Hey Snackers,
Definitely spring for the extra legroom: Cathay Pacific is rerouting its NYC-Hong Kong long-haul to avoid Russian airspace. The new route would be the world’s longest commercial flight by distance. ETA: 17 hours — enough to watch “The Batman” once.
Stocks jumped and oil fell as investors monitored developments in Russia-Ukraine peace talks. Russia said it would “drastically” reduce its military presence near Kyiv, but US officials are skeptical.
W-2 anxiety is real… Tax season is here, and TurboTax is Intuit. Intuit is the financial software powerhouse behind TurboTax, Credit Karma, and QuickBooks. Its specialty: making finances less #anxiety-inducing, with hand-holding walk-throughs and user-friendly screens. Now, Intuit has some anxiety of its own — and it’s not the April 18 filing deadline.
Upgrade to claim your tax break... While most countries provide easy online services where taxpayers can file free of charge, free options in the US are more complicated: fill out a paper form, manually enter everything into a digital form, or file through private tax software (but only if you earn $73K or less). Intuit said it’s been focused on boosting free filers. Still:
Complexity is a biz opportunity… because consumers will pay extra to have headache-inducing (but critical) processes simplified. The US’s convoluted tax system is bad for taxpayers, but great for companies like Intuit and H&R Block — if taxes were a cakewalk, fewer people would likely need their services. (It’s a similar convo for the hard-to-navigate healthcare industry: companies like Teladoc, GoodRx, and Zocdoc thrive on simplifying experiences.) This week, President Biden released a budget proposal that includes $14B for the IRS, but TBD if any of that will go toward creating a simpler filing system.
Let’s BeReal… nobody wants to curate every moment for Instagram. That’s fueling the growth of BeReal, a new “unfiltered” social app that’s gaining traction with college students (1M+ downloads last month alone). How it works:
Not the first Facebook alternative… Lots of upstarts have challenged Meta’s social supremacy with features like photo tagging, stories, and live audio. FB kept its crown by buying them (Insta), copying them (Snap/TikTok), or watching ’em fade (Clubhouse). But now FB faces a more fundamental challenge: growing skepticism of its engagement-driven algorithms.
It’s easy to rip off a new feature… but it’s harder to overhaul an entire biz model. Even if BeReal is just a fad, it points to an existential problem for the social-media incumbents: younger users are gravitating toward platforms with fewer features focused on their friends. But for social giants that rely on algorithm-powered ad revenue, fewer features may mean fewer advertisers.
Authors of this Snacks own: shares of GM, Moderna, Microsoft, Twitter, Pfizer, and Snap
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