Startups needs to stop trying to solve boredom

When Twitter started one could say it was to relieve boredom. Who needs a stream of user-generated content about what some stranger in San Francisco ate for breakfast?

5 years later, Twitter has been instrumental in organizing protests that have brought down governments. YouTube was used to expose a senatorial candidate making a racist remark and cost him the election. Facebook was instrumental in the Obama election campaign, without which we might have had President Sarah Palin.

Anything can become anything else.

Great article. It does seem like the majority of popular startups do lack some sort of philanthropic effort. But at the same time (as sad as it may be), people don't care. It's difficult to imagine a world where an education app is #1 in the app store. In the U.S. at least, nobody cares about problems on a large scale unless it makes them look good. If there's little to no social traction in terms of solving a problem, then anyone willing to is facing a mighty uphill battle. It's easier to make distractions than it is to really change something. Hopefully that changes one day.