A Digital Content Overload
One topic that has fascinated me for the past 18 months has been societal changes arising from the pandemic. Most of the so called movements or shifts are showing signs of petering out. The Peloton movement, which pushed an anti-gym ideology, does not appear to be gaining much momentum. Meanwhile, the Work From Home movement, which took over tech-oriented blogs and news sites for the better part of the past year, is showing signs of losing steam as more people get back into the swing of things.
A somewhat recent development that may end up having more legs in terms of longer-term trends caused by the pandemic is changing digital content consumption trends.
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The Chip Shortage Was the Canary in the Coal Mine
The economy is in a strange place right now. One can confidently and accurately point to data suggesting the economy is in a good position in terms of customer demand, unemployment, wage gains, and household saving rates. At the same time, however, problems such as unfilled jobs and inflation suggest a perilous state.
When it comes to the good news, people have disposable income and are willing to spend it on goods. The demand picture is so strong that the supply chain infrastructure that was supposed to handle such demand has come to a halt. This brings us to the bad news, which includes signs of higher inflation. For the past 25 years, inflation has been mostly a nonfactor for people in the U.S. It’s one reason why we aren’t seeing as many news articles and online commentary as the topic deserves. Most people in a position to write such stories are too young to have experienced inflation exceeding 200 to 300 basis points. There is little to no recognition that inflation can single-handily destroy an economy (and society).
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Facebook’s Meta Rebranding: Logical Decision, Bad Timing
Facebook is no more, at least as it pertains to the $900 billon market cap company. Mark Zuckerberg’s company is now called Meta. Reactions to the rebranding have not been positive with most convinced the name change is a not-so-clever way to distract from ongoing fallout from the Facebook whistleblower. Others think Zuckerberg is trying to distance both himself and his other brands (Instagram, WhatsApp, and Oculus being the big three) from negative connotations associated with Facebook.
Those entrenched in tech were reminded of Google’s Alphabet reorganization six years ago, which has not turned out to be as effective as Google envisioned. While the two events share some similarities, the differences can’t be ignored.
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Inside the Mind of a Pinterest Suitor
Last week, a number of publications reported that PayPal was in “late-stage talks” to acquire Pinterest for $39 billion. Such action would mean the digital payments company had finally acted on its long-held interest to get back in the e-commerce game. (PayPal was spun out of eBay in 2015.)
Pinterest is an intriguing company playing at the outskirts of the Amazon / Facebook / Google kingdoms.
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Chronological Feeds Won’t “Fix” Social Media
The Facebook Files saga took an unexpected turn last week as Frances Haugen, the former Facebook product manager responsible for providing the WSJ a treasure trove of leaked internal documents, made her public unveiling as the Facebook whistleblower.
In what is still difficult to wrap my mind around, in the span of just two days, Haugen went from having her first public interview on 60 Minutes to sitting down for a three-hour hearing in front of Congress. Haugen went so far as to unveil something of a “public oversight of social media” agenda. Based on the well-orchestered PR aspect of it all, if you told me that she was next running for Congress, I wouldn’t think you were crazy. We seem to be experiencing something of a renaissance for the corporate whistleblower. There is a story to be told here, but that won’t be the subject of this essay. Instead, the supposed “fixes” that Haugen suggested Congress could apply to Facebook caught my attention.
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Ozy’s Big Lie
Ozy Media had seemingly everything going for itself. The digital media company had raised $83 million from investors including Ron Conway, Axel Springer, and Laurene Powell Jobs. It’s charismatic co-founder and CEO was able to score big name after big name for his namesake video interview show. The company claimed to have big audiences in all of the digital content buzz words - video, newsletters, podcasts. It even had real-world festivals to serve as that diversified monetization lever that investors love to see.
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The Pivot to Screens and Cameras
In the mid-2010s, the tech industry thought it was onto something. The maturing supply chain from the smartphone revolution had made it easier (and cheaper) than ever to produce small, stand-alone speakers that could be placed in the home. Instead of playing music or talk radio, these speakers would be transformational due to their delivery of digital voice assistants that was made possible by years of cloud and machine learning investments.
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The Facebook Files Won’t Change Much
Over the past week, the Wall Street Journal has published a series of articles that reveal Facebook is aware that “its platforms are riddled with flaws that cause harm, often in ways only the company fully understands.” The articles rely on a trove of internal Facebook documents, correspondence, and presentations. While the WSJ is right to position these articles as a big deal, unfortunately the revelations are not going to lead to the kind of change the publication likely thinks is coming.
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Problems With Work From Home Are Beginning to Emerge
Last week, Microsoft changed its return to the office timeline to officially put off employees coming into the office indefinitely. COVID, and in the particular the Delta variant, was the stated reason for the change. I don’t think Microsoft, or any other company delaying return to the office indefinitely, is being entirely up front about all of the forces driving such announcements.
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Peloton’s Race to Build a Health Platform
The warning flags have begun to wave for Peloton. As one of the most high-profile beneficiaries from the pandemic, it should probably come as no surprise that the reopening of gyms has resulted in concerning business trends for the company.
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Amazon’s Secret Weapon
The shift from brick and mortar to e-commerce has been one of the more pronounced tech developments to impact society. After years of on-again and off-again rumors, it increasingly looks like Amazon will expand its move into brick and mortar in a big way. It’s a move that traditional retailers need to monitor closely.
Amazon’s strategy for retail dominance hasn’t exactly been a secret.
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The Lines Between Public and Private Infrastructure Investment Will Blur
One of the defining ideas behind starting Inside Orchard was chronicling how the technology industry would become hard to delineate as its influence on society expands nearly unchecked. Ten years ago, tech was a defined sector. Ten years from now, most of society including industry, education, and healthcare will fall under the “tech” umbrella.
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Pushing Electric Cars
We were supposed to be in the electric car era right about now. Actually, we were supposed to be in the self-driving electric car era. Instead, we find ourselves in the era of car companies announcing electric car aspirations for the upcoming decade.
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The Live Events Industry Needs Mixed Reality
(The following essay has been made available for all to read. You can share this essay far and wide.)
When we look back at the early 2020s, many will describe the period as transitory in nature. Wearables are increasingly grabbing the spotlight from mobile while new technologies such as mixed reality are still a little bit off in the distance. We are starting to see glimpses of what mixed reality, more commonly referred to as VR, will be about, including activities that stand to benefit from mixed reality. A great example is seen with the live events industry (theaters, plays, fine arts and music venues, and all of the corresponding backstage and support companies).
As part of the pandemic relief stimulus program passed by U.S. lawmakers earlier this year, the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program has been described as a $16.2 billion “bailout” of the U.S. local entertainment industry. Forced shut by the pandemic in 2020, many companies that put on or support live events faced financial distress.
Last week, the U.S. government released data on bailout recipients. Here in Connecticut, 131 theaters, cinemas, event promotors, talent agents, and various other entities tied to live events have received $100 million from the program. (If you live in the U.S., you can check out which of your local institutions received funds here.)
A very good argument can be made that using taxpayer money to support the live events industry following a once-in-a-century pandemic makes complete sense. For many of these companies, the bailout funds will directly prevent their doors from closing. However, for me, seeing the breadth of those needing bailouts as well as the amount of funds received put a spotlight on an industry that has become dependent on various kinds of financial support for its survival. Many of you, including those outside the U.S., can probably think of local stories in which a live events venue (theatrical plays, concerts, fine arts etc.) needed financial help to survive.
Instead of looking at this development with distress, there is an opportunity for technology to play a role and not only keep the live events industry alive but also bring it to new heights. That may seem like too rosy of a projection, especially as technology has long been viewed as a culprit or accomplice in the decline of live events. In the essay, Movie Theater Nostalgia, we talked about how movie theaters face severe headwinds going forward as they battle the rise of on-demand content consumption and new-age communication mediums. The item that may have been missed in the discussion, and which pandemic stimulus has now helped expose, is that the live events industry faces structural headwinds without considering technology’s impact.
Needing people to travel to a live events venue and pay what is an increasing amount of money for a seat in order to be entertained for anywhere from one to four hours has become an increasingly difficult proposition to wrap a business around. The idea was a lot easier to achieve decades ago when consumers had limited entertainment and travel options. Going to the movie theater used to be a half-day affair. I recall stories of my mother going to the “movie theater” with her family as a young girl with groceries in hand. The movie theater made it possible for patrons to store their groceries purchased next door in a fridge. The theater ended up selling relief before people needed to lug their groceries back home.
As the decades progressed and consumers saw more travel and entertainment options, live events began to face headwinds that have only gotten stronger. It’s not that the industry was suddenly wiped away because of technology but rather the economics have gradually become harder to overcome. As the number of people buying tickets to events like plays, theater, and other fine arts venues declined, ticket prices went up to compensate for the weaker demand. Today, paying $100 to $200 for a mediocre seat at a local theater for an off-Broadway show is not uncommon. Such pricing is needed to keep the lights on - and that’s after the impact from significant fundraising, support from boosters, and government grants. The live events industry has been on life support for a long time.
Technology has a role to play here by expanding the size of audiences consuming live events. By wearing a headset that blends one’s actual surroundings with technological enhancements, the feeling of being somewhere else, such as inside a live events venue in a different city, state, or country will be made possible. Instead of going through such experiences alone, it will also be possible to experience such events with families and friends either seated in the same room or thousands of miles away.
The idea that a local venue can put on a play and have more people watch the performance than there are seats found at the venue introduces entirely new economics. Ticket pricing could plummet similar to how software pricing declined while smartphone adoption moved higher. There would no longer be a need to break even off of a very limited base of patrons. Thanks to mixed reality, live events that may never have made financial sense could become a reality leading to far more advanced live events than those we see today.
This discussion extends beyond live theatrical events to include mixed reality helping music and sporting events and even interactive sites like museums, zoos, and aquariums. It’s not so much that these locations will fail to exist in physical form without mixed reality but rather that technology can introduce such events to far larger audiences. Geographical limitations and other limitations dealing with space (limited parking, square footage, seating, etc.) go out the window. By completely rethinking how we consume live experiences, mixed reality can the turn the live events industry into something that we have never seen before.
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Tech’s Complicated Race to Space
For at least an hour or so last week, cable news channels were bearable to watch. Instead of pushing political agendas and playing in COVID fear mongering, attention was given to Jeff Bezos flying into “space” on board his Blue Origin rocket. Some U.S. news networks even sent anchors to Texas to cover the event. The ordeal offered a brief sense of levity to what has become a downright toxic news environment.
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We Have a Growing Social Media Problem on Our Hands
Ongoing issues related to the pandemic involving variants and vaccination rates are now leading to what seems like some kind of turning point for today’s digital town squares (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc.)
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The Decentralization of Silicon Valley
Two months ago, “A Work from Home Head Fake” went over my position that most companies are not built to succeed with work-from-home structures. Team communication and idea exchange have not evolved enough for work from home to replace traditional office settings without negative consequences.
Since that Inside Orchard essay was published, work from home has turned into a polarizing topic online. Tribalism has now entered the discussion as some people dig in and position work from home into other agendas such as worker rights - a development that ignores the fact that many companies are not built to succeed with work from home.
While the work from home movement will hit a brick wall, the decentralization of Silicon Valley is a more promising development that stands to usher in more near-term change.
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The Problem with Regulating Software in the 2020s
As the anti-tech bills from the U.S. house antitrust subcommittee made their way through the judiciary committee last week, the tone in press coverage and tech circles continued to evolve. An increasing number of people have become convinced that Washington is going to come down hard on the “tech” giants. This feeling has manifested itself in different ways. Those who view the giants as too powerful are jumping in jubilation while others are nervous and fearful as to what the legislation may mean for hundreds of thousands of workers and hundreds of millions of consumers.
In reading through the anti-tech bills, a few themes become hard to miss:
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Streaming Video’s Ongoing Revolution
There continues to be something that I call the “iPhone mentality” in tech. A singular product or service is positioned as quickly transforming a market or industry. A byproduct of this thinking is the tendency for consensus to prematurely declare that first movers are winners.
Netflix was declared the winner in paid video streaming back in 2018.
Spotify was declared the winner in music streaming in 2015.
Tesla was declared the winner in electric vehicles in 2017.
In each example, a winner was declared before we even knew what it meant to win in that respective industry.
New data out from Nielsen suggests that streaming video remains in a different place than what consensus assumes.
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The Smart Home Remains the Wild West
The smart home is still more of a concept than anything else. Those expecting one product or service to transform homes into smart homes have been left disappointed. The same goes for those who prematurely crowned a winner in the smart home race. The smart home remains the Wild West and is turning into a long-term play for the tech giants with strategy goals measured in multi-year increments.
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Subscriber Privileges and Benefits
Receive Exclusive Essays. The cornerstone of an Inside Orchard subscription is access to Neil’s weekly essays on the latest developments in the technology industry. Weekly essays are 1,000 words and sent via email on Mondays. Essays revolve around the following topics: technology industry analysis, business model analysis, technology’s impact on societal and consumer trends. A sample essay can be viewed here.
Access Exclusive Private Podcast. Listen to Inside Orchard essays via an exclusive private podcast. After becoming a paid subscriber, all previously-published podcast episodes become available in your favorite podcast player. Podcast episodes never become available to the public.
Inside Orchard Support. Play an active role in supporting Inside Orchard as an independent source of analysis and perspective. Inside Orchard is 100% supported by its subscribers.