thoughts

There was a time when dating was organic. You met someone through friends, at work, in a coffee shop. There was effort, nervousness, excitement. A slow unfolding of emotions.

Then came Tinder.

And suddenly, dating became gamified.

Swipe left, swipe right. Instant dopamine hits. The thrill of a match. The illusion of abundance.

Now, romance is a marketplace.

From Connection to Consumption

Dating apps didn’t just change how people meet. They changed what people expect from dating.

• Endless choices → Fear of settling
  There’s always another swipe, another match, another “better” option. Why invest when you can replace?
• Casual by default → Commitment is cringe
  Apps normalized low-effort dating. A quick chat, a half-baked plan, a half-hearted attempt at connection. If it gets complicated? Ghost.
• Looks over everything → The death of chemistry
  Attraction is now reduced to seconds on a screen. If you don’t fit the algorithm’s version of “hot,” good luck.
• Validation over relationships → Dating as content
  Some people aren’t even dating anymore—they’re collecting matches for ego boosts, using dating apps for Instagram clout, or swiping just to feel wanted.

And because of this, dating today feels more like a job interview than a romance.

Dating Apps Are Built for Engagement, Not Love

These platforms aren’t designed to help you find “the one.” They’re designed to keep you on the app.

Why? Because that’s where the money is.

The longer you swipe:
✅ The more ads you see.
✅ The more you pay for “Boost” and “Super Likes.”
✅ The more the app thrives.

Dating apps don’t want you to win. They want the system to win.

The Social Media Effect

And of course, this all loops back to social media.

• Instagram & TikTok dating advice → More focus on aesthetics, less on actual connection.
• Hinge voice prompts & Tinder bios → Turning personality into a performance.
• Posting dates online → Validation over intimacy.

Now, everyone is terrified of rejection because rejection doesn’t just happen in private anymore—it happens in front of an audience.

And so, we’ve reached a weird place:

More ways to meet people than ever. More lonely people than ever.

Dating isn’t about finding someone you like. It’s about finding someone who meets the checklist, who looks good on your feed, who keeps you entertained until the next best thing arrives.

Which brings us to Part 3: Attention as Currency. Because ultimately, that’s what dating, friendship, and life online are all about now.

When Intimacy Became Content

There was a time when erotic content lived in the shadows. It was whispered about, hidden under mattresses, or accessed through grainy late-night TV. Then, the internet arrived.

First, free porn flooded the web. No subscriptions, no barriers—just an infinite stream of content at your fingertips. What was once taboo became mainstream, reshaping perceptions of sex, relationships, and desire.

Then came OnlyFans, the next evolution. No longer just passive consumption, but direct interaction. A subscription model for intimacy.

From Content to Commodity

OnlyFans didn’t invent paid adult content. What it did was blur the line between personal and professional, between creator and consumer. The fantasy wasn’t just about watching anymore—it was about engaging.

• Instead of anonymous performers, it was the girl-next-door—your former classmate, a social media influencer, or even someone you vaguely knew.
• Instead of a detached experience, you could send messages, request custom content, and feel like you were part of their life.
• Instead of an industry controlled by studios, creators became brands, monetizing not just their bodies but their personalities.

What used to be private—desire, intimacy, attraction—became public, performative, and for sale.

The Shift in Culture

This isn’t just about OnlyFans. It’s about how we see relationships and intimacy in the modern world.

• Porn is no longer a guilty pleasure; it’s part of the algorithm. Scrolling Instagram or TikTok, you don’t need to visit an adult site—sexualized content is served up to you. The lines between mainstream and explicit have blurred.
• Young people don’t just grow up watching porn; they grow up with it as an option for a career. OnlyFans is marketed as empowerment, as a side hustle, as “just another job”—but it’s also a reflection of what the market now values.
• Sex has shifted from something you experience to something you consume. The rise of transactional relationships, the normalization of “pay-to-play” interactions, and the decline of genuine intimacy are all byproducts.

When something is easy to access and always available, it loses its meaning.

What happens when sex stops being about connection and becomes just another form of content?

There are people who have won the game of life—or at least, the version they chose to play. Wealth, recognition, influence. They built their world meticulously, insulating themselves with tailored experiences, curated relationships, and an unspoken understanding that reality, as most know it, is optional for them.

And then, every once in a while, something breaks through.

Maybe it happens on a spontaneous walk through an old neighborhood. Or at a roadside stall where they stop, just for a moment, to taste something made without pretense. Or in a conversation with someone who has nothing to sell, nothing to prove—just a life that, despite its lack of polish, seems oddly… full. A life where the kids spend time with the parent bcause they want to, a life where they go where they please, have no attachments holding them back from moving base, can connect deeply with strangers without an inherent suspicion of them. 

For a fleeting second, they see it. The alternate path.

A life that wasn’t optimized for net worth, but for richness of a different kind. One where laughter doesn’t cost a fortune, where stress isn’t manufactured, where joy isn’t an accessory to be displayed but a natural state of being.

And then—almost immediately—the thought dissolves.

The pull of their world is strong, too strong. There are schedules to keep, assets to manage, investments to track. There’s an identity to uphold, one that doesn’t allow for such sentimental musings. And so, they slip seamlessly back into their carefully constructed reality, the moment of clarity filed away as an odd but forgettable detour.

Because the problem with seeing outside the bubble—just for a moment—is that it makes staying inside it feel just a little less real.

Standing still feels safe. It feels like stability. But in reality, it’s the quickest way to fall behind.

In life, in business, in anything worth pursuing, there is no neutral ground. The world moves, and if you’re not moving with it, you’re being left behind.

Some people walk, believing steady progress will keep them in the game. But when the world is sprinting, walking is just a slower way to lose.

The rules of movement depend on the arena:

• In business, a company that merely keeps up is already outdated.
• In personal growth, the person who stops learning is already declining.
• In relationships, the friendship that isn’t nurtured is quietly eroding.

You don’t have to sprint all the time. That leads to burnout. But you do have to pick a pace that keeps you ahead. Some seasons demand a full sprint—market shifts, career moves, pivotal moments. Other times, endurance matters more—deep expertise, reputation, legacy-building.

But standing still? That’s just an illusion of safety.

The question isn’t whether you’ll move. It’s whether you’ll choose your pace or let the world choose it for you.

Some problems are intricate. They demand deep thinking, custom strategies, and tailored interventions.

Others? They just need a firehose.

The key is knowing which is which.

Look for problems where the 80/20 rule applies—where 80% of the pain comes from just 20% of the causes. These are high-leverage problems, and they don’t need micromanagement. They need a broad-spectrum fix—one that can be applied everywhere at once for maximum impact with minimal effort.

Think of it like this:

• A factory has hundreds of defects per day. A closer look reveals that just one machine, responsible for 20% of production, causes most of them. Fix the machine. Defects plummet.
• A customer support team is drowning in tickets. But half of them are basic how-to questions that a simple FAQ or chatbot could handle. Deploy it. The workload drops overnight.
• A business struggles with late payments. But a quick analysis shows that most delays come from a handful of repeat offenders. Automate reminders. Introduce small penalties. Watch on-time payments rise.

In all these cases, the solution isn’t delicate. It doesn’t require endless strategy meetings, complex workflows, or expensive consultants. It just needs to be sprayed everywhere—like a broad-spectrum pesticide wiping out the root cause in one sweep.

The best solutions don’t always require precision.
Find the leverage points.
Apply the simplest, most scalable fix.
Let the system do the work.

The fruit seller outside your building is not just a vendor. He is a master strategist, a risk-taker, an economist, and an endurance athlete—all rolled into one.

Before the city wakes up, he’s at the Mandi, navigating the chaotic ecosystem of middlemen, buyers, and wholesalers. It’s a high-stakes game. Buy too little, and he loses customers. Buy too much, and half his produce rots in the sun. He has no storage. No fallback. He bets on instinct and years of experience.

Then comes logistics. Unlike a fancy startup with VC money and a fleet of delivery trucks, his supply chain is a single wooden cart, maneuvered through potholes and relentless traffic. No GPS, no CRM, no AI-powered demand prediction. Just muscle memory and intuition honed over decades.

And then, the real battle begins—the society gates.

The same people who don’t blink before paying ₹3,000 for a movie date at PVR, or ₹450 for a salad at a fancy café, will argue over ₹2 with him. They will demand free dhaniya (coriander) as a right, inspect every fruit like a forensic scientist, and then tell him that online grocery stores offer a better deal.

He smiles. He bargains. He absorbs the indignity. Because he knows that while they discuss his pricing, they are sipping artisanal coffee that costs more than a day’s worth of his earnings.

Why does he do it?

Because he is an entrepreneur in the rawest form.

• He understands supply and demand better than most MBA grads.
• He adjusts his pricing dynamically, something businesses spend crores on in consulting fees.
• He manages perishable inventory with zero wastage, a feat most retailers still struggle with.
• He has no brand, no marketing budget, no tech, but he has customer loyalty.

And yet, the world sees him as just a vendor.

But if resilience, adaptation, and real-time business acumen define entrepreneurship—then cart vendors in India are the original entrepreneurs, long before startups and buzzwords existed.

Next time you see him, don’t haggle. Pay the extra ₹5. Take the dhaniya with gratitude. Because you are not just paying for vegetables—you are paying respect to a system that has survived despite all odds.

Most websites today are obsessed with knowing everything about their visitors. How many people came? Where did they come from? How long did they stay? What did they click on? Analytics tools promise insights, growth, and optimization. But what if you just… didn’t track anything?

What Happens When You Remove Analytics?

At first, it feels unsettling. There’s a sense of control in knowing your numbers, and letting go of that can feel like flying blind. But then, something shifts. Your blog becomes a place, not a machine. A space for words to exist without constantly being measured.

The Benefits

Pure Privacy – Your readers get a clean, private experience. No cookies, no scripts, no surveillance.

Speed – Your site loads faster. No analytics means no extra requests slowing it down.

Less Mental Noise – You stop obsessing over traffic spikes and dips. The pressure to optimize fades.

No Compliance Headaches – No need to worry about GDPR, CCPA, cookie banners, or privacy policies.

The Trade-offs

You Don’t Know Who’s Reading – No pageviews, no location data, no engagement metrics. Just silence.

No Feedback Loops – If a post resonates, you’ll only know if someone tells you directly.

No Error Tracking – You might not notice broken links or pages unless a reader reports them.

So, Why Do It?

Because not everything needs to be measured. Not every blog needs to be a content funnel, a conversion machine, or a data-driven growth experiment. Some writing is just… writing.

A Middle Path

If you still want a sense of what’s happening without tracking users, here are some alternatives:

> Server Logs – Your hosting provider likely keeps raw access logs, which give basic visit data without invasive tracking.

> Privacy-first Analytics – Tools like Plausible or Fathom offer lightweight, cookieless analytics.

> Direct Engagement – Encourage emails, comments, and discussions instead of tracking passive views.

The Real Question

Do you write to be read, or do you write to be measured? If it’s the former, maybe you don’t need analytics at all. Let the words stand on their own. If they matter, people will find them. And if they don’t, no amount of tracking will change that.