Section 471 of the US Criminal Code prohibits printing money, but Ikea is apparently above the law â the Swedish home store launched its first Halloween decor line, and if you think you arenât going to see their $2.99 spider tealight holders everywhere this fall, youâre fooling yourself.
In todayâs email:
OOO and ahhs: Itâs scary how few vacation days Americans take.
Dispensing wisdom: The economics of vending machines.
Mic drop: Podcasting needs a new business model.
Around the Web: Calculator heaven for DIY-ers, what are pseudo-snacks and why canât you eat them, and more.
đ Listen: A podcast about the business of podcasting? How gauche!
The big idea
Why our vacation days have been vanishing
Most Americans have access to paid vacation days, but that doesnât mean theyâre actually taking âem off.
2023-08-10T00:00:00Z
Sara Friedman
While Instagram might have us thinking everyone is boating in Lake Como this summer, thatâs actually far from the truth.
Instead of splish-splashing with George Clooney, most employees are getting their R&R from watching Netflix on their second monitor â at best.
Per The Washington Post, American workers are taking fewer vacation days than ever before.
And the numbers back it up: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the percentage of the workforce taking vacation in a given week has fallen from 3.3% in 1980 to 1.7% today.
Whatâs driving vacayâs vanishing act?
Some workers fear for their job security and donât want to appear expendable.
Others donât bother with vacation days knowing the always-on nature of technology will keep them mentally engaged in their work anyway.
Vacation time is often bucketed into PTO along with sick and personal days, making many employees nervous to use it should they need it in an emergency.
All that means days left on the table: BLS data shows that more than 90% of full-time, private-industry employees have access to paid vacation time, and that the average number of vacation days offered by employers has gone up.
This all explains the newest corporate buzzwordâŚ
⌠Workation. (We donât like the sound of it either.)
Coined to describe the act of working from a vacation spot, workations have become increasingly popular as more companies roll out âwork from anywhereâ perks.
And businesses are finding other creative ways to make sure their employees kick up their feet, from partially reimbursing vacations to instating annual PTO minimums.
So go ahead, log off. But, unfortunately for all of us, thereâs no talk yet of banning the âcircling backâ after you return.
An audio tech sold the microphone Cardi B chucked at a fan who threw a drink at her for ~$100k on eBay. The proceeds will go to two charities, Friendship Circle Las Vegas and The Wounded Warrior Project. Apparently, the mic still works.
SNIPPETS
Big bet: Penn Entertainment put $2B on the line to land the biggest name in sports â ESPN â as the front for its sports betting network. Its four-year goal for ESPN Bet? Owning ~20% of the online sports gambling market.
Hmm: Several authors claim books with their name on them â but which they didnât write â are appearing on Amazon and Goodreads. They suspect theyâre AI-generated scams, but have found them surprisingly difficult to get removed.
âLoud laborersâ is the latest workplace buzzword, referring to co-workers who talk a lot about work but seem to do very little of it. So, basically, âquiet quittersâ but more annoying.
Verizon paid ~$400m for videoconferencing app BlueJeans in 2020. It may have seemed like a hot time to invest in such tech, but now, Verizon is shutting it down.
Lawsuit: Gizmodo editor-in-chief Daniel Ackerman is suing Apple, alleging that its 2023 film Tetris plagiarizes his 2016 book The Tetris Effect with the âexact same feel, tone, approach, and scenes.â
Taco Bell is giving away free food to celebrate the end of Taco Johnâs trademark on âTaco Tuesdayâ â but not in New Jersey, where Gregoryâs Restaurant and Bar refuses to give it up.
Googleâs redesigned Arts & Culture app includes games, photo filters, and AI-generated âPoem Postcardsâ users can send to friends. Itâs currently available on Android, with iOS coming soon.
Stock brokers and children may not agree on Roblox â shares of the popular kidsâ gaming platform dipped Wednesday as Q2 results missed analyst expectations â but hey, theyâll always have one thing in common: waiting all day for a closing bell.
Choosing your leadership style is about understanding what motivates your team. One strong option, used by corporations from Microsoft and Starbucks to the Green Bay Packers, is transactional leadership.
Video
Watch: The economics of vending machines
These sly snack-slingers have mastered the art of extracting $2.99 from your pocket for a bag of air and some chips.
But how does it all work? In this âHustlenomicsâ episode, weâre peeling back the wrapper, crunching the numbers, dispensing the insights â OK, you get it â on the vending machine business and the people behind them.
To whet your appetite:
There are ~5m machines in the US today.
The latest figures show the US vending machine market being worth $10B.
Some machine operators make up to ~$8k/year per machine; weâll introduce you to one man who has 47 of them.
How do these machines turn your innocent cravings into cash cows faster than you can say, âInsert coins here?â
Take your vacation: 50 out-of-office email templates
Whether youâre calling it sabbatical, sick days, or a spur-of-the-moment getaway, weâre helping you finesse the format.
Take 50 OOO email examples for setting expectations, staying professional, and leaving like a solid office friend. These options emit positive impressions for dozens of dillydallying scenariosâŚ
⌠and serious ones, too â business trips, fieldwork, and bereavement all included. But hopefully, you are reclaiming what it means to slack.
This listening boom saw media companies pour lots of money into audio; Spotify notably invested $1B+ in podcast acquisitions and celebrity deals.
But this year, those investments have scaled back â hard.
In March, layoffs at NPR led to the cancellation of four popular podcasts.
In June, Spotify laid off 200 employees from its podcast division, shuttering some of its major shows.
This month, SiriusXM will officially shut down its once-popular podcast player, Stitcher.
Where did things go wrong?
Put simply: advertisers are no longer footing the bill.
The monetization model for most podcasts took power away from their listeners.
With shows distributed for free, fans havenât been the ones exchanging money to keep their favorite shows going â thatâd be corporations and advertisers.
Now, that market is in a state of correction.
With a recession looming over the past year, advertising budgets have been among the first to go for companies looking to curb spending.
đŹ Thatâs interesting: The âpseudo-snackâ â those gimmicky, shocking treats companies release to much fanfare, but that hardly anyone gets to eat.
đ Cure boredom: The New York Times has a new game. âFlashbackâ requires players to place historic events in chronological order.
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