to see things that aren't just dressed up versions of 2010s prosumer/productivity software (and the problems that came with it) P.S. The 90/10/1 rule still applies to consumer: most consumers want to *consume* (and lurk) rather than create!

Amazon shutting down consumer agent access (now both Muse and Instinct) is both completely rational and a big mistake They have plausible reasons: 1. Advertising accounts for ~10% of Amazon revenue, but an estimated 50-60% of operating profit because it's so high margin. People purchasing via agents = fewer consumer eyeballs to monetize 2. Amazon knows from experience how dangerous it is to give another platform a lever to ramp up / down your distribution 👀 They've done this to many retailers themselves 3. They are in a very good spot re: near-term defensibility - with ~250M Prime subs (who are habituated to buying on Amazon) + a massive logistics and distribution network that you can't vibe code However, this logic is short-sighted (IMO). Agents are inevitable, especially for the kind of purchases people make on Amazon (low consideration, frequent, fairly urgent or recurring). I don't think Amazon is going to come out with a first-class consumer agent on their own...and in the meantime, why anger your valuable users and make them even consider alternatives? It's almost never a good idea to be on the wrong side of innovation. I'd much rather see them continue to greenlight agent traffic (it's pretty minimal now!) and work on adjusting to an agent-first world in the meantime.

.@papertrade_xyz is being exploited Two wallets are actively draining the protocol and extracting funds, while funds have plunged to just $2.55M Don't wait for withdrawals to freeze.