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2023 Author: Cody Thornton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-24 11:20
How do you go from "Optimism is the scent of life" to "We are in shit … in my opinion we are entering a period of 3/4 years that will be even more complicated than the 2009-2014 period? ".
Between the Unieuro slogan that has entered the history of advertising and the lesson of Oscar Farinetti the whole history of Eataly and the vaguely bipolar development of one of the most talked about figures in the Italian business (and gastronomy) world passes through the school of political training of the Democratic Party.
It happens that, after months of silent rear lines, Farinetti made uncomfortable declarations, with the typical verve of "big shoes and fine brains", woke up from his torpor and dropped a series of anti-historical bombs of atomic proportions.
He himself, the entrepreneur capable of seeing beyond, seems to have been seized by an acid surge of modernity that we would have expected from the good soul of Sister Germana.
ABOUT HOW WE USE THE INTERNET
In short, it seems that for the national Oscar the Internet is largely responsible for the economic crisis, because it destroys much more jobs than it creates. And that it is used only for two reasons: "In economic activity to destroy jobs, in the private sector to insult us".
It has been forgotten that with the Net you can also buy juicy peeled tomatoes with e-commerce, no, I don't think you have forgotten it.
ON APP AND STARTUP
Then there is the question of apps: there are countries like Germany that invest a lot of money in the ideas of young people, on the development of those little things that, to the not exactly digital native generations, seem to be just unexplored symbols on the mobile phone.
No, we expect more from Farinetti.
He may well be an analogue native, but come on, he's still the mind that created that radical chic (and big bucks) temple of Eataly. Instead, here too, a cold shower.
"The other day I was in one of your peers who introduced me to startups (for Farinetti, apps and startups are synonymous), there was one who told me:
'you see, we invented a cool thing: it's a barcode that we put on a product (food, huh), so people go there with their cell phones, press them, and we tell them if it's good or not good, plus if it's not good we tell him the other one to buy '.
“I told him good, how cool you are, and who decides if it's good or not good? Eh, we! They decide. It automatically comes to mind thanks to the Internet to all become judges “.
Now, from here the step is short: we could limit ourselves to saying that that app was a bit weak, it lacked the judging subject of value.
ON TRIPADVISOR
Instead, the simplest, and somewhat tragic, populist conclusion is an at least anti-democratic stance on TripAdvisor. Of its dark sides, we all know (the mangy messes of paid reviews, the backyard teasing between a restaurateur and his rival on the street corner), but Farinetti's statement disappointed me.
Imagine him on stage, with an adoring crowd of aspiring Renzian startupists, intent on making the gesture of "already seen, already heard" by turning the index finger around the ear profile:
"Like this crap about TripAdvisor: I'm against TripAdvisor because I think we have to use professionals. Just as there are politicians who have to make politics, entrepreneurs who have to do business, so it must be those who understand food to judge someone who makes products that you put in your body “.
Here it is, an unpublished Farinetti defending food critics who are, according to him, the only ones able to judge food. And here, in the magical world of the pseudo elevated spirits who are those who judge food as scientists, a hola will rise up to the emergency exits of Identità Golose.
TripAdvisor's “shit”, certainly not acceptable in all its meanings, was one of the startups that Farinetti would have snubbed and which later turned out to be a tool of global success.
Yes, dear Oscar, anyone can speak on the Internet: even those who write bad things, even those who insult those who wrote bad things.
Even those with poisoned teeth because they paid for a quart of focaccia at Eataly (but not only) a blunder, and even the restaurateurs who, in turn, show off the negative reviews of their restaurant on social media to grab avalanches of Likes and pats on virtual shoulders from friends and supporting customers.
The internet is like that. In 30 years, perhaps TripAdvisor will be illegal, but now that it exists, it is the case that you should gear up with the best keyboard smile, as you once did face to face in front of an annoyed customer.
On the other hand, TripAdvisor is the child of universal suffrage (understood as a good thing, not like what we would abolish from office when we are cramped on the subway). All to say that "oh TripAdvisor is wrong", and then to sift through the negative reviews of others for a laugh.
Here: this is what we miss most about Farinetti. The time when you would have had a laugh on "'this shit", which is the most snobbish attitude towards TripAdvisor.