On the death of Android Central

Coughlin’s Law: Bury the dead, they stink up the joint

The news that most (if not all) at Android Central were laid off last week has sat with me for a few days. It sounds like it’ll become a zombie publication like others, and it doesn’t really matter. I’m trying real hard not to be cynical about it. I’ve now been gone from the top job at Android Central longer than I held it. (I just looked, and it was 10 years ago, in August 2016, when I handed over the reins.)

That 2010-2016 run was a ridiculously fun time to be in charge of a mid-major online publication. We started in the heyday of Android, when the ecosystem was mostly moving too fast for its own good because it had to, and we had to move as fast as we could to try to keep up to explain the new hardware and software, to say nothing of trying to keep up with the big-boy blogs like Engadget and Gizmodo. Imposter syndrome was real. And while I definitely had a chip on my shoulder back then, the work friends I made at the bigger publications were never anything but gracious. Every last one of them.

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen an industry change and kill off most of its population in the process. Most of that is just the business of enshittification, squeezing out every last dollar before letting things die on the vine. I left the newspaper business in December 2009 to join Android Central full-time, and what’s happened to the newspaper business is now happening not just to AC, of course, but so many online publications. It’s a slow death — newspapers, of course, are still around — but death nonetheless. Today, tomorrow, whenever. It’s coming, or it’s already here, and the dead don’t always realize they’ve been killed.

It’s a hard business, and it’s only going to get harder. What I think about the quality of “tech journalism” these days doesn’t really matter. (Not that anyone’s asked.)

But I’m occasionally reminded by a few readers out there — some of whom have names I still remember! — that for them it was about the people doing the work as much as what we were writing about. That’s the part I actually miss.

It was a blessing when I started carrying just a single phone. I miss the locations I was lucky to go to, but I don’t miss the grind of the travel. I absolutely do not miss rewriting the same press release as everyone else and pretending it’s journalism. I don’t miss the arbitrage and the SEO, and I can’t even begin to imagine how debilitating it must feel to attempt to do any of this in the budding age of LLMs.

Everything ends. I knew that when I’d be on a plane headed to … wherever. I knew one day I’d once again be in the back of the plane, instead of in the posh seats up front, pre-board drink in hand. I knew I’d catch up on the live events a day or three later, and see a few of my old work friends still slugging away.

If you still want to do the work, do it for yourself, so it can end on your terms, in your time. Or do it for someone else, but knowing that it can end at any time, and probably not in the way you’d have wished. Each is hard in its own way.

But no matter what, try to surround yourself with as many people as you can like Jerry and Alex and Andrew and Richard, and Kevin and Rene and Derek and Daniel and Adam and James and Michelle. And Jared and Russell and Bader and Harish and … I know I’ve already forgotten people. That's the part I choose to care about all these years later.

My Android Central life was what I lovingly refer to as Phil 2.0. As I edge closer to 50 years old (gasp), I’m now in the Phil 3.0 era. Healthier. More fun to be around. Working at a place fueled by mission.

There’s a lot of life left to be had on the other side. I hope the folks who have been shown the door from AC and so many other online publications find the next version of themselves. And still keep in touch with folks from their past lives, too.