- Take Off
- Posts
- 🚀 The Messi Assist ⚽
Hi Everyone. This is Take Off. We're like a hidden Easter egg in your favorite video game - surprising, delightful, and adding an extra layer of fun to your tech news consumption.
Here's what we're serving up today:
The Messi Assist ⚽
The Credit Card Cartel 💳
Asteroids ☄️
Wednesday Wires 💸
The Messi Assist ⚽
The GOAT of Football - Lionel Messi has not only scored a large number of goals on the field but has also managed to score hundreds of thousands of subscribers for Major League Soccer (MLS).
Yes, we called it Football, because that's what it’s called. NOT Soccer.
The Messi Assist
Turns out that the Messi Assist is a real thing. The MLS Season Pass saw more than 110,000 new sign-ups when the Argentine donned a pink jersey for his first match with Inter Miami.
That’s a jump up from 6143 the prior day and a bigger jump than both the day MLS Season Pass became available and the opening day of the season, showcasing that this year’s MLS is kinda all about Messi.
The tech company who’s been the beneficiary of the Messi Assist is Apple, which has the exclusive rights to show MLS games and distribute the MLS Season Pass on Apple TV+.
The Sports Streaming Saga
We’ve covered many stories recently showcasing how the streaming platforms are bleeding money and suffering losses, apart from the OG King: Netflix.
In addition to ads, Sports Streaming is proving to be another weapon in the Streaming Wars arsenal that could eventually lead to profitability.
With a gazillion streaming services available, most consumers binge-watch their favorite show within the month and then cancel the subscription and move on.
Sports, on the other hand, has two things:
Longevity: Can’t binge-watch live matches.
Loyalty: Once a Manchester United fan, always a ManU fan.
IYKYK
Both of these lead to low churn, which is great for the streaming platforms.
And everyone is hopping on to this trend.
The Credit Card Cartel 💳
The world is full of duopolies.
Lyft and Uber.
Pepsi and Coca-Cola.
Visa and Mastercard.
Today, we’re talking about the last one on the list. The credit card giants, if you may. Chances are that the credit card you are using belongs to either Visa or Mastercard.
Ever gazed deep into your credit card’s soul and wondered, “How do you make your cash, little plastic friend?”.
No? Is it just us? Well, let's spill the beans anyway.
Every time you use your credit card, a teeny tiny portion of the total amount goes to the credit card companies. These costs are usually hidden from the consumer and are paid for by the merchants.
Now, you may be thinking that how much money can these companies really earn by a meager 2%-3% fee?
The answer is: A LOT!
Sure, these companies probably earn pennies on transactions but what do you get when you start earning pennies on hundreds of billions of dollars?
Tens of Billions of Dollars!
U.S. merchants paid an estimated $93 billion in fees to Visa and Mastercard last year. And these companies are planning to increase that.
The changes could result in merchants paying an additional $502 million annually in fees.
The timing of this is super weird though. Congress has been trying to curb the dominance of this duopoly by proposing the The Credit Card Competition Act.
The act would require financial institutions with more than $100 billion in assets to enable at least 2 options for processing credit card transactions, one of which is NEITHER Visa NOR Mastercard.
Now, you’d think that these credit card champs would at least pretend to play nice, show that they still care about the merchants and are not indulging in anti-competitive practices.
Nope. They’re flexing by doing something that is the literal opposite of that.
Maybe Visa and Mastercard know that they’re the only credit card cartels companies in town and ain’t nothing that can happen to them.
☄️ Asteroids ☄️
Spotify's testing a move where some free-tier users can't access lyrics, pushing them towards a Premium subscription. Meanwhile, their free user base is growing faster than paid ones. 🟢🎵
All 50 U.S. Attorneys General are urging Congress to address AI-generated child abuse content. Deepfakes can be fun, but they also have a dark side. 😟🤖
Apple's sealed a deal with chip designer Arm until after 2040! With Apple's heavy reliance on Arm's designs, this sounds like a match made for the long haul. 🍏🔗
💸 Wednesday Wires 💸
Josys, a startup automating IT software management, secured $93 million in Series B funding! Spun off in 2021, they've grown massively, helping companies manage IT smoothly. 🎉🖥️
Point.me, a platform making reward flight searches a breeze, secured $10 million in Series A funding! 🎉Founded in 2019, they've already helped millions find the best travel deals with points. ✈️🌇
Hero MotoCorp is boosting its bet on electric rides by investing an extra $66.5 million in Indian EV startup, Ather Energy. Two-wheelers are leading India's green revolution! 🍃🔌
⚒️ Trending Tools ⚒️
🔴 Beep - Giving visual feedback made easy
📹️ Loom - Record better, faster video messages with A
🌐 Featurebase - Create your product feedback community
📔 Cruzzie - Data Collaboration With No-Code
📰 Recommended Reading 📰
Get the top Crypto headlines before anyone else by checking out The Nifty Nest here.
Get curated investing news from YouTube, Substack, Twitter and more by clicking here.
Checkout the latest marketing tools, techniques and news read by teams at Apple, Microsoft and more by clicking here.
That’s it from us today folks! If you liked what today’s edition, here’s a message from our loving and hard-working team below:
“ We all crave the essentials in life - food 🥑🍕, shelter 🏠, and clothing 👕🩳- and we're no exception! Our must-haves? An ever-growing squad of adoring subscribers like you and for more of those lovely subs, we're counting on you to spread the word! So, blast that newsletter across the universe! ”