Thursday’s Themes . . .

SNAPCHAT’S EARNINGS BLUES:  Being a pre-IPO tech darling is apparently easier than becoming a public company which must report earnings to Wall Street.  Snapchat found this out the hard way during yesterday’s debut Q1 Earnings Call.  Snap, Inc. announced the triple bogey of severely decelerating new users (added just 8M in Q1), bigger than expected losses (-$2.2B if you include stock compensation), and a top line revenue miss ($7M less than expected).  All this adds up to pain for the stock price which dropped 26% in just one day.  Granted Snap is still a very young company, so you have to expect some volatility as an investor.  But the leading economic indicators all look pretty worrisome right now.  There are tons of articles on this, but I thought this Business Insider piece provides the most balanced and accurate assessment.

FAKE SOCIAL MEDIA HAVING REAL LIFE CONSEQUENCES:  In a weird irony the “grassroots” social movement against the FCC’s push to roll back Net Neutrality regulations may actually be truly fake news.  The effort called “Go FCC Yourself” being propagated by English comedian and HBO host John Oliver, looks more like a sham than anything.  In a prime example of unintended consequences the effort is having ugly real life effects, including death threats against FCC Chairman Ajit Pai.  As detailed by the attached Free Beacon link, Mr. Oliver is using his social platform to protest the FCC’s dismantling of NN.  Depending on your point of view that could be totally above board.  But when you look at the online comments of supporters you’ll see names like “Jesus Christ” and “Melania Trump”.  Then there’s the use of bots to drive up views and push the URL higher on Google searches.  All of this would be sophomoric shock media stuff if it didn’t inspire others to threaten the FCC Chairman.  Not cool John Oliver, not cool!

“SUPERSTAR ECONOMICS” ACROSS MUSIC HISTORY:  If you’re a long time reader you know I sometimes like to geek out on obscure history, especially as it relates to music.  For my kindred spirits out there the attached BBC link, unearthed by Pandora’s Alex Jonas, is a must read.  It chronicles the history of musical performances across centuries of technological advances, and parallels the earnings power commanded by performers at each phase of the evolution.  The fascinating part is a direct correlation between how much an artist can earn to how many people hear their music.  Before the first telegraph lines transmitted audio signals in the 1800s the most highly sought after opera singer in the world would make less than 1% (in comparable dollars back then) to what today’s top artists earn, because they could only perform in front of a few hundred people.  Thanks to technological advancements, from the gramophone all the way to the internet, as exponentially more listeners are exposed to their music, artists’ compensation has (thankfully) increased by the same scale.  It’s a fascinating read if you’re the only other person on the planet like me who enjoys music history and economics.

Have a great Thursday everyone!

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