Meta Breaks the News 📰❌🍁

👀 TLDR:

In this week’s What’s Appening, we cover the news that there is no news - if you are on social media in Canada. Yes, Meta has pulled news content from Facebook and Instagram after a row over payments to legacy media outlets. Elsewhere, we hear that YouTube will launch live cloud gaming on its platform. Sure, Google made an expensive mistake with the now-defunct Stadia cloud gaming, but “Playables” on YouTube will find a ready-made audience and a natural home for gaming. There’s also a row with Amazon and the FTC this week, with the latter claiming the former uses dark arts to trick us into Prime subscriptions. A big lawsuit awaits. Our Stat of the Week covers the huge number of fake subscribers in the IRL app. And What’s dAppening has a breakdown of some of the best stories in web3 this week.

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Takes 🎬️

📰❌ Meta – Facebook & Instagram to End News Access in Canada

Meta has announced that it’s pulling news access from its Facebook and Instagram platforms in Canada in response to a new bill, the Online News Act, that was passed by the Canadian Government. The bill, similar to one passed in Australia a couple of years back, requires social media companies to start paying legacy media outlets for their content. It is understandable that news platforms – many of whom are struggling the world over – want to get paid for their content, particularly as news is such a driver of ad revenue for platforms like Facebook. Meta, of course, doesn’t see it that way, so it’s taken its two footballs home and said it doesn’t want to play anymore. And yet, Meta tried this in Australia in 2021, but it came crawling back to make a deal with Australian news outlets. Will it do the same in Canada? And will US new companies push for similar laws? It remains to be seen. But a word on the big ol’ elephant in the (news) room – AI. If legacy media has a problem with people reading their content for free on social media, then how are they going to deal with the explosion in AI tools that will (and already can) surf the net in real-time to provide news summaries to users? #MetaBreakingNews. Read more here.

🎮🎥 YouTube – Live Cloud Gaming Reportedly Coming to Platform

We covered Google’s penchant for burying products in last week’s newsletter. But for every item that goes in the Google Graveyard, another appears in the, err, Google LDR Room. And so, as we said goodbye to Google’s cloud gaming platform Stadia, we say hello to a new one on YouTube. A report from the WSJ says that YouTube will add live gaming soon, with the games being tagged under the term “Playables”. It’s early days, but the idea seems to be that you’ll be able to pay to play games linked to the videos you are watching. So, why will Playables succeed where Stadia failed? Well, it has that built-in YouTube audience, and the gaming community is massive on the platform. But this is a big step to transform YouTube from a passive platform to an active one. There’s also a need to succeed here. Despite YouTube being busier than ever (well over 350 million DAUs), it, like social media platforms, is facing advertising revenue squeezes. We have seen on platforms like TikTok and Netflix that C-Suite execs tend to propose gaming as a remedy to cure any ills, with mixed results. But we wouldn’t bet against YouTube Playables succeeding – It fits the platform, the brand, and (importantly) the YouTube audience. #YouTubePlayables Read more here.

🛍️⚖️ Amazon – FTC Sues Retailer for Enrolling Users in Prime without Consent

The Federal Trade Commission has taken aim at Amazon for what it terms “knowingly” deceiving millions of users and “trapping” them in its Prime membership program without their consent. Moreover, the FTC has claimed that Amazon made it incredibly difficult for users to exit the service. The suit focuses on Amazon’s tactics in its checkout procedure, deliberately making it difficult to buy a product without subscribing. It’s hardly earth-shattering news to hear that Amazon uses such tactics – and it isn’t alone. But what’s interesting is that it forms part of a drive from FTC Chair Lina Khan to end the process of “Dark Patterns” (tricks used to encourage users to make unwitting or unwanted purchases) on digital platforms. Khan has been here before, forcing Epic Games to pay out over half a billion dollars in recompense for dark patterns in Fortnite. But she has a special fervor for Amazon, whom she believes engages in antitrust like no other. #AmazonSued Read more here.

🧐 Stat of the Week: 95% Fake

👋🥸 IRL – Platform Shuts After Admitting 95% of Users Were Fake

IRL, the Gen-Z-targeted social media app, is closing down. The app encouraged users to meet IRL (in real life) and saw investors throwing money at it, reaching unicorn status (over $1 billion in value) by 2021. However, despite boasting of 20 million DAUs just last year, an internal investigation found that around 19 million of them did not exist, you know, in real life. Rumors had abounded for a couple of years now that the app’s numbers didn’t add up, but now we know the truth. Those IRL friends were more likely to be bots and scammers. #HardKnockLife Read more here.

🕸️ What’s dAppening?

🔎💰 Web3 – A Digest of This Week’s News in Blockchain, NFTs, and Crypto

An abundance of web3 stories was doing the rounds in 3Advance HQ over the week, so we thought we’d break them all down rather than picking just one. Let’s start with an update on last week’s story on Damus being pulled from the App Store over Bitcoin tipping. Damus tried to find a resolution, but it seems that Apple is not playing, and the app is now being removed. Jack Dorsey is (at the time of writing) again going off on Twitter over this, and we agree with Jack: Apple has got this badly wrong. Tipping is not unlocking content. We also saw a cool story on the first web3 AI copilot, which will be deployed on Polygon. In Germany, security services are using NFTs to recruit the smartest personnel. And finally, there’s a marriage between Web 2 and web3 gaming as Elixir Games partners with GameStop. #NewsInWeb3 Read more here.

Meanwhile at 3Advance…

We’ve done it again, folks! V2 of Béné Tipping launched last night, with a suite of tools and of course end-user apps in the App Store and Google Play. Béné Tipping offers cashless tips for the modern traveler. With active hospitality customers across the world, Béné already provides 1000s of service workers the opportunity to receive tips from guests - that go directly to their bank account - making carrying cash a thing of the past. This was a major achievement because Béné Tipping was already live, and this project was a major migration from their over-stretched MVP, previously developed by another firm. Our team stepped in to improve the infrastructure, scalability, user experience, and reporting mechanisms. This overnight success was six months in the making! We woke up this morning to see a slew of tips arrive on the new platform. HUGE shout-out and congrats to everyone on the 3A side, and to the Béné team for getting this over the line. Onwards. 🚀 

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