Culture Critic

Lena Fischer

Writes about recommendation systems, cultural distribution, and what happens to craft when discovery is delegated to a ranking function.

Recommendation systems
Music and streaming economics
Media criticism
Attention and platform design

2 articles

Culture

Recommendation Feeds Flattened Taste. Editors Are Quietly Coming Back.

Platforms spent a decade replacing curators with ranking models. Several are now rebuilding editorial teams, and the reason is retention rather than principle.

Lena FischerJuly 25, 20263 min read

Culture

The Streaming Royalty Math That Keeps Mid-Tier Artists Broke

Per-stream rates are the wrong thing to argue about. The pooled payout model transfers money from mid-catalogue artists to the largest ones by design.

Lena FischerJuly 9, 20263 min read