Ged Carroll

Category: economics | 經濟學 | 경제학 | 経済

Economics or the dismal science was something I felt that I needed to include as it provides the context for business and consumption.

Prior to the 20th century, economics was the pursuit of gentleman scholars. The foundation of it is considered to be Adam Smith when he published is work An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Smith outlined one of the core tenets of classical economics: each individual is driven by self-interest and can exert only a negligible influence on prices. And it was the start of assumptions that economists model around that don’t mirror real life all the time.

What really is a rational decision maker? Do consumers always make rational decisions? Do they make decisions that maximise their economic benefit?

The problem is that they might do actions that are rational to them:

  • Reducing choice when they are overwhelmed
  • Looking for a little luxury to comfort them over time. Which was the sales of Cadbury chocolate and Revlon lipstick were known to rise in a recession
  • Luxury goods in general make little sense from a ration decision point of view until you realise the value of what they signal
  • Having a smartphone yet buying watches. Japanese consumers were known to still buy watches to show that they care about the time to employers when they could easily check their smartphone screen

All of which makes the subject area of high interest to me as a marketer. It also explains the amount of focus now being done by economists on the behavioural aspect of things.

  • Connected leadership + more

    Connected Leadership

    Connected Leadership, Powered by Brunswick | Brunswick – worth a read during your lunchtime. 9 out of 10 financial readers cite the importance of social media communications by CEOs during a crisis. There were also findings that equate CEO social presence with employer brand. Reading about connected leadership reminded me of the oft quoted wisdom that history doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes. Connected Leadership had reminded me of research that I remember seeing around the time of the original dot com boom (and bust). I think that the research had been done by Weber Shandwick in the US; and I had heard Larry Weber cite it when he came through Europe every so often.

    At that time the connected leadership type content was focused on CEOs with a media profile. The research showed a positive correlation between a highly visible CEO, better stock market performance and greater resilience when the brand was facing challenging times. This was back when Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates courted the business and ‘business of technology’ media. Like any model it can be only taken so far, as Bernie Ebbers at WorldCom, Jeff Skilling at Enron and Steve Case at AOL showed that a high profile won’t stop a terminal decline.

    Prior to Oracle’s acquisition of Sun Microsystems, then CEO was criticised for a lack of focus on the business problem. The twice weekly blog posts that marked his connected leadership style were not appreciated by activist shareholders.

    A more modern example of connected leadership would be the cult like following that Donald Trump managed to build up over the past five years in politics. A future Democratic president would like appear less on social and in the media, being more focused on the task at hand rather than demonstrating connected leadership.

    For businesses, a connected leadership style brings challenges from a regulatory point of view, could their content be sifted for potential class action suit material?

    WGSN – Future Drivers 2023 – WGSN – After the dust settles on the tumult of 2020, companies and consumers will shift to new ways of designing, making, selling and consuming in 2023. In an age of uncertainty, executives can bank on the importance of the four C’s – connection, conservation, communication and community. This report identifies seven global drivers that will reshape the macroeconomic and business landscape in 2023, and provides key strategies that businesses can action today for future success. 

    • Radical Reform: this will be front and centre for 2023. Be prepared to be held accountable for diversity, sustainability and CSR practices 
    • Safety & Security: this will drive innovation in defensive materials, an increase in home and neighbourhood security networks, and make touchless payments and products mainstream 
    • The Tech Paradox: cobots (collaborative robots that interact with humans) and democratised digital literacy will gain ground, but on the flip side, infodemics, influencer fatigue and the politics of global technology will drive a tech reset 
    • Community 3.0: look to the growth of community supply chains, staff who are steps away from the stores, and up-skilling locals to keep community money intact 
    • Environment: From Urgency to Emergency: regenerative businesses are creating a sustainable future, while made-to-order manufacturing and nearshoring are reshaping distribution models 
    • The Recession Generation: unstable job markets and a new gig economy will drive new generational spending and consumption habits 
    • New Alliances: international relations are being reshaped and this is underscoring political tensions, with growing knock-on effects

    Lightest 5G smartphone with graphene battery – Appear is launching the lightest and first graphene battery-powered smartphone with innovative water-resistant technology. There is already a lot of interest in this smartphone. Appear has begun receiving orders and projections call for a million units sold in the first six months. The smartphone would be available in stores and major online retailers by March 2021. To meet growing demands, Appear has partnered with Foxconn India for its manufacturing needs

    Research specialist Qamcom joins European partners in 6G drive – Hexa-X research project is EU funded and expected to run for two and a half years with the aim of laying the foundation for next generation 6G networks. Bringing together a number of technologically advanced European partners, the Hexa-X research project aims to develop the next generation of mobile networks, namely 6G or sixth generation. The project, which is EU-funded, is expected to start in January 2021 and last for about two and a half years. The purpose of the project is to lay the foundation for a global standard and to define principles for the 6G system itself – which will serve as a base for the entire telecom industry and its future services and products. On a more philosophical level, the project’s purpose can be described as technology connecting our human and physical world with the digital world. Qamcom’s research will focus on localisation and network optimisation

    Why minimalists are maximally important » strategy – the minimalist demo are predominantly suburbanites, more than half of whom (59%) are married couples with kids, with moderate household incomes. While they haven’t previously been majorly digitally inclined, the group has been making its first major foray into online shopping. Minimalist shopping activity on mobile phones and tablets was up 31% among this audience segment, with gaming activity increasing by 19% and 43% on mobile devices and consoles, respectively. Minimalists’ propensity to order online food has almost doubled since lockdown began, and marketers should be mindful that QSRs could really benefit from attracting this segment

    Boots UK sales struggle despite better than expected results for parent company | Cosmetics Business 

    The Chinese ski market: how China is going crazy for snow with the upcoming Winter Olympics 

    Banning Trump from digital platforms sets a dangerous precedent | ProMarket – I find them a dangerous precedent, which concentrates power irreversibly in the hands of a few private firms. Everybody, but especially people from the Left, should be worried: soon, this power will be used against them.  If Trump violated the law with his tweets, he should be prosecuted according to the law. Why did Twitter and Facebook take the law into their own hands as self-appointed vigilantes? If his tweets did not violate the law, why did Twitter and Facebook kick him out? Twitter and Facebook, many would object, are private companies, which can create their own rules of engagement. This is certainly true. But these rules should be consistently enforced and here they are not. According to Twitter’s own statement, Trump was permanently suspended because of the following two tweets, sent on January 8:   “The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!” “To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.” “These two Tweets,” writes Twitter, “must be read in the context of broader events in the country and the ways in which the President’s statements can be mobilized by different audiences, including to incite violence.” The context Twitter is referring to are the potential plans for a secondary attack on January 17—even though Trump’s tweets did not mention such plans

    Pennies to Dollars: The Problems With Amazon’s Plans for Detroit – Amazon Chronicles – sketchy property deals and minimum wage jobs

    A bit reactionary but it’s still worthwhile watching Chris Chappell interview with Winston Sterzel and Matthew Tye. Sterzel and Tye’s observations are spot on and tally with my own experience in China and Hong Kong.

    Escapist retail – Wunderman Thompson Intelligence – Digital fashion and virtual spaces are getting dreamy, engaging shoppers’ imaginations—and dissolving the traditional boundaries of retail. All of which is fine if you’re on the ‘upper leg’ of the K-shaped economic recovery. Not so great if you’re Primark. More retailing related content here.

    Well worth a read: Beatie Wolfe, digital artist and musician – Wunderman Thompson Intelligence 

    Why going global has proved so hard for the big banks | Financial Times – despite gains from globalisation in the lead-up to the financial crisis, the overall international record of the industry is poor. Just last week came a reminder of the challenges of a global bank: Deutsche Bank agreeing to pay US regulators $125m to resolve allegations that it paid bribes to win clients in the Middle East. Its not an isolated example, though Deutsche Bank does have a higher appetite for risk than many of its peers. Other examples, Goldman Sachs had to pay $3.9bn to settle the 1MDB bribery scandal in Malaysia. JPMorgan agreed to pay $264m to settle a US probe into its practice of hiring scions of the Chinese elite as its new business strategy. Its not like these bank failings are a new phenomenon. HSBC was able to buy the Midland Bank because it had been so weakened by its majority stake holding in Crocker National of California. At the time of purchase in 1980, Crocker was the tenth largest bank in the US. It has been one of the first banks in the US to use ATMs. Eventually it was sold due to the losses that Midland endured while owning it. Crocker had a large amount of bad loans on its books.

    2021 and the Conspiracies of ‘Johnny Mnemonic’ | WIRED – Gibson’s cyberspace was always bound up with the body. Data can be wet-wired; manipulating files requires Power Gloves and an “Eyephone.” When Johnny jacks in, it kind of hurts. Such meat-meets-metal has, in the quarter-century since Johnny Mnemonic came out, been called a failure of prediction. Our internet ended up disembodied, virtualized, socially distanced, our iPhones more of a figurative prosthesis. Yet, this last year, we sat slack at our desks, muscles atrophying, nerves attenuating, as we doomscrolled our way to new aches, new anxieties, new ailments. Some wild-eyes went so far as to claim that 5G triggered the pandemic, which is the most Gibson-sounding conspiracy of all. In Johnny’s world, the black shakes are caused not by a virus but by a signal. Epidemic through technic. There’s something in the air, no matter what you do. You’re already sick, you’re already dying. Connectivity is killing you

    Don’t Toss It, Fix It! Europe Is Guaranteeing Citizens the “Right to Repair” – expect a wide range of protests from auto manufacturers (like Tesla), to gadget makers (Apple) and agriculture titan John Deere

    Solar power – How governments spurred the rise of solar power | Technology Quarterly | The Economist – like other developments before it, solar demonstrates the need for government to play a role in innovation

    China consumer prices rise but worries persist over core inflation | Financial Times 

    Twitter vs Trump: has Big Tech gone too far? | Financial Times – Mr Trump has been barred from Facebook and Twitter due to events in the US last week. Apple, Google and Amazon have all taken steps to clamp down on Parler, the right wing social network.  This has set up a fierce debate about where the balance lies between a tech company’s right to censor users who breach their content policies versus an individual’s right to freedom of expression. A second aspect is the right for governments to regulate services versus the US approach of laissez faire – Angela Merkel attacks Twitter over Trump ban | Financial Times and a more US perspective – Superspreader Down: How Trump’s Exile from Social Media Alters the Future of Politics, Security, and Public Health – Defense One 

    Taiwan manufacturers quit China over trade tensions and rising costs | Financial Times – really interesting article. Taiwan’s biggest weakness seems to be the small and medium sized manufacturers with operations in China.

    I’ve chosen to not get drawn into the events at the Capitol in Washington DC. It is interesting that Arnold Schwarzenegger is far more articulate and coherent than the politicians in office.

    Quantum science leaps forward in China under Xi’s support: report ｜ Apple Daily 

    Announcement for the connection problem faced by Hong Kong users｜HKChronicles – From the evening of 6th January, 2021 (Hong Kong Time), the chief editor of HKChronicles, Naomi Chan, has received numerous reports from users located in Hong Kong. They noticed that the website was inaccessible when using the Internet service provided by some ISPs in Hong Kong. After looking into the analytics, we also found that the number of visitors from Hong Kong decreased drastically. Because of the scenario, there are some rumors on the Internet regarding to the status of service on our website – Hong Kong ISPs blocking the site. It has lots of good information on organised crime affiliated police, business people and political extremists. More Hong Kong related content here.

    Sex workers say ‘defunding Pornhub’ puts their livelihoods at risk – BBC News 

    Bitcoin Mining and Its Environmental Effects by Şerif DİLEK* & Yunus FURUNCU – an academic paper that show just how bad bitcoin is for the environment. It isn’t just bitcoin mining, but even blockchain and wallet management. TL;DR here is the money quote: Bitcoin’s energy consumption causes serious damage to the environment and faces us as one of the most significant obstacles in the development of Bitcoin.

    Concerns raised about cameras at self-service supermarket checkouts | Irish Examiner – not terribly surprising that Tesco loss prevention techniques give people the privacy creeps. But then they wouldn’t need to if the tills were manned….

    How PewDiePie is trying to dodge his taxes | Input magazine – clickbait headline, the real point is that top level influencers now are big enough to give effective tax management serious consideration

    Telegram: Contact @durov – Telegram laying into WhatsApp. But a little something to think about from seven years ago to consider before you move to Telegram: Cryptography Dispatches: The Most Backdoor-Looking Bug I’ve Ever Seen • Buttondown 

    Mark Ritson’s marketing effectiveness lessons

    • Qualitative and quantitative diagnosis
    • Clear strategic objectives
    • Long, mass-marketing brand building
    • Shorter, targeted performance
    • Tight, differentiated position
    • Heavily, consistently codified
    • Investing more than competitors
    • Astonishing creativity

  • Big sky theory

    Bob Cringely was writing about the concept of big sky in one of his recent columns and I thought that it was worthwhile sharing here.

    Big Sky
    Big sky by Whatknot. (The picture was originally taken in Nevada).

    Origins of big sky theory in early flight

    Big Sky theory came from early aviation. The main problem pilots faced was crashing into the ground rather than a mid-air collision. There was relatively few planes happening compared to the big sky out there. That meant the odds of collision were so low as to be not worth worrying about.

    Or as Cringely put it:

    Another version of Big Sky is Inshallah, an Arabic language expression meaning “if God wills” or “God willing.” The term is mentioned in the Quran and Muslims often use it when speaking about future events. Climate change or organized crime or the well running dry or uncontrolled instrument flight won’t negatively affect us if we are on the correct side of God, Inshallah.

    Bob Cringely

    It was only with the increasing air travel of the mid-1950s that the air traffic controller directed traffic we are used to now came into force. This traffic controller directed process is known as positive control.

    Data as antidote

    The phrase is used in areas such as environmental concerns around climate change, deforestation or peak oil. It makes the most sense when based on individual empirical experience or opinion. It works really well in rhetoric. Often dangerously so. It is usually countered by the use of data. Data provides qualitative risk calculations. Data is now used to conduct planes along airways one after the other. It is the same with shipping lanes.

    From economics to pandemic prevention data based regulation has proved it’s worth.

    In essence it represents thinking 180 degrees away from Malthusian ideas. More similar content here.

  • Knowledge economy + more things

    How does the UK rank as a knowledge economy? – Soft Machines – The big story is the huge rise of China, and in this context, inevitable that the rest of the world’s share of the advanced economy has fallen. But the UK’s fall is larger than competitors (-46%, cf -19% for the USA and -13% for rest of EU) – the definition of knowledge economy used in the research doesn’t play to the UK’s strengths in areas like financial services, education, legal services, accounting services and advertising. But there is no denying the overall pattern, that the UK failed to make the knowledge economy work for it in the same way that China, the US or the EU have managed to do over the last decade

    Do You Want to Buy Less Stuff? Three People Tell Us How – The New York Times – a few things about this. Ms Chai has a lot of nice things, it would be harder to do this if you were starting off with Ikea furnishing for instance

    Cultural institutions in crisis | Financial Times – Financial losses from Covid-19 are not the only challenges museums face. Well before the pandemic, environmental and social activists were holding western institutions vigorously to account. Museums were already struggling with issues of diversity — both in staffing and, more importantly, in representation in their collections — the status of objects in those collections and calls for restitution. The situation is further complicated by criticism of many traditional sources of philanthropic funding and ongoing concern for the environment. The Black Lives Matter movement and other world events put a renewed spotlight on racism, illuminating the “white gaze” of western institutions. Even as museums scrambled to promise that change was afoot, they found themselves ensnared in further criticism. “Did our lives matter when you STOLE ALL OUR THINGS?” retorted writer Stephanie Yeboah when Hartwig Fischer, director of the British Museum, tweeted solidarity for Black Lives Matter (paywall)

    As Understanding of Russian Hacking Grows, So Does Alarm – The New York Times – By staging their attacks from servers inside the United States, in some cases using computers in the same town or city as their victims, according to FireEye, the Russians took advantage of limits on the National Security Agency’s authority. Congress has not given the agency or homeland security any authority to enter or defend private sector networks. It was on these networks that S.V.R. operatives were less careful, leaving clues about their intrusions that FireEye was ultimately able to find. By inserting themselves into the SolarWinds’ Orion update and using custom tools, they also avoided tripping the alarms of the “Einstein” detection system that homeland security deployed across government agencies to catch known malware, and the so-called C.D.M. program that was explicitly devised to alert agencies to suspicious activity (paywall)

    Why Markets Boomed in a Year of Human Misery – The New York Times – the jobs lost were low wages compared to the knowledge workers who benefited from home working with increased savings

    Tesla blasts ‘ridiculously fabricated’ report raising quality concerns at Shanghai plant – giga sweatshop is quite a catchy sound bite

    The way we train AI is fundamentally flawed | MIT Technology Review 

    Why 2021 will be a bumper year for M&A | Vogue Business – the big three trends for M&A in 2021: conglomerates looking for an opportunity to consolidate, luxury brands stepping up vertical integration by investing in distressed parts of their supply chain, and a focus on investment in digital expertise and the APAC region. – more luxury related content here.

  • CD ROM history + more news

    CD ROM reflections

    How “God Makes God” is a 1993 CD ROM about probability, game theory, genetic algorithms, and evolutionary strategies | Boing Boing – I remember having my mind blown by this CD ROM at college. It reminded me of Jostein Gaarder’s book Sophie’s World in terms of its approach to making philosophy entertaining and accessible. I remember reading Sophie’s World around the same time as having played How God Makes God. There was something about HyperCard and the CD ROM authoring tools that followed. Amidst all the brochureware there were creators who drove extraordinary media projects, most notably for me was the game Myst, which I don’t think has been bettered. I suspect part of it was the excitement of new ‘hyper-media’, the limitations of the tools (though 640MB storage at the time seemed vast when I was using an Apple PowerBook 165 with 4MB of RAM and an 80MB hard drive at the time) and the media economics of the time. CD-ROM authoring tools were becoming more sophisticated. CD manufacturing plants were proliferating, lowering the cost per CD ROM disk and CD recordable drives were relatively affordable in the price range of $10,000 – $20,000. Still eye wateringly expensive, but this was a vast improvement from just two years before and allowed for better prototyping, small production runs and testing across devices.

    Design

    3D printed IKEA hack experiences by Uppgradera on Etsy – really interesting aspects to the designs

    Ethics

    Instacart Is a Parasite and a Sham | The New Republic – The gig economy company, like many of its peers, has seen business skyrocket during the pandemic—while exploiting workers and even failing to turn a profit. That last bit reminds me a lot of the first generation dot com companies who tried to break through the wall of economics and succeed by moving at internet speed. This time they seem to have supplemented the usual ‘throw money at it’ approach with a lack of morality

    Ideas

    How Claude Shannon’s Information Theory Invented the Future | Quanta Magazine – the idea of binary encrypted signals

    Innovation

    Activist Firm Urges Intel to ‘Explore Alternatives’ to Manufacturing Its Own Chips – ExtremeTech – there are national security issues with this. I suspect this is just an opening salvo by Dan Loeb

    Regulators tell Jack Ma’s Ant Group to rectify five problems – the five areas included: Ant’s inadequate governance; regulatory negligence; unlawful profit-seeking; monopolistic practices and; infringement of consumer rights, said China’s central bank vice governor Pan Gongsheng.

    China orders Ant Group to rein in unfettered expansion as regulators put up fences around financial risks | South China Morning Post – Ant must return to its origins in online payments and prohibit irregular competition, protect customers’ privacy in operating its personal credit rating business, establish a financial holding company to manage its businesses, rectify any irregularities in its insurance, wealth management and credit businesses, and run its asset-backed securities business in accordance with regulations, the People’s Bank of China’s deputy governor Pan Gongsheng said in a statement on Sunday.

    Luxury

    From TikTok to Depop: Fashion’s new trend funnel | Vogue Business – trends like leather, feathers, neutrals or hot pinks, were relatively easy to follow: the trend funnel moved from runway to rack, with some help from popular culture along the way. This year, Gen Z users on TikTok and Depop jumpstarted a new trend funnel, quickly giving rise to aesthetics like “cottagecore” and “dark academia”, influencing young shoppers’s purchases. “If one of your favourite [TikTok] creators changes their aesthetic due to a particular trend, a whole style can be born out of it,” says Yazmin How, TikTok’s content lead. “The fashion industry is no longer the only voice directing the new season’s trends. People are tapping into TikTok to see what emerging styles are ‘in’ and what previously popular trends are coming back around.” TikTok trends manifest into purchases on Depop, where 90 per cent of users are Gen Z. In step with the rise of the cottagecore trend on TikTok, search for the term on Depop rose 900 per cent between March to August, when it reached its peak. Greater connectivity and increased time at home has boosted the amount of these consumer-led movements, and brands whose aesthetics fit the trends are benefiting, like LoveShackFancy, who specialises in the prairie dresses and gingham blouses associated with cottagecore’s countryside aesthetic – reminds me a bit of the Harajuku trends from the past 30 years. Culture and the trends that come out of it, are now massively parallel in nature

    Online

    FarmVille Once Took Over Facebook. Now Everything Is FarmVille. – The New York Times – legacy is in growth hacking techniques used to make it popular in the first place

    Why Bella Poarch’s “M to the B” video was the top TikTok of 2020 – Vox – TikTok automates the mix of all these topics, going farther than any other platform to mimic the human editor.” At the same time, he says, it’s also “an eternal channel flip, and the flip is the point: there is no settled point of interes t to land on. Nothing is meant to sustain your attention.” The result, he argues, is what essentially amounts to “soft censorship,” or a feed that becomes as “glossy, appealing, and homogenous as possible rather than the truest reflection of either reality or a user’s desires.” How did a perfectly average competitive dancer become the No. 1 internet celebrity in the world? Why did half a billion people watch Poarch’s face bob up and down? Because these two women are the logical endpoint of the world’s most powerful entertainment algorithm: young people centering their conventional attractiveness in easily repeatable formats

    Retailing

    Amazon and the Rise of the Retail “Sniffer” Algorithm | The Fashion Law – the “sniffer algorithm” – or better yet, “one or more” sniffer algorithms that not only sniff out topics that a speaker is potentially interested in but that also “attempt to identify trigger words in the voice content, which can indicate a level of interest of the user.” For example, as Amazon’s patent application states, “A keyword that is repeated multiple times in a conversation might be given assigned a higher priority than other keywords, tagged with a priority tag.” At the same time, “a keyword following a ‘strong’ trigger word, such as ‘love’ might be given a higher priority or weighting than for an intermediate trigger word such as ‘purchased.’” – when does assistance become creepy?

    Security

    NSO used real people’s location data to pitch its contact-tracing tech, researchers say | TechCrunch – and here is the original report on which the article is based Nso Group’s Breach Of Private Data With ‘fleming’, A Covid-19 Contact-tracing Software ← Forensic Architecture 

    Insecure wheels: Police turn to car data to destroy suspects’ alibis | NBC News – investigators have realized that automobiles — particularly newer models — can be treasure troves of digital evidence. Their onboard computers generate and store data that can be used to reconstruct where a vehicle has been and what its passengers were doing. They reveal everything from location, speed and acceleration to when doors were opened and closed, whether texts and calls were made while the cellphone was plugged into the infotainment system, as well as voice commands and web histories. But that boon for forensic investigators creates fear for privacy activists, who warn that the lack of information security baked into vehicles’ computers poses a risk to consumers and who call for safeguards to be put in place

    Web of no web

    Tencent backs Chinese healthcare portal DXY in $500M round | TechCrunch – China has done a lot of work to move towards telemedicine and technology augmented health. Tencent’s WeChat was used by local governments for their COVID certificates, tracking and tracing applications. More Tencent related content here.

  • Plastic surgery hack + more

    Hackers threaten to leak plastic surgery pictures – BBC News – this follows on from the hack on Finnish mental health services. Given the link between plastic surgery and self image; black hat hackers have a lot of sustained leverage. More security related posts here.

    Regulators tell Jack Ma’s Ant Group to rectify five problems – the five areas included: Ant’s inadequate governance; regulatory negligence; unlawful profit-seeking; monopolistic practices and; infringement of consumer rights, said China’s central bank vice governor Pan Gongsheng. China orders Ant Group to rein in unfettered expansion as regulators put up fences around financial risks | South China Morning Post – Ant must return to its origins in online payments and prohibit irregular competition, protect customers’ privacy in operating its personal credit rating business, establish a financial holding company to manage its businesses, rectify any irregularities in its insurance, wealth management and credit businesses, and run its asset-backed securities business in accordance with regulations, the People’s Bank of China’s deputy governor Pan Gongsheng said in a statement on Sunday.

    Beijing launches antitrust investigation into Alibaba | FT – of course, its not political.

    Who’s behind Marcus Rashford? – UnHerd – interesting profile of Roc Nation’s UK arm

    SolarWinds Adviser Warned of Lax Security Years Before Hack – Bloomberg – I’d be surprised if there isn’t shareholder class action suits now

    The OnlyFans revolution – The Face – Selena suggests we ​“talk about OF in a way that doesn’t glamourise the economics of the operation”. Instead, we need a more ​“nuanced conversation about the nuts and bolts of what the actual labour looks like. We aren’t seeing the injustices. It’s either focused on our trauma or on the glamorous hyperbolic examples, while most of us are somewhere in the middle.”  There are many sides to running an OnlyFans that are less visible, including work that goes into maintaining a profile and the emotional labour involved in keeping up with fans. Historically, sex workers basically act as ad hoc therapists to their clients – it’s said to come with the territory, from escorting to camming to BDSM. And the ​“girlfriend experience” applies here too. A key part of the site’s success is one-to-one connection – often creators’ bios will explicitly state they talk with all their followers – for the right brands there is an opportunity for influence campaigns

    North American Semiconductor Equipment Industry Posts November 2020 Billings – Semiconductor Digest – generally a good sign for the global economic outlook. A dip in semiconductor equipment is usually the canary in the coal mine for global economic time.