Down Round

BeReal: The hot new social media craze touts itself as the antithesis of Instagram. But one thing Instagram does is actually make money. Can BeReal reject the tried-and-true path of extracting value from its users while turning a profit? James and Raph discuss.

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Visa and Mastercard have both stopped offering their payment processing services to MindGeek, the shadowy conglomerate behind some of the internet's most visited sites – including, but not limited to, YouPorn, Pornhub, RedTube and Brazzers.

What's all this then?

Links:

MindGeek: the secretive owner of Pornhub and RedTube – Financial Times

Visa and Mastercard suspend payments for ad purchases on Pornhub and MindGeek amid controversy – CNBC

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James Hennessy and Raph Dixon on the intersection of technology, business and culture.

This week, after a quick update on the rollercoaster at Instagram since our last episode, we discuss the golden-child of the blockchain: Helium. According to crypto-utopians (including, somehow, the New York Times) Helium provides an obvious use case for crypto outside of buying drugs and evading financial regulation. Unfortunately it might not quite be living up to the hype.

Links:

Maybe There’s a Use for Crypto After All – The New York Times

Web3 darling Helium has bragged about Lime being a client for years. Lime says it isn't true. – Mashable

I’m Regretting Mining Helium… – VoskCoin on YouTube

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Snap and Twitter stocks plummet, Facebook is in a tizz, social media is being redefined – and it's all Apple and TikTok's fault.

Join James JR Hennessy and Raph Dixon at the intersection of business, tech and culture.

Subscribe to James' Substack here: https://www.theterminal.info/

More about The Meeting Tree here: https://themeetingtree.com

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit downround.substack.com/subscribe

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.