The Sunday Digest: Get Glassy

Happy Sunday!

Whether or not you're celebrating a holiday this weekend, you still deserve a long(-ish) read. And we just happen to have the one for you—a brow-raised look at weight-loss giant Noom, courtesy of Taylor Majewski's Glassy. We may be biased, but Taylor has a serious knack for locating the individual amidst large-scale phenomena. In this case, it's the veiled presence of dangerous diet culture under the guise of health science, all wrapped up in a smoothly-branded app that's especially marketed to women. Taylor's research extends from clinical studies that offer another perspective on Noom's place in the world of wellness, to her own experience giving the app a shot—the latest example of Glassy's tendency to give our minds and hearts a simultaneous workout.

So if you read "The Dark Side of Noom" and find yourself wanting more—we think it's likely—treat yourself to the backlog of Glassy articles, and make sure the next one goes straight to your inbox.

What We Published

3 Articles & a Live Conversation

The Dark Side of Noom

By Taylor Majewski in Glassy (16-minute read)

How new is Noom, really? The wellness app saw serious growth and doubled its revenue during the pandemic—but, as Taylor asks in this comprehensive interrogation of Noom's psychology and roots in age-old harmful wellness culture practices, "Noom is claiming scientific backing and using scientific-sounding language while promising not to overwhelm users with any actual science." Packed with equal measures hard facts, empathic questions, and Taylor's own experience with the app, this critical deep dive comes at you from multiple angles.

Inside Spotify's Vision for Audio Creators

Means of Creation with Li Jin & Nathan Baschez (57-minute watch/listen)

Hot off Spotify's announcement of a live audio platform and its acquisition of an audio news feed app, Li and Nathan sat down with the company's chief R&D officer, Gustav Söderström, to chat about Spotify's place in the creator economy of the future, his enthusiasm for NFTs, and plenty more. You can listen to their conversation as a podcast or watch it on YouTube.

In Practice: My Newest Beta Product

by Evan Armstrong in Napkin Math (7-minute read)

Finished with his first round of income-statement explainers, Evan's trying something new this week: In Practice, a column that looks to excavate actionable advice for individual practitioners from the latest news in tech and business. You can read the first edition of Evan's experiment—and tell him what you'd like to see from future In Practices right there in the document! If you're in search of writing that looks past clickbait for actual usefulness and looking to take your (thoughtful, considered) feedback beyond the comments section, this inaugural installment might be for you.

Can Ethereum Replace Bitcoin as Digital Gold?

by Nat Eliason in Almanack (7-minute read)

Nat's latest DeFi dispatch focuses on the difference between Bitcoin and Ethereum. Without Bitcoin's "hard cap," he writes, Ethereum has it easier in terms of price pressure. and with an upcoming proposal from senior Ethereum team members ready to go into effect, how much weight is there to the hype? No matter what you know about Crypto, Nat's always the person to turn to.

Community Calendar

What's going down in our Discord this week.

Thursday July 8, 11am-1pm ET/8am – 10am PT: Community Working Session with Rachel Jepsen

In this weekly two-hour event, our cameras are on, our tunes are flowing, and we're getting things done together! Executive editor Rachel will open each session with a ten-minute writing exercise to get us all in a creative flow. Then, participants can share in the #fireside-chat channel what they're hoping to accomplish during the session. Finishing an essay? Getting started on a new project? Tell us what you're working on!

Want to be looped in on upcoming community events? Check out our Discord server!

What’s Going On

News you might have caught or missed.

• Amazon is using algorithms with little human intervention to fire Flex workers
• L.A. Courts Nix Remote Audio After Britney Spears Hearing
• What Big Tech's "Chamber of Progress" Is Really All About
• How Roku used the Netflix playbook to beat bigger players and rule streaming video

What We’re Reading

Our favorite writing from beyond Every.

• How a cofounder war led every employee to quit Instagram's trendiest cookware company (Insider)
• What Deadlines Do to Lifelines (The New Yorker)
• Zola Understands the Internet (The Atlantic)
• The Elegant Chaos of Whatsapp Stickers (Dirt)