Good morning! Collector’s items, by their very definition, aren’t meant to be used. Turns out this doesn’t hold true for Apple memorabilia. BBC reports that collectors of Apple’s oldest Macintosh, the Mac 128k, are still using them. Most of them enjoy playing arcane, black and white games like Frogger or Lode Runner. While maintaining the machine remains a challenge since capacitors degrade in a jiffy and parts are incredibly hard to replace, collectors aren’t deterred. Here’s to the crazy ones!

Adarsh Singh, Dinesh Narayanan, and Venkat Ananth also contributed to today’s edition.

The Market Signal* 

Stocks & Economy: Microsoft became only the second $3 trillion company by market value, albeit briefly, on Wednesday. While it could not hold on to the level, Apple stayed alone in the exclusive club. 

A rate decision by the European Central Bank, US GDP and new home sales, and Japan’s retail inflation are among the policy decisions and data releases that investors are awaiting in the remainder of the week. 

The US will also publish initial jobless claims, an indicator of the intensity of economic activity. Business activity expanded but prices did not rise as fast as earlier. Investors are struggling to get a fix on when the Federal Reserve is likely to cut rates. Many are still betting that the first cut will happen in March. 

Asian markets were subdued early trade and the GIFT Nifty indicates a flat opening for Indian equities.

DATA

Safety In Numbers

In 2022, we wrote about India’s much-delayed Census in The Intersection; we also wrote about the ramifications of not accurately surveying the country’s disabled population, including the ripple effect such data gaps have on policymaking.

Issues such as these and longstanding criticisms of the quality of official data (eg: the government’s refusal to grant autonomy to the National Statistical Commission, which had asked to be “strengthened” in its 2017-18 annual report) seem to have finally made the Centre sit up. Mint reports that the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) is “stock-taking” issues in sampling, survey methodologies, and growth estimates. A meeting to thrash things out with the finance and statistics ministries is due in February.

On the anvil are proposed reforms for measuring GDP and higher investments in data collection exercises. Sounds good, though the question is whether there will be any overhauls before or after the general elections.

AUTO

Cruising Into A Speedblock

Apple’s plans for a fully autonomous, self-driving car aren’t working out. As per Bloomberg, the company is now looking to just launch an EV with Level 2+ systems of driving automation sometime in 2028. That’s akin to the current Autopilot feature in the Teslas of today. 

One more thing: Apple has been yearning for its next big thing. Vision Pro was expected to be just that but early reports point to a muted response. With the launch of a car further delayed, Apple is fast losing ground to its rivals in greenfield avenues.

Meanwhile: Google’s Waymo has made great strides in self-driving cars. Its cars have completed 7.13 million fully driverless miles in three cities and will soon be running on highways in Arizona. 

However: Not all is hunky-dory with self-driving cars. They’re known for causing jams and accidents because of their faulty algorithms. Case in point, Tesla’s Autopilot lawsuit. 

PS: We took a deep-dive into autonomous vehicles in this episode of our podcast, TechTonic Shift.

ENTERTAINMENT 

Can You Smell What The Rock Netflix Is Cooking?

This is a make-or-break year for streaming: make profits or break the bank on content with no subscribers. Netflix is now chasing traditional profits. It just signed a $5 billion, 10-year deal to stream the WWE’s weekly wrestling programme Raw. Along with ads and licensed sitcoms, Netflix has acquired the holy trinity of American cable. 

Juggernaut: Netflix has lured sports fans without live sports by investing in hit documentaries such as Formula 1: Drive to Survive. It has now overcome live-streaming disasters such as the reunion special of Love is Blind to handle one of the biggest US sports properties – Raw – which gets 17.5 million unique viewers every year. 

Netflix is also working on gaming, It reported 3x growth in gaming user engagement. In 2022, only 1% of its total user base played its games. 

The Signal 

Netflix has done a 180. From a subscribers-only, premium alternative to cable TV, it has morphed into something more than cable and TV together. Consider its ingredients of success so far: true crime, reality TV, organisation shows meant to be background noise, and now live sports. These are the hallmarks of traditional TV. Together with originals and video games, Netflix hopes to become more than the sum of cable and streaming. 

But, as Barron’s points out, Netflix could become a victim of its own success. Flush with cash, it could spend too much on content or an acquisition (such as a video game publisher), denting growth prospects. 

🎧 And the winner of the streaming wars is... Also in today’s edition: Miss Universe in the doldrums. Tune in to The Signal Daily on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 

SHIPPING

Red Sea, Dangerous And Inflationary

The unending attacks by Yemen-based Houthi rebels on ships traversing the Red Sea are threatening to effectively become a blockade of one of the world’s busiest trading routes that only the bravest seafarers may cross. And it could last months. 

Fear, not damage: The attacks have not inflicted much damage but shippers are not taking chances. Nearly 500 ships have already gone around Africa, adding up to 4,000 miles, two weeks and fuel worth $1 million to reach their destinations. Sailors are demanding more pay, not to mention insurers. About 12% of the world’s traded goods worth $1 trillion sail through the narrow channel annually. Knock-on effects could be worldwide inflation and perhaps shortages. 

The Drewry World Container Index of 40-feet container costs is up nearly 150% since December 14. Freight on the Shanghai-Genoa route has risen the steepest, from $1,697 to $6,282 per box. 

AVIATION

Boeing’s Blunders Boil Down To The Basics

And those basics pertain to its ambivalence towards fixing company culture, as commentators and insiders are pointing out in the wake of the Alaska Airlines incident. On January 5 (US time), the carrier made an emergency landing after an exit door plug fell off after take-off. Some passengers escaped with minor injuries, but the outcome would’ve been different if the plane was at cruising altitude.

Boeing’s bad luck with the 737 family over the past five years has everything to do with the company prioritising stock value and profitability over quality and safety. As Al Jazeera reports, employees were pressured to meet delivery deadlines despite concerns over upper management cutting corners—an approach that’s widened the market share gap between Boeing and rival Airbus. Regulatory probes and resultant delays in certifying other aircraft will cost it even more; even its most loyal client, United Airlines, has had enough.

FYI

White knight: Manipal Group chief Ranjan Pai now owns a 40% stake in Aakash Institute after edtech startup BYJU’S attempt to buy the test-prep firm went awry. 

Hot wheels: Tesla wants to start building a new “mass market” electric car by June 2025, Reuters reported. The new product, codenamed “Redwood”, could help Tesla challenge Chinese carmaker BYD.

Say yes: India’s Competition Commission approved JSW’s purchase of up to 38% in MG Motor India. It also gave a go-ahead to the Burmans’ bid to acquire a 31.27% in Religare, while also greenlighting Tatas Electronics’ acquisition of iPhone manufacturer Wistron Infocomm.

Cost of pivot: German enterprise software giant SAP will be restructuring 8,000 roles as part of a business push towards Artificial Intelligence. The restructuring will happen over 2024 and include “voluntary leave programmes” and “reskilling.”

Checkpoint: Investors from neighbouring countries such as China will require the Indian government’s green signal to list in the International Financial Services Centre at Gujarat’s GIFT City.

Sue me, sue you: Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited has moved the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), following the collapse of its merger with Sony’s India unit. It wants the NCLT to change Sony’s decision (of pulling out), while also calling the $90 million termination fee “legally untenable.”

Pouring one: As part of its Vision 2030 programme, Saudi Arabia will open its first alcohol store in Riyadh for non-Muslim diplomats in the coming weeks. The purchase and consumption, however, will need clearance from government authorities.

THE DAILY DIGIT

77.8 million

Or 7.78 crore. That’s the number of income tax returns filed in FY 2023, more than double of returns filed in FY 2014 (~38 million/3.8 crore), representing a 104.9% increase in filers. The total taxpayers in India stood at 93.7 million (9.37 crore) in FY 2023. (The Economic Times) 

FWIW

Printing safely: That’s the motivation behind HP’s widely loathed new cartridge policy. The company had launched a new Dynamic Security system on its printers, which switches them off if a non-HP ink cartridge is detected. HP’s CEO, Enrique Lores, defended the move by saying that one can “embed viruses in the cartridges… [from which it can] go to the printer, [and then]... to the network." While HP has based this claim on its in-house research, cybersecurity experts are very sceptical about it. They say the real motivation could be turning printing into a subscription model. For now, HP has to make their case as they’ve been served a class action lawsuit. FR though, why isn’t Big Tech solving printing!?

Turning back the clock: San Giovanni Lipioni, a town in Italy, is the Gen X equivalent of towns. It’s trying really hard to be hip again. But unlike Gen X, Lipioni’s survival depends on it. Home to just 137 full-time residents, the town has the oldest average population in Italy. To turn things around, residents are offering the town’s several vacant houses for cheap. Improvements to civic amenities and building a new football field are also being tried. These changes did attract some people from a nearby factory but ultimately, it wasn’t enough. If only there were people waiting to get into Italy… oh, wait!

Terminal decline: That might well be a perfect description for the UK. Alongside other things, the country’s lowest currency, the penny, is also terminally ill. In the UK, a pound is divided into 100 pennies. But inflation has ensured that the penny has completely lost its spending power, its current value being equal to a farthing (a term that we haven’t heard since our mandatory reading of Charles Dickens in school). A switch to digital transactions and doing away with ‘charm pricing’ have  further hastened the penny demise. So much so that the Royal Mint incurs a loss on penny’s manufacturing. Sounds like a perfect time to let it go.