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Shroom boom. ICYMI, Oregon just officially licensed its first-ever regulated psilocybin service center, Epic Healing Eugene. The thing is, the price tag is through the roof. An individually guided high-dose trip (2.5g to 4g) will set you back a hefty $3,500. But that’s not stopping folks — there are a reported 80 people on the waitlist.
In other news… Hollywood writers strike for quality, marketers figure out how to work without cookies, and podcasters take the creator crown.
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ENTERTAINMENT
Producers may leave writers on the cutting room floor // Illustration by Kate Walker
Hollywood writers fight for quality over quantity
The Future. The Writers’ Guild of America is trying to combat the existential threat of automation with its ongoing strike. But profit has long motivated Hollywood studios to formularize creation wherever they can — and AI has put them in a better position to do it than ever. If writers want to survive, they’ll have to convince studios that profits follow the best writing rather than the most.
Save the cat, kill the writer
Fast Company covered Hollywood’s extensive history of prioritizing expedience at workers’ expense.
For decades, the richest studios and franchises (like Marvel) have used sub-par outsourced VFX instead of hiring talent full-time.
The rise of franchise content allowed studios to create predictable stories quickly, hiring writers as gig workers who didn’t own what they wrote.
During the streaming boom, pressures to maximize stock prices drove studios to create content at a rate they knew was unsustainable, dropping shows and firing writers when costs inevitably caught up with them.
Motive most foul
Studios’ fixation with profits won’t change. What might change is how audiences respond to content now that it’s ubiquitous and easily made. When there’s an infinite amount of bad or boring content and only a little great content, the great content could win subscriptions — and you need writers for that.
BUSINESS
Marketers need to find consumers sans cookies // Illustration by Kate Walker
Marketers prepare to target consumers without cookies
The Future. Most marketing executives think user tracking is about to become obsolete with Google’s impending phaseout of third-party cookies, but no one knows what will replace it. Still, if advertisers want to keep reaching the right consumers, they’ll have to cook up new ways to find them without violating peoples’ data privacy.
Who’s who and how
Ad firms are split on whether or not they’ll need to identify individual users.
Some companies are building “personas” from datasets that examine the activity of millions of anonymous users on publishers’ web pages, creating groups with shared interests without identifying individuals.
Others are enlisting Gen AI language models to crawl the web and develop an understanding of online audiences based on their language — again, without singling anyone out.
But many firms believe identification is necessary, prizing info like a user’s hashed email address because it allows companies to track them across platforms and devices.
Tough cookies
We won’t know what the post-cookie world will look like until Google actually ends its use. But if general AI-based heuristics like “personas” truly work, we might all have a little more privacy — and marketers might be out of work.
TOGETHER WITH WELLCORE
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BUSINESS
Unsplash
Podcasters dethrone social media creators
The Future. In a new study by Magna and Vox Media, podcast hosts emerged as the most influential figures shaping people’s actions, beliefs, and life decisions. This could lead to a paradigm shift in how brands choose the best endorsers for their products and services.
Deep connections
People form strong attachments to their favorite podcast hosts, turning to them for guidance on both financial and personal decisions.
75% of respondents (out of 2,000) placed the influence of podcasters above social media creators and mainstream celebrities.
Nearly 90% of Millennial respondents credited podcast hosts with influencing their beliefs.
The next wave of influencers
The report encourages brands to incorporate podcasters into their creative process and consider how their ads might be relevant to the podcaster’s audience.
70% of respondents “pay more attention to podcast ads” than those on TV or their social media feeds.
Over 50% have bought a product or service after hearing it advertised on a podcast.
Data talks, and it crowns the podcaster as king (and queen).
TOGETHER WITH THE GIST
The play-by-play behind the plays 🏈
Want the inside scoop on the business side of women’s and men’s sports? Well, get "the gist" of what’s up off the field — all delivered in bite-sized, fun-to-read stories.
The GIST is an awesome and FREE newsletter written by WOMEN, btw. You can take our word for how great it is, or you can follow the lead of the 30,000 sports business readers who are already fans.
Highlights
The best curated daily stories from around the web
Why’s rent still so expensive?
New research points to people ditching their roommates and striking out on their own. This decision has created thousands of home hunters, all vying for a fixed number of units. Even though people could land early pandemic deals due to the outbound migration from cities, the rise in household formation has caused rents to snap back. Roommates may now look at the rental market and decide it’s better to stay together.
Read More → insider
RIP MTV News
After 36 years, the news outlet was shuttered this week as parent company Paramount Global looked to cut costs. What began as a single show in 1987 (The Week in Rock) eventually became a news source for Gen X and older Millennials who preferred MTV to the network evening newscasts. While the MTV News of 2023 was a real digital presence, it was less high-profile than competitors BuzzFeed and Vice, which have also recently shuttered or downsized their news divisions.
Read More → thr
The first commercial space station will open in 2025
Vast and SpaceX intend to put the first commercial space station in orbit in August 2025. The station will offer an extended-stay destination for Dragon flights, along with opportunities for “science, research, and in-space manufacturing” for up to 30 days. The first mission is open to space agencies and their professional astronauts, as well as private individuals aiming to do scientific or philanthropic work. Giddy up.
Read More → techcrunch
Immersive View upgrades Google Maps
Google Maps’ new feature offers travelers a 3D view of their destination and adds information like weather or traffic to give them a better idea of what’s going on at that location. Travelers will also get a bird’s-eye view to help visualize the landmarks and buildings they might see while navigating somewhere new.
Read More → theverge
A recession might finally arrive this summer
Evercore chairman Ed Hyman predicts a downturn will occur due to the Fed’s aggressive monetary tightening policy, especially as other central banks around the world tighten policy at the same time. While it could take another year for the full consequences of the Fed's moves to appear, the economy is already flashing warning signs. In particular, Hyman highlights the contraction in the money supply after recent banking failures, as well as the inversion of the 2-10 Treasury yield curve, which is a notorious predictor of a coming recession.
Read More → insider
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Today's email was brought to you by Luke Perrotta and Kait Cunniff. Editing by Melody Song. Publishing by Sara Kitnick.