TPR Newsletter No. 4
Facebook Pay, Apple vs Basecamp, The secret history of Silicon Valley, Boston Dynamics, Podcast adoption.
Tech
Facebook launched Facebook Pay late last year, and this week the company launch its service within its communications app WhatsApp. The feature is available in Brazil. The service is free of charge for users, and businesses get charged a 3.99% processing fee to receive payments. The service works on top of Paypal and Stripe. This service seems to be in direct competition with apps like paypayl's own Venmo and Square. These types of services have been enjoying a surge in their user base thanks to the pandemic. It seems that Facebook entering the peer-to-peer payment space is a step forward into financial services.
This week the email service hey.com was launched by the company Basecamp. Basecamp, a project management tool, is one of the pioneers in the SaaS space. The Hey iOS app got flagged on the app store after initially being accepted. Basecamp founders, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, have been publicly complaining about how Apple is rejecting critical app updates unless they allow in-app purchased in the app. By allowing in-app purchases, Apple gets a 15%-30% cut of the revenue generated by the app. The company was awaiting an appeal decision by Apple that came down Thursday, and that demands that Basecamp make changes to keep its Hey.com app on the app store.
This is not the first time someone accuses Apple of implementing monopoly practices. Spotify had a similar situation unfolding and had to implement a workaround to prevent its app from being rejected on the platform. Spotify filed a complaint against Apple with the European Commission over the so-called "Apple tax" and claims of restrictive rules regarding the App Store. The European Union said this week that it had opened an investigation into whether Apple unfairly takes down developers trying to distribute their applications on the App Store.
Apple claims these rules have been there since the beginning of the App Store and that they have help developers find audiences that otherwise, they would not have been able to find. To be fair, the rules have been there since day one. But, Apple continues to update the terms of use, and too often, the process of submitting an app is unclear and complicated. It is also true the App Store has helped new businesses generate revenue. It has transactions of over $500 billion in 2019.
Reddit is launching a crypto project >> Link.
Data
Podcast adoption
Full report >> Link.
Information technology and the impact on arbitrage and pricing
Interesting Things
I came across these two articles on how to forecast and predict the future. I like Evan's approach to distinguish between fundamental breakthroughs and clear roadmaps in technology in favor of raw power to accomplish goals.
Link >> Not even wrong.
Link >> Flare and focus of futurist.
If you have 75k to spare, you can now buy one of those scary Boston Dynamics robots. Spot, the dog look-alike robot, is available for sale to the public. I guess you can call this one a pet.
Oldie but goodie
Steve Blank's Secret History of Silicon Valley
Quote of the week
"If you find something very difficult to achieve yourself, don't imagine it impossible—for anything possible and proper for another person can be achieved as easily by you." - Marcus Aurelius