Hi! We have 3 charts for you today exploring:
Netflix has no chill
For the second time this year Netflix shares are in freefall. The company's share price is currently down more than 30% this morning after reporting not-just-a-slowdown-in-growth but an actual drop in subscriber numbers, with more expected to come.
The streaming giant lost 200k subscribers in its latest quarter, and in its shareholder letter outlined that it expected to lose another 2 million in the next, as competition intensifies and its biggest markets become saturated.
This is a big deal because, despite being painfully aware of increased competition, Netflix had still expected to gain 2.5 million subscribers this quarter.
Like many startups, for years Netflix burned cash in order to grow faster. Now, ironically, it is in the opposite position — with a mature business that has stopped growing.
It's not all over
In Netflix's most recent financial year the company reported a healthy operating income of more than $6bn. That gives Netflix a decent amount of margin to work with as the company begins its efforts to get growth back on the right side of zero — if it can keep its huge content costs from spiraling higher.
Netflix sharers and ad-haters beware
The company did estimate that, in addition to its ~220m paying subscribers, Netflix is being shared in around ~100m households, alluding once again to the idea that the company might look to crack down more severely on account sharing.
The other avenue for growth is an ad-supported free (or just cheaper) tier. Historically Netflix has been strongly against the idea of advertising, but the company has had a change of heart — announcing this week plans to offer ad-supported options over the next few years. No ideas are off the table now.
Violence in America
Last week's violent shooting in Brooklyn as well as recent killings in New Orleans and three mass shootings over Easter weekend are the latest tragic examples of a nationwide uptick in killings in the US over the last 3 years.
Preliminary estimates for 2021 show the murder rate in the US hitting 6.9 per 100,000 people, up 38% on the numbers for 2019.
Coming up with reasons why violent crime might be rising isn't hard. Since 2019 we've had a global pandemic, lockdowns, high profile police killings, civil unrest, intense economic uncertainty, a fraught election, and now rising inflation on essential goods. Those things, and others, seem to be taking their toll.
1) Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates get a lot of headlines — but who are America's silent billionaires?
2) Too much on their plate: Just Eat Takeaway are exploring a sale of Grubhub just over 12 months since they paid $7.3 billion to buy the company themselves.
3) Masks have been the source of 65% of unruly passenger incidents on airlines according to the FAA. Forbes has put together some interesting survey data about how Americans feel about the federal mask mandate.
4) Visualizing the world's shipping lanes.
5)Solving for Zero, a brand new documentary from Wondrium, explores the science, the people and the ideas that have the potential to, quite literally, save the planet. Stream Solving for Zero today.**
6) Airlines might be coming back, but buses are struggling. Data from the FMCSA shows that the number of motorcoach carriers has fallen by 50% in the US in the last 2 years.
7) That rival you have on Words with Friends? It might a bot, as 7 out of the top 10 most-played mobile games admit to using bots to ensure players always have an opponent to compete against.
**This is sponsored content.
