Dozen Worthy Reads 📰 (No. 146)
This week : Tharsio, cognitive biases, regulating tech, Jio, dating apps and the future, and more!
Hi All,
Hope you all are having a great week. I read this interesting read on you being paid for YOUR data. The project is called the “Data Dividend Project” and you get paid when companies use your data. Obviously the article talks about some of the challenges. In a decentralized world I can see this as possible. The interesting thing here is that data transfer protocols on which the email is built (SMTP, TCP/IP etc) are all standardized, but the actual data is not.
This past week I wrote a quick take on Twitter’s plans for testing a subs model. Hope you like(d) it.
As always please share if you liked this read (thank you)
On Black Lives Matter : In keeping up with educating myself about the issues facing Black people in the United States, this read on 10 myths was interesting : 10 myths about the racial wealth gap
A great (and hilariously presented as always) set of questions from Scott Galloway for the US House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee to ask the CEOs of Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google (and some were asked!) Here is a good summary from Ben Thompson from an antitrust politics perspective
I mean there is no reason to ask Zuck how he makes money right? : Fire & Fawning
On gold/jewelry a brief history from the Visual Capitalist : Infographic: A Brief History of Jewelry Through the Ages
On cognitive biases from the messy middle
Cognitive biases that influence purchase behaviour and decision-making
As people explore and evaluate in the messy middle, cognitive biases shape their shopping behaviour and influence why they choose one product over another. While many hundreds of these biases exist, we prioritised six in our research:
Category heuristics: Short descriptions of key product specifications can simplify purchase decisions.
Power of now: The longer you have to wait for a product, the weaker the proposition becomes.
Social proof: Recommendations and reviews from others can be very persuasive.
Scarcity bias: As stock or availability of a product decreases, the more desirable it becomes.
Authority bias: Being swayed by an expert or trusted source.
Power of free: A free gift with a purchase, even if unrelated, can be a powerful motivator.
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Dozen Worthy Reads this week
Regulating technology — Benedict Evans
A good read from Ben Evans on when technology should be regulated, a history. The thing about technology is that it's extremely complex to understand, let alone regulate. Regulation is needed, but will also take time. Think for a second what this does to competition. How can the little guy compete with regulation? Regulation should account for this as well, lest we end up with 4-5 large tech companies …. Uh right, we already did!
From the article:
When something is systematically important to society and has systematically important problems, this brings attention from governments and regulators. At a very high level, one could say that all industries are subject to general legislation, and some also have industry-specific legislation. All companies have to follow employment law, and accounting law, and workplace safety law, and indeed criminal law. But some also have their own laws as well, because they have some very specific and important questions that need them. This chart is an attempt to capture some of this industry-specific law. Banks, airlines and oil refineries are regulated industries, and technology is going to become a regulated industry as well.
On Citizen : Inside Citizen, the App That Asks You to Report on Crimes
Interesting app with very cool dynamics. The monetization options are so many. Public enforcement, news channels, and Nextdoor itself can acquire them as neighborhood watch TV.
The history of Reliance
A great read on Reliance (and Jio) but this read is targeted at history, politics, geopolitics and is spot on. You do need to understand Indian politics and have a basic understanding of License Raj (the rule of licenses) : From Oil to Jio
From the article:
After nearly half a decade of building out the infrastructure to launch its services, Reliance finally formally announced the Jio's launch in 2016. Since RIL had had won the BWA spectrum in 2010 a lot had changed. In 2014, Narendra Modi was elected Prime Minister, with the largest mandate the country had seen since 1984. Since coming to power, Modi had announced a host of government campaigns, including in 2015, "Digital India", to improve online infrastructure and internet connectivity across the country. It was a campaign Ambani tightly tied Jio to. I'll deliver this country's digital future to you, he seemed to be saying to Modi. It couldn't have been clearer when Jio launched. I was in India at the time and remember waking up to each and every newspaper's front page plastered with this ad, which talked about the vision of a Digital India.
F-commerce in Bangladesh : In Bangladesh, everything is bought and sold through Facebook
The reason thousands of Bangladeshis depend on Akhter to do their shopping is that she has access to something very few of them do: a credit card, and an international one at that. “It’s my secret weapon,” Akhter said. To prevent money laundering, Bangladesh has issued roughly 1.5 million credit cards, and even those cards have a $300 transaction limit for international online purchases. This has created a boom in cross-border F-commerce and turned retail arbitrage into a thriving sector.
A great breakup on Venture capitalists from Nikhil Basu Trivedi : Agglomerators vs. Specialists
From the article:
The reinvention of Rackspace : The S-1 Club | Rackspace rises again
From the article:
The new "core revenue" consists of "Multicloud Services and Apps & Cross Platform" sales. The Public Cloud is now a legacy revenue line item, which management has not actively marketed since 2017. At the close of 2017, the core segment accounted for 78% of the revenue mix. However, by aggressively selling and up-selling these segments to enterprise, management has succeeded in growing core revenue to over 90% by the close of 1Q20. Has this had the desired effect of decreasing CAPEX and OPEX?
On Dating Apps and the next frontier : Not dating a human? Japan was one of the first countries to experiment with an “digital pet” called the Tamagotchi (image below) that you had to feed, had needs. Now we’re taking this one step further
From : Dating apps will scale beyond the human
In a previous issue, we touched on the rise of Replika, an AI companion app that has benefited from lockdown-induced loneliness. Though initially designed to serve as a virtual therapist, roughly 40% of the 500K monthly users harbor romantic feelings for their Replika. A quick scan of the 13.4K-strong Reddit group devoted to the app startles in its explicitness and tenderness.
Tharsio and Platform Risk : Want to Become a Unicorn? Buy it, Don't Build it
Tharsio’s core value prop is acquiring sellers that are doing well on Amazon (3P platform) and then combining all the SG&A functions and optimizing the heck out of the business. This read on Tharsio was interesting
From the article:
From the outside, Thrasio’s strategy is simple. They buy under-optimized businesses in a highly-fragmented industry. Then, they improve operations, mash together the backends and either milk the cash flow for dividends or sell at a higher multiple.
As a profitable company with over $300 million in revenue, their plan is working so far (we’ll get to the risks in a minute). It’s working because they can expand their earnings multiple, they’re operating in a large total addressable market (TAM) and they work to build competitive advantages in their business.
More on personality businesses/passion economics : Will Joe Rogan ever IPO?
From the article:
In a post-scarcity world in which information can be sent and modified at zero cost, other characteristics begin to take on outsize value. In his essay, "Better than Free," Wired founder Kevin Kelly describes the internet as a copy machine, noting that to build something valuable, "you need to sell things which can not be copied."
He goes on to list eight "generatives" that are better than free, thanks to their non-copyability: immediacy, personalization, interpretation, authenticity, embodiment, patronage, and findability.
Robinhood, UX design patterns, accessibility, and incentive. How Robinhood makes money and why they want you to trade more : Robinhood and How to Lose Money
Jio, the interface to the Indian internet : India, Jio, and the Four Internets – Stratechery by Ben Thompson
Ben Thompson’s take on Jio/Reliance being the “API” to enter internet. This makes a lot of sense. Historically the way the government has run (and today too) requires a high level of trust in a country where contracts and obligations don’t go to far (in a legal sense). Who better to trust than a known evil?
Why do people sing? Were human beings cannibals? Mind blowing and random : Music in Human Evolution
Here, finally, is the crux of Jordania's thesis. His claim is that early humans developed a unique defense he calls the Audio-Visual Intimidation Display:
My suggestion is that our ancestors turned loud singing into a central element of their defence system against predators. They started using loud, rhythmic singing and shouting accompanied by vigorous, threatening body movements and object throwing to defend themselves from predators.
Thank you for reading. Stay safe, be well!