Hey Snackers,
From cardio to carpets… Peloton’s cofounders have spun up a new startup: custom rugs.
Crypto prices tumbled yesterday after top exchange Binance made a nonbinding agreement to buy rival FTX, which faced a liquidity crisis after $6B of withdrawals in 72 hours. A few days earlier, Binance’s CEO said his company would sell its entire stake of FTX’s native token. On the equities side, stocks rose again as investors waited for midterm results.
Sam Smith remix on loop… a TikTok loop, that is. As TikTok turns more tunes into viral hits, the world’s biggest music labels have taken note. Yesterday, Bloomberg reported that Universal Music, Sony Music, and Warner Music Group want TikTok to pay up to 10X more in license royalties — and share its lofty ad revenue with them. And negotiation time is ticking as contracts near expiration.
Running up that hill… As TikTok’s popularity has grown, so has its ability to turn tracks into chart-topping tunes. Now labels have started relying on the addicting app to promote new artists and singles, and with good reason:
Musical attention spans are shrinking... but music’s presence is expanding. In the ’80s, people were listening to albums beginning to end. Then single-song streaming took over, and now tracks are featured in everything from 30-second cooking clips to games like Fortnite. TikTok has modeled itself as more of a promo tool and doesn’t pay labels with the same revenue breakdown as Spotify or YouTube. But while TikTok needs the music industry, the industry increasingly needs TikTok.
Ubering to the polling place… Investors didn’t cast a vote of confidence for Lyft yesterday. Shares of Uber’s smaller, pinker rival tumbled 23% as investors reacted to its quarterly earnings. Lyft beat on profit expectations, but fell slightly short of Wall Street’s revenue forecast.
A tale of two strategies… Lyft’s mission is to “improve people’s lives with the world’s best transportation,” but Uber has diversified beyond urban mobility. While ride-hail majorly rebounded, Uber’s delivery business made up half of its gross bookings last quarter (think: Uber Eats). Its Freight biz, which connects semitruck drivers with high-volume loads, quadrupled its revenue to $1.7B. That means that Uber’s Freight division alone makes more money than Lyft as a whole.
Your worst enemy is your best comparison… In the ride-hail duopoly, Uber and Lyft constantly compete as riders toggle between the two apps. Even though they’re two different companies, Lyft tanked as investors compared it to Uber, whose results had raised expectations for its rival. In industries with a few dominant players, the biggest competitors can’t escape these comparisons. The next frontier Uber and Lyft will be competing on: ads.
Authors of this Snacks own: bitcoin and shares of Apple, Disney, Nvidia, Spotify, Uber, Take Two, and Warner Music Group
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