This was a fascinating read on why some technologies linger and hence have a much longer tail than the market often predicts.
The reason – “cultural forces create market demand even if supply is available more efficiently (even infinitely) elsewhere“. In some cases (not obviously just related to age) the perceived value actually increases.
Think about movie theaters surviving despite the rise of home cinema. Why? The social value of gathering at the movies.
Or enjoying the slow deliberate read of a newspaper.
Or the demand, sometimes sinister, for the near 5 million payphone calls made each year in the UK.
Decline is inevitable but not in all cases (booming vinyl sales for example).
Before shale took off oil to gas prices averaged 8 to 1 – close to their energy equivalence ratio.
Since 2013 this ratio has averaged 20 to 1.
Outside of North America the ratio is 3 to 1.
“In other words, US gas is priced at an energy-equivalent discount of 56% to world oil and a 77% discount to world gas. In our 35 years investing in global energy markets, we have never seen such a wide disparity.“
Source (including arguments on why it might revert).
Astral Codex Ten picks up on an expanded nootropics recommendation data set.
The results are in this table and show three things (1) addictive/illegal is preferred to safe (2) difficult but popular > chemicals (3) high tech > normal.
“Over the last 20 years, across four Presidents (two Republicans and two Democrats) we have had exactly one energy secretary with any real-world energy experience before they were brought into the President’s cabinet.“
Reid Hoffman used to ask – “What do you plan to do after you leave Linkedin” – brilliant as it acknowledges that people don’t stay in jobs forever and communicates a support for their vision of the future.
This one from Marginal Revolution is also great – “What are the open tabs in your browser right now?”
Great contrarian podcast about the future of music streaming with Economist Will Page.
“Page believes the music industry is transitioning from a “herbivore market” to a “carnivore” one. In other words, future growth will not come from brand-new customers — it’ll come from the streaming services eating into each other’s market share. Not only has subscriber counts possibly tapped out in Page’s opinion, but streaming services have also put a ceiling on revenues by charging only $9.99, a price that hasn’t budged in 20 years despite giant leaps in technology and music catalog size.”
“85% of energy usage comes from burning things” and “human civilisation is powered by combustion“
So starts this excellent post on the current state of affairs and how they are described by politicians and the media.
The first big point is electricity does not equal energy. Electricity is only roughly 20% of world energy use.
Therefore, renewables, a minor part of electricity generation, are only a slither of the much bigger energy pie.
This chart “hammers” the point home.
As does this – from individuals in the know – “a net-zero policy, actually implemented “would certainly be the most significant act of mass murder since the killings of one hundred million people by communist regimes in the twentieth century—and it would likely be far greater.”“
“The correlation between wage growth and inflation has declined over the recent decades and is currently near historic lows. It is notable, however, that this correlation has ticked up recently“
Nice write up ($) from The Diff on Football Clubs or as he calls them “Meme stocks for the 0.01%”
The collective value of the top 20 clubs in the Premier League has risen from £50m in 1992 to £16.11bn in 2021 (Sportico has a neat interactive tool for this). A stand out return.
Part of the reason is the huge audiences they attract. Spotify recently signed up to sponsor FC Barcelona citing their own data that the team has 700m unique viewers per year.
KPMG actually publish a very interesting report on the value of football clubs with detailed analysis – unsurprisingly showing a Covid-related drop in value/revenues.
Africa continues to evade both acronym and imagination, attracting only cliches.
Yet, it is not like any other place on earth right now.
As this excellent piece from Adam Tooze makes clear, while Asia has taken back its place (see chart) in the historic world order, the same remains elusive for Africa.
This is despite what is a more than 10x of population since 1914 (124 million to 1.34 billion today) when compared to a “mere” 3-4.5x in Asia.
But Asia is plateauing in population terms. Africa continues to grow – forecast to reach 2.4-2.5 billion by 2050 and 35-40% of the world’s estimated 9-11 billion population by 2100.
How confident are we of the former forecast? As Tooze makes clear there is one “dramatic fact” – “a large number of the mothers whose children will drive growth to 2050 have already been born“.
Demographics are nebulous – long in time and space – but sometimes two decades, like the last two we experienced, are “decisive for global population history“.
There is so much more in the article culminating in a quote from Howard French – “How Africa’s population evolves, and how the continent’s economies develop, will affect everything people near and far assume about their lives today.”
For those who haven’t used it before, Google Trends tracks search volume for various terms over time and place. It is hugely useful for company and other types of analysis.
The Glimpse extension fixes many of the issues that have plagued Google Trends for years (like lack of actual search volume data) and makes it 100x more powerful.
For example, this screenshot shows the search for the keyword “NFT” in the last five years (no comment). Glimpse adds the actual search volume, highlights the major channels (TikTok) and related trends.
The basic extension has 10 searches free per month but you can upgrade to get unlimited searches. Just as with the newsletter, if you use the code SnippetFinance10 by 13th of June you can get 10% off for six months (disclaimer).
