Author: Sam Allcock
A certain type of frustration develops gradually. It doesn’t reveal itself in a single negative instance. Stream by stream, policy update by policy update, it builds up until an independent musician in a home studio in Memphis, Manchester, or Manila discovers that the platform on which they built their fan base has subtly changed the ground beneath their feet. From the inside, that’s how the Spotify royalty model change feels. In an attempt to reroute funds from scammers and bot farms to “real” artists, Spotify announced a number of changes to its royalty payment distribution system in late 2023. The…
Approximately 72% of the world’s platinum is produced in South Africa. When planning an investment or purchasing a car, most people don’t consider that. However, that figure is crucial inside the nation’s mining belt, where electricity powers hoisting, ventilation, and pumping machinery in deep shafts hundreds of meters below the surface. Additionally, the electricity has been unreliable for years. The grid failure in South Africa is not a tale of abrupt collapse. The slow unraveling began long before most commodity analysts or investors became aware of it. Eskom’s own analysts predicted in 1998 that if nothing was done, the nation’s…
Between the headliner and the opening act, there’s a point where you notice the branding. the background of the stage. The scanner for wristbands. While the general public lines up at an expensive bar, cardholders can enjoy free drinks in the lounge hidden behind a velvet rope. Until it’s not, it’s subtle. And a bank is increasingly associated with that logo. Citibank and American Express avoided stumbling into live entertainment. This was intentional, and it’s difficult to overlook the numbers. Music-related events now make up about 39% of the banking industry’s total sponsorship portfolio, up from 25% a few years…
A certain type of business decision appears to be a failure from the outside but appears to be brilliant in retrospect. That includes Shopify’s decision to shut down its logistics division and sell off Deliverr and 6 River Systems in May 2023. It appeared to be a disorganized retreat. Just a year earlier, the company paid $2.1 billion to acquire a startup, spent years and billions building a fulfillment network, and then sold the majority of it to freight company Flexport while laying off 20% of its employees. Nevertheless, Shopify’s stock saw its largest intraday increase since 2015 on the…
There’s a moment that tends to surprise people when they first hear it. Tom Cruise — one of the most recognizable faces in cinema history, a man whose films have collectively crossed $13 billion at the global box office — often walks into a negotiation and deliberately asks for less upfront. Not because he has to. Because he’s done the math. It’s a strategy that took years to fully appreciate from the outside, but once you understand how it works, the numbers tell a story that feels almost counterintuitive. In an industry where actors fight for the biggest possible paycheck…
The scenery doesn’t seem to belong in any farming tale you’ve ever read when you stroll through Dubai’s industrial suburbs. logistics centers, warehouses, and the odd construction crane. However, once you enter one of the increasing number of climate-controlled buildings, everything completely changes: there is no soil in sight, roots hanging in nutrient mist, and rows of leafy greens suspended in midair under pink LED lights. It’s a peculiar form of farming. Additionally, it may be precisely what the area—and perhaps the entire world—needs at this moment. Nearly 90% of the food consumed in the UAE is imported. That figure…
A moment when someone pushes a flatbed cart through a warehouse store, tosses in a carton of eggs and a seven-pound bag of frozen chicken, and then reaches for a one-ounce bar of gold is subtly telling. Not exactly in a panic. More akin to instinct. For the past few years, that has been occurring at Costco stores all over the country, and it is not going to stop. It sounded almost ridiculous when the company’s CFO, Richard Galanti, said during an earnings call that gold bars were hitting the site and selling out within hours—limited to two per member.…
Around 11 p.m., a small orange owl with a guilty expression appears on your screen, and it gives you a certain feeling. Your Spanish lesson is still unfinished. There’s a risk to your streak. And for some reason, you still open the app after a long day of work, meetings, and other obligations. It’s not a coincidence. That’s behavioral economics in action, and it’s now one of the most subtly potent factors influencing how people use the internet. The market for habit tracking apps is expected to grow from its estimated $1.94 billion in 2025 to over $6 billion by…
The obsession with the Prime Minister’s value has an oddly British quality. Not in a sincere, open-minded manner, but more like how people discreetly assess a neighbor’s brand-new vehicle. That obsession with Keir Starmer has resulted in an astounding number of self-assured claims, many of which are based on virtually nothing. Figures between £7 million and £15 million have been shared on social media and tabloid websites, frequently with the legitimacy of official records. Over 400,000 people viewed a single post on X. Parliamentary declarations or Land Registry deeds were not the source of any of the numbers. Eventually, the…
Every significant career has a point at which the numbers must catch up and the work no longer speaks for itself. That moment seems to have come quietly for Zendaya—no official announcement, no well-timed press release. Just a renegotiated agreement, an insider, and a figure that rocked Hollywood: nearly $1 million for each episode of HBO’s third season of Euphoria. It’s the type of figure that causes people to stop. It’s shocking because of who is receiving it and what it stands for, not because it’s shocking in and of itself. Zendaya is 26 years old. She is the youngest…