Web Summit 2022: Kristin Myers (The Balance)

So my name is Kristin Myers, I'm the editor-in-chief of The Balance, and I talk about economics and finance and teach financial literacy, mainly online, and I'm based in New York. So at first, when it comes to media, we actually are seeing them migrate more and more online Gone are the days where people want to make an appointment and sit down at their television and watch a news program. Now instead, they're going, especially in the United States, they're watching streaming news networks, right? So companies like NBC, for example, have NBC news streaming. CBS has CBS news streaming. And you're seeing that happen a lot now, where people are actually going online to get their news instead of getting it from their television screen. I've also seen a lot of democratization, I would say, of information. The Internet has allowed, honestly, anyone anywhere in the world to get information quite literally at their fingertips. And so what I think what we're seeing here is anyone really being able to participate in producing news, but also talking about different topics. Now, in the world that I'm in, talking about finance, for example, this was especially true over the last two years. We had a pandemic. Everyone's sitting at home. The markets are terrible. People are losing money. And everyone's wondering, what am I supposed to do right now? I'm seeing my investments. They're not doing well, or now I have more money in my pocket because I'm not going shopping. I'm not going to dinner with my friends. What should I do with that money? And so when it comes to finance, so many people started turning to the Internet, honestly, to get the questions, or rather to get the answers to all of their questions about money, about the economy, what's happening, what should they do with their investments, what should they do with their finances. And so what I would say is that, especially when it comes to things like financial literacy and information about money, about economics, about finance, the Internet has honestly helped them really being able to understand, particularly over the last two years, what's been going on. And then thirdly, as I mentioned, with the democratization of sort of the information, we've also seen this proliferation of anyone being able to be a reporter, anyone being able to give you answers to your financial questions, especially on platforms like Instagram or TikTok. There's Fintalk, right, where people can go and watch 30-second clips on what does the 401k do? And how should I be investing in my 401k or in my retirement portfolio? So I would really say that the Internet has honestly made a world that seems sometimes small incredibly big. Essentially, the Internet has allowed people to be as creative as they want to be in whatever space they want to be. So again, it's not just television anymore, it's not just radio or print. That used to be the big three, right? You had to read a paper, you had to listen to it on the radio, or you had to sit in front of a television in order to get that information. That's not true anymore. The Internet has completely changed that. Tech has also really changed that. We have different apps now. You can be a star on TikTok, honestly, and a whole generation of people might know who you are. You mentioned Substack. I mean, people are making blogs all the time. They've got podcasts. There's so many different ways that you can literally create content of any kind, right? Not just news, not just about finance, literally about anything. If you want to be a comedian, there's people that are comedians on social media, and people know who they are. They might not have ever been on a stage before. They might not have a Netflix special, but people know, thousands, hundreds of thousands of people know who they are because they're famous online. It's interesting how much the Internet has really allowed everyone, anyone truly, to become a content creator in whatever field they want to create that content. There is definitely the trust factor, especially in something like finance, right? You don't necessarily know who you should be trusting, especially with something as big and important as money and your money decisions. So that's one of the really huge challenges. Competition is really another one, honestly. Anytime you go online, you type in a hashtag on any topic, right, you're going to get thousands of hits. You're going to get hundreds of influencers, hundreds of people. And so if you're someone that's new that's starting in this space, that can be incredibly daunting and overwhelming. You're now competing against so many other people, and finding that niche that works for you is really going to be one of the biggest challenges. This is a hard one, because what I would say is that every single year, with every new piece of technology that we get, we are presented with new challenges, right? And I think when it comes to the Internet, I think privacy is probably one of the biggest ones. We're entering a world where decentralizing things is becoming more and more interesting and important because people really want to have their information protected, especially online. Trust will always remain a huge one. Content moderation is also going to be a huge challenge for a lot of companies, and I think especially online, because again, anyone can participate now online and in the Internet. And sometimes you have to ask yourself the question of, is what I'm seeing what I should be seeing? Are these voices that I'm hearing the voices that I should be hearing? We're seeing that a lot, that question come up quite a bit. And then, of course, again, I think connectivity. Faster, of course, is always being something that people are constantly talking about, but we still have to remember we live in a world where not everyone is connected to the Internet. We still have many communities, in the United States even as well, where we have lots of children that don't have access to the Internet. A lot of households are not yet connected to the Internet, at least not to a fast, reliable Internet connection. And so I think that connectivity is also going to remain a challenge, especially in more emerging markets. Thank you.