Andrew Chen: “We’re now seeing an evolution towards subscription bundles as the predominant business model for media beyond news — now you can include music, movies, gaming etc. This business model is of course super compelling because it allows the time sink products to monetize at higher LTV, and to sort of act like money sinks unto themselves. If you are large enough to start a successful subscription service, you can then layer on vertical categories like gaming, sports, cooking, etc. And if you are Netflix, Apple, Spotify, and Amazon, you start with video but then add podcasting, music, audiobooks, and eventually gaming as well. It could be that all of these media companies — regardless of their initial entry category — will end up being offering roughly the same media package. But funny enough, they might all end up becoming gaming companies.”
WSJ: “Putting liquids in paper is inherently challenging. Paper bottles tested so far have needed an internal plastic barrier to stop them leaking. Companies have struggled with other problems too, including keeping flavors intact and stopping fizzy drinks from going flat. The paper-bottle push comes as paper is growing in popularity as a substitute for plastic packaging, with companies already using it to sell chocolate, ice cream, chewing gum and chips. “People have a very good perception of paper,” said Ron Khan, head of drinks packaging at PepsiCo, which has run tests to gauge consumers’ appetite for a paper bottle. “The minute consumers saw it we didn’t have to explain the sustainability credentials.””
@sriramk: “Group chats rule the world Most of the interesting conversations in tech now happen in private group chats: Whatsapp, Telegram, Signal, small invite-only Discord groups. Being part of the right group chat can feel like having a peek at the kitchen of a restaurant but instead of food, messy ideas and gossip fly about in real time, get mixed, remixed, discarded, polished before they show up in a prepared fashion in public.”
Mint: “Recent export data, however, suggests that India is de-industrializing rapidly in labour-intensive sectors. The Indian Express this month quoted the Federation of Indian Export Organisations as saying, “An analysis of sector-wise export performance for the last five years reveals the troubling pattern that India is experiencing a decline in global market share across labour-intensive sectors.” The trade group said that apparel, knitted garments, marine products, plastics, and gems and jewellery had grown at just 1 % to 2%. In fact, during 2023-24, while goods exports contracted by 3%, exports of textiles, leather, gems and jewellery and marine products declined 9%. The reasons are manifold and various, ranging from the difficulties that small firms have had adapting to India’s GST regime and an environment of slowing global trade to a sourcing preference displayed by buyers for Vietnam and Bangladesh because they are part of free trade agreements that we have spent several years negotiating but not joining.”
Arnold Kling: “In the eighteenth century, you might have had time to read every book that was published in a given year, if only you could acquire them. In 1960, you could have followed every television series, if only you wanted to keep getting up and down to change channels between the three networks. Today, it is mathematically impossible for one consumer to pay heed to more than a tiny fraction of available content. Put another way, the probability of the same item getting the attention of two different random individuals is very low. A high degree of specialization on the part of both consumers and providers is bound to emerge. Also, it is mathematically unlikely that we would want to spend only the same amount of time with media that we would have 25 years ago. If the ratio of experiences available on line to those available in the physical world has gone up more than a million-fold, we are bound to shift much of our attention from the physical world to the online world.”
