đ Hope youâre having a good week. But we know it canât be as good as Juan Sotoâs, who landed the biggest deal in sports history with a 15-year, $765m contract to play for the New York Mets. You know who isnât having a good week? The New York Yankees, who lost the 26-year-old slugger.
đ§ On the pod: How is Rainforest Cafe doing well while other chain restaurants, like Red Lobster and TGI Fridays, are going bankrupt?
đ Feel like driving from NYC to LA and back 10k times? Us neither. Researchers say that exhausting trip would generate as much air pollution as training Llama 3.1, Metaâs large language model, did. The report comes from researchers at CalTech and the University of California at Riverside who analyzed AI air pollution and its potential health impacts. They found that pollution from AI data centers could cause an extra 1.3k annual deaths, trigger ~600k asthma symptom cases, and accrue $20B+ in public-health costs by 2030.
đ„ A new federal order will require all US dairy farms, transporters, and processing facilities to submit unpasteurized milk samples for USDA testing in an attempt to halt a bird flu outbreak thatâs infected 58 people, 50%+ in California, and hundreds of cattle herds. Last week, the H5N1 virus was found in samples from a farm in Fresno, California, which has recalled its products. Pasteurization kills the virus, but other animals can contract it if they drink milk from an infected cow.
MORE NEWS TO KNOW
Reddit is testing out a new AI feature to help users find answers faster. Reddit Answers â which is first rolling out to a small group of US Redditors â will let users ask the chatbot questions and pull answers from related Reddit posts.
Omnicom is acquiring Interpublic Group to create an advertising company worth $30B+. The New York City ad agencies have created some of the worldâs most iconic campaigns, like âGot Milkâ and Appleâs âThink Different.â
Hershey stock rose 15% Monday morning following reports that candy giant Mondelez is, once again, trying to take over the chocolate company. Hersey rejected Mondelezâs $23B bid in 2016.
TOOLBOX
Itâs a new week. Get after it with some energizing content:
Can you spot the AI-generated content? Take this quiz to test your skills.
If youâre bored of traditional success stories,listen in for three stories of people making millions in some pretty weird ways.
Trendiness vs. timelessness: How do you strike the balance?
THE BIG IDEA
Internet providers and the less-fun version of monopoly
Choosey moms choose Jif and four out of five dentists recommend choosing Trident gum, but why do so few people get to choose their internet service provider?
A 2020 study from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance determined that 83m+ Americans only have one choice when it comes to a high-speed internet provider, and itâs probably either Comcastâs Xfinity or Charterâs Spectrum.
How is that OK?
It essentially comes down to the idea of a ânatural monopoly,â according to CNET.
They donât illegally force competitors out of the market, itâs just really difficult (and expensive) to establish high-speed internet coverage.
So when one company is already entrenched in a region and has the infrastructure in place, itâs difficult for another company to compete.
Thatâs all especially true for rural areas, where access is more limited, as is the incentive for companies to reach them.
That means, unfortunately, companies can raise prices with impunity (sometimes by up to $50/month).
Also unfortunatelyâŠ
⊠this is largely a US problem.
The biggest American ISPs are so big that it drives up both their costs and the costs of smaller competitors who may have to piggyback on their infrastructure.
The average cost of internet service in the UK is ~$38/month, versus ~$68/month in the US, per Broadband Search.
In Europe, universal broadband efforts have been taken more seriously compared to the US, and with fewer vast expanses of nothing, itâs just easier to get people online.
There are solutionsâŠ
⊠like the fixed wireless internet networks offered by T-Mobile and Starlink, but they can have inconsistent speeds or even higher costs.
Of course, you could always just not have the internet â but is that any way to live?
Selling isnât about finding best buddies, riding tandem bicycles with prospects, and tending to their every whim. See five overbearing tactics to avoid.
Still on Instagram? Us, too. Please have our full guide to building up a brand, so we can feel a little bit better about the eons weâve spent scrolling.
DATA POINT
You know what has a nice ring to it? $1.3B, which is exactly how much inflation-adjusted revenue the ringtone and ringback industry made in 2007, perSherwood News.
Ringtones werenât just a fun bonus for the 2000s music industry, they were serious business â that same year, ringtones accounted for more revenue than both digital album and single download sales.
Since its 2007 peak, ringtones have fallen from grace, with revenues down 99%+ to $10.5m in 2023, as consumers muted their smartphones and turned to streaming services.
Ringtones havenât been completely silenced yet, though â users, particularly millennials and those in South Asia, are still buying them. The app Garage Ringtones has seen yearly downloads spike from under 100k in 2022 to ~12m in 2024. Combined, the top ringtone apps still see 60m annual downloads and $21m+ in subscription revenue.
AROUND THE WEB
đ On this day: In 1901, the first Nobel Prizes in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and peace were awarded in Sweden. The prize is named for dynamite inventor Alfred Nobel, who wanted his fortune put in a fund with the accrued interest split into annual prizes.
đ Useful: Looking for a new read? Check out the Tournament of Booksâ contenders for the best fiction of 2024.
đïž Newsletter: Busy days shouldnât stop your growth. Subscribe to 2 Sigma for 3x weekly content to transform your business and life.
đŸ Thatâs cool: World maps throughout history.
đ± Aww: Not sure what this catâs job is, but itâs very attentive.
SHOWER THOUGHT
People who are born during the winter probably have more long-sleeve shirts than people born in the summer due to birthday gifts.SOURCE
