The next BIG tech battle is drawn. Microsoft and Google will fight over AI and broad natural language translation (yes, ChatGPT and similar species). Facebook’s Meta has picked VR/AR. Amazon is looking for its own and is settling for NFT: “E-commerce giant Amazon is making its first move into the crypto industry as it plans to launch a non-fungible token (NFT) initiative sometime in Spring 2023….Amazon will focus on different sectors with plans to dab into NFT gaming”.
Amazon has a chance to discover value therein because it has millions of Prime users who can see whatever it does as a marginal value to renew that subscription. There are only a few companies in the world where people pay for the privilege to spend money therein, understanding that the payment unlocks massive savings over time!
If NFT gaming does that, it is a win for Amazon provided there are people that renew Prime for access to the games. This is the reason why I called these companies ICT utilities in a Harvard Business Review work.
They will become like your electricity boards, water boards, etc as the evolution of digital empires of the future advances.
Amazon’s Whole Foods, meanwhile, is not going web3 as it continues to work on a path to compete:
“In a bid to retain customers, Whole Foods Market has asked its suppliers to help put a lid on food prices. The Amazon-owned grocery chain said their costs should already reflect slower inflation. While grocery prices nationally rose an annual 11.8% in December, the dollar value of sales climbed higher — a sign that customers have yet to see the impact of lower costs. Foot traffic at Whole Foods, meanwhile, slipped 8% last month, as shoppers defected to discounters such as Aldi and Trader Joe’s, according to placer.ai.
Meanwhile, Tesla’s is getting heat as the industry battles for market share. So, the game is on for the EV battle.
Ford is cutting the price of its Mustang Mach-E by up to $5,900, just weeks after electric vehicle rival Tesla announced a similar set of price reductions. “We’re not going to cede ground to anyone,” said Marin Gjaja, chief customer officer at Ford’s electric Model e division. He added that Ford is accelerating production of the electric SUV, increasing from 78,000 vehicles to 130,000 units annually. The Mach-E’s starting price now ranges from about $46,000 to $64,000, depending on trim level and performance package; Tesla’s Model Y starts at about $53,500 to $57,000. Tesla’s discounts sparked a backlash from customers who bought EVs just weeks before the price cuts were announced, The Wall Street Journal reports. Ford sold some 65,000 EVs in America, while Tesla — the market leader — sold more than 522,000. (LinkedIn News)
As Musk is dealing with the competition from other EV makers, Fidelity is cutting its valuation of Twitter, reports LinkedIn News.
Twitter shareholder Fidelity has slashed the value of Twitter’s stock by over 60% since Elon Musk acquired the company for $44 billion at the end of October. Fidelity’s latest cut saw the carrying price of shares down 9.58% from late November-late December. The company has lost around 80% of its staff through layoffs and resignations since Musk’s takeover, with many opting to leave after being asked to sign a pledge to adopt “hardcore” working hours. The social media site has faced several obstacles in recent months, with everything from the failed blue-tick pay plan to privacy coming under fire.
Yet, Musk had a win as it made a key interest rate payment: “Twitter has made its first interest payment on the nearly $13 billion in debt that Elon Musk racked up to take the social media platform private. Bloomberg estimates that the quarterly interest payment to a group of seven lenders was about $300 million. The payment should boost confidence in Twitter’s ability to avoid a bankruptcy in the near term, Bloomberg notes. But the company’s debt load is heavy with annual interest expected to top $1.2 billion, some of which has a floating rate that could go up further as the Federal Reserve hikes rates.”
Comment 1: You did not read that Elon Musk has filed papers to make Twitter a payment processing entity? I do not think that what comes within the AI space can be left to Microsoft and Google to decide. Tesla didn’t lead the EV space by hiding under Toyota or GM, so I expect a separate behemoth to dominate the AI space too.
As for Amazon and NFT, that is the only way to give value to the latter right now, because we cannot be fearing global recession while talking about investing and making fortunes on NFT.
Meta may as well postpone or give up on VR/AR, because that one is more difficult to scale, the cost will make it unattractive.
As the tech behemoths build their mansions and cathedrals, we the small guys will be dealing with sands, gravel and steel, to help make their lives easier…
Comment 2: If Amazon is going to have anything to do with the gaming industry, then Meta will be waiting for them in the battleground.
This is because the future of gaming is VR, which Meta is currently championing.
Microsoft and Google have already drawn their battle line in the AI industry.
I would love to see how it goes for Meta and Amazon.
It will be interesting to watch how MAANG will battle to remain relevant in the era of disruptive technologies.
For me, the companies that would evolve smoothly and remain an empire in the future are those that would not discredit disruptive technologies (no matter how little).
And also they’ll have to be willing to let their business model evolve.
My Response: Meta has the consumer ecosystem to thrive therein
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