I disagree with the premise of that question
NY Times ditches print, tech hearings part deux, BAML chief is watching
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Tech x Society - NY Times bets on multi-media
The NY Times has transformed from a print newspaper driven by ads into a multi-media company making money from licensing. The transformation comes in the wake of attention spans declining, the rising popularity of visual content, and, most importantly, the hammering social media companies Facebook and Twitter have put on news outlets in the fight for ad dollars. The market’s response to NYT’s shift? 📈 NYT stock is ticking toward its highest level since 2004, which is the same year Facebook launched (no coincidence).
Moving away from the typical advertising diet could mean a transformational focus in editorial content. Not just because of the format (10 scripted shows and 3 documentaries are in the works already), but also the incentive. Licensing revenue incentivizes media outlets to put out quality content while ad revenue incentivizes clickable/shareable content. Those are not the same thing and frequently oppose each other.
Is this a shift away from clickbait headlines to higher quality reporting or is it an admission that news media serves no greater purpose than entertainment? TBD.
Of relevance, read this fun story about one of the earliest ad-based revenue newspapers…in 1835.
Also: We can mitigate climate change by sharing data. Oh you think you see search results on Google? You probably don’t. ICYMI, Facebook execs know divisiveness is good for business.
Government x Tech - “Senator, we sell ads”
Remember that? And how painful it was…
House Judiciary Committee duked it out with tech CEOs on Wednesday. You can find 100 different recaps, just Google it…, so we’ll spare you that. Besides, short version of the hearing is every response started with “With great respect, I disagree with the premise of that question.” Anyway, here are our 4 takeaways (yes this section is long, but this is what we live for):
1. The design was set to fail
By calling all four CEOs at the same time, Congress proved they were fishing more than anything. There have been antitrust calls against each of these, but for very different reasons. Alphabet = paid search, Facebook = paid social, Amazon = eComm. And, as Tim Cook said in his opening statement, Apple doesn’t really own anything (Alphabet’s Android owns over 80% of the smartphone ecosystem).
So what’s the common thread among these? “Tech.” Congress calling all CEOs at the same time shows two things: (1) Congress doesn’t understand the question they’re asking, but are just influenced by what they’re hearing from the most vocal constituents (likely on Twitter) and (2) Congress probably doesn’t understand the canyon-wide difference between these companies, but views them as the same because “tech.” Rep. Jordan even kicked off the hearing bashing Twitter over and over again. Twitter, of course, wasn’t in attendance, but it is a tech company and that’s the granularity with which many of the representatives view these companies.
2. Antitrust is not the problem
In our opinion, there are genuine antitrust questions around Alphabet and Facebook for their dominance of respective corners of digital advertising. 97% of new digital ad dollars go to Google or Facebook. But Amazon and Apple aren’t in that boat.
What we got for most of the five hours were questions about China, censorship, election interference, people blaming Amazon because they’re addicted to its paychecks like heroin (that’s close to a quote), or Alphabet harvesting data from us like we’re inanimate oil wells. There are legitimate and important questions in each of these, but they have nothing to do with antitrust issues. That’s probably why Tim Cook was basically silent for the entire 5 hours.
There is a deep seated feeling that these companies have too much power over our lives. We Google things on our iPhone before buying on the Amazon app because of a recommendation on Facebook. It’s true that some of these don’t have our best interests in mind, but it’s also true we have choices. And as long as congresspeople are focused more on proving each other wrong than progress, changes will come down to individuals.
3. We are not victims
Putting aside arguments for data monopolies or demand v. supply monopolies, there are indeed alternatives. DuckDuckGo or Neeva instead of Google search, Brave instead of Chrome, Hey or Proton instead of Gmail. Signal instead of WhatsApp or iMessage. The actual news instead of Twitter. Any eComm site, corner store, or local bookstore instead of Amazon (spoiler alert, they don’t do next day shipping because they’re not a trillion-dollar company ☹️). We’re not victims, but we’ve become very loud, complicit critics (note: the Congressional Testimony was streamed live on YouTube. Get it?). To change the world, change yourself.
@Rep. Cicilline: if you want your subcommittee to have an informed conversation about this, pick up The Age of Surveillance Capitalism (but not from Amazon, you monsters!). Hell, if any congressperson signs up to our newsletter, we’ll send it to you for free!
4. (Most of) the Committee is too old
We couldn’t help but notice this frequently looked like parents chastising kids for being on “facespace” too late at night, rather than a judgement of peers (reminded us of this Vox article).
However, we did notice some all stars. We were impressed by questions from Reps. Armstrong (on Alphabet’s privacy and geolocation practices), Jayapal (on Amazon’s use of data), and Demings (on Alphabet’s merging datasets on consumers after the Doubleclick acquisition) 👏 👏
Also: Fitbit acquisition is drawing criticism. Authoritarianism in the age of pseudoscience. TikTok may be getting acquired so it can do more business in the US. Here’s a history of anti-trust.
What did you think about the hearing? We could talk about it all day. Tell us what you think.
Business x Society - Look out, BAML coming through
Bank of America Merrill Lynch CEO Bryan Moynihan chaired the group at Davos responsible for holding companies to account for their social impact promises. Why?
“Because it’s the right thing to do.”
Respect, Bryan 👊
Moynihan recently went live with Fortune magazine to explain the group’s goals and his ambitions. The group is responsible for creating a framework for businesses to address long term societal goals through structured rubrics rather than marketing campaigns. BAML itself won’t be free of its CEO’s scrutiny. The company has achieved many of its own promises: raised the minimum wage to $20 an hour, committed hundreds of millions of dollars to the environment, and announced a billion dollar commitment to communities of color.
Moynihan also has a history of asserting BAML’s stance to social issues. He took a public stand against the North Carolina (home to BAML HQ) legislature when they passed a law limiting access to public bathrooms for transgender people.
Also: The plan to create 25 million jobs decarbonizing the economy. 41 states reduced carbon emissions while growing the economy.
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Thanks to Andrew from New York for writing in! “While we shut down our borders amid COVID, the UK is offering Hong Kong citizens a clear path to a Visa and even citizenship [link]. I don’t think we should necessarily fling our borders open in a pandemic because of China’s hostile takeover, but this seems like a prime opportunity to attract some of the best talent in the world after a decades-long brain drain to the East, and we’re too short sighted to take advantage.”
And some developments from past issues: UK reverses course on Huawei (flip flop), the battle over .org continues.
Did somebody send this to you? Enjoying it? Great, we’ve done our job. Now do yours:
What else we’re reading
Speaking of NYT, take a look at this in-depth piece on the Pentagon’s UFO program
An IPO for EV maker Fisker? Ish. SPAC City, welcome to it.
We’re stage 5 clinger fans of Wait But Why. Our favorite post (series)? The Story of Us. It’s long, but entirely worth every minute you spend reading it. We’d print the entire manuscript and put it on our walls if it didn’t make us look like serial killers…
We leave you with this: Rep. John Lewis at the Capitol steps from @michaelamccoyphotography: