🗳️ Twitter’s Blue backlash
Hey Snackers,
Want to get paid to be friends with a chatbot? The job market for “AI whisperers” is heating up: people hired to cajole better responses out of bots like ChatGPT can fetch salaries up to $335K.
Stocks gained yesterday as fears of a larger banking fallout continued to ease. Gold prices dipped, suggesting growing appetite for riskier assets. Case in point: the techy Nasdaq 100 entered a bull market and is on track for its best quarter since 2020.
Twitter’s April overhaul highlights Elon’s revenue-driving plan — but could backfire
Blue-check anxiety… Big changes are coming soon to the blue bird. On Tuesday, Twitter boss Elon Musk said that, starting April 15, only verified subscribers (think: people who pay $7/month for blue check marks) will have their posts recommended to others in the “For You” stream. Read: non-paying users’ posts will be shown only to their followers.
No viral: After backlash, yesterday Elon added that accounts you follow will also be shown in For You. But it sounds like posts from non-paying users that you don’t follow won’t be featured — meaning it’ll be nearly impossible for those users to go viral.
No vote: Non-paying users also won’t be able to vote in polls starting on April 15 (that “privilege” will be reserved for Twitter Blue subscribers).
No check: Last week Twitter said it would remove the verified status of “legacy accounts” (think: pre-Elon-era checks) starting April 1 — unless those folks pay up.
Hard PaaS… The new Twitter Blue sounds like paying for “popularity as a service” (some are getting roasted on Twitter for subscribing). But it’s all part of Elon’s revenue-driving and bot-fighting plan. Twitter’s ad sales are sagging and growth has been tough, so Musk’s trying to diversify revenue with subs. Yet the blue-check benefit of Twitter Blue wasn’t enough to attract droves of users willing to pay $7/month. Now Elon’s raising the stakes.
Revenue chasers can chase people away… Twitter’s chasing subscription revenue with Blue-exclusive perks, but not by adding perks — it’s doing it by taking away long-standing features from existing users. Tweeters are used to blue check marks, voting in polls, and having their posts recommended for free. Removing those could backfire by alienating users.
Apple launches BNPL as the micro-loan industry falls under the regulatory spotlight
Put another iPhone on the tab… This week Apple launched its long-promised entry into the crowded buy now, pay later (BNPL) market. Apple Pay Later (APL) lets eligible users split an Apple Pay purchase (capped at $1K) into four payments over six weeks with no interest. Apple’s payment products fall under its services biz (think: App Store, Apple TV), which last year made up a fifth of its $394B revenue. APL has lots of competition:
Buy now, pay whoever: Klarna, Afterpay, Affirm, PayPal, and Sezzle all offer BNPL. Affirm's shares fell more than 7% after Apple’s announcement.
Popular pay: Nearly half of merchants already let users pay later online. And as of last August, over a quarter of surveyed Americans said they had used BNPL.
Trouble now, more later… The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), created after the ’08 financial crisis, said last year that it planned to regulate BNPL companies, which could translate to costly safeguards and added credit checks. Its goal: protect consumers from things like unclear loan terms and over-borrowing.
Inflation-stretched shoppers are increasingly relying on BNPL to pay for basics like groceries. And in 2021, 11% of BNPL users paid a late fee for missed payments.
Bad debt: This month, a CFPB report found that 69% of BNPL users don’t pay off their monthly credit-card balances.
Chase after trends and you might slip… APL was originally set to launch in September, but was delayed for technical reasons. Meanwhile, the BNPL boom has fizzled. Klarna's valuation dropped 85% last year as it posted a $1B loss. Last month Affirm laid off almost 20% of its employees after disappointing earnings. Still, with APL available for many of the merchants that already accept Apple Pay, it could have an accessibility edge over established BNPL players.
What else we’re Snackin’
Yolked: The US’s largest egg producer, Cal-Maine, saw quarterly profit 8X from last year (it also said its chickens weren’t affected by avian flu). So Easter might be eggstra expensive: the average price of a dozen eggs has hit $4.11.
Stretch: Lululemon shares leapt 14% yesterday after the athleisure pace setter flexed better-than-expected quarterly sales growth. It plans to stretch its international presence this year as the legging life runs on.
Links: JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is set to be deposed over the bank’s choice to retain Jeffrey Epstein as a client despite warnings about his behavior. Lawsuits claim America’s largest bank benefited from human trafficking.
Stalled: Luxury-EV maker Lucid will lay off 1.3K employees following an annual-production forecast that was half what analysts expected (womp). Cheaper EVs in the market have hurt demand for pricier models.
Popped: AMC shares jumped as much as 21% Tuesday on rumors that Amazon — which last year closed a deal to buy MGM — was looking to scoop up the distressed company and its nearly 600 movie theaters.
Thursday
- Earnings expected from Blackberry and Neogen
Authors of this Snacks own shares: of Apple, Amazon, and BlackBerry
ID: 2820456