Weekly reading 7

May 10, 2020
Amazon Scooped Up Data From Its Own Sellers to Launch Competing Products - wsj:

Amazon has a history of difficult relationships with sellers, especially those that choose not to sell their products on its site. While some of the issues have involved counterfeit goods or frustration about lack of pricing control on their products, another concern for some is that Amazon would use data they accumulate to copy the products and siphon sales.

Siphon sales” here means stealing sales from sellers. The brilliant thing is its original meaning is 虹吸, which everyone learns in school that is a technique to suck liquid thru tubes. It’s used here metaphorically. It’s a pretty common usage, for example Civilization the game series describe of spy stealing gold (in-game currency) from rivals as “siphon funds”.

Apple Earnings, Amazon Earnings - stratechery:

I strongly suspect this is the case with Amazon: the demand for Amazon.com e-commerce at this point exceeds Amazon’s ability to fulfill it. As a personal anecdote, even while living abroad I have bought products from Amazon regularly — that’s how good the company’s logistics are. I haven’t been able to buy anything for months, though, because international customers were one of the first things to be axed in the face of the spike in demand. That’s in addition to the company closing its warehouses to third-party merchants for a month and delaying the delivery of non-essential orders; while the company has started both of those programs back up, the implication of the company’s forecast is that it knows its revenue will be constrained by its ability to meet demand, not demand itself.

It is written like this is a good thing for Amazon. Not able to fulfill demand is bad regardless the root cause. It opens up opportunities for competitors too.

Elon Musk Isn’t Sure About Tesla Stock - bloomberg:

Tesla Inc. is an electric car company, and you might own its stock if you think it is good at making and selling cars, or sell its stock short if you don’t. But it is also, to an unusual degree for a public company, a cult of personality organized around its chief executive officer, Elon Musk. If you are short Tesla’s stock, there is a good chance that you have a burning personal dislike for Musk and object to everything he does. And if you own Tesla’s stock, there is a good chance that you think Musk is a genius and a hero, and you would follow him anywhere.

It talks about the stock of Tesla dived 10% immediately after its CEO Elon Musk tweeted “Tesla stock price is too high imo”. The whole piece is brilliant, full of shrewd observations delivered thru sarcasm.

Episode 609: The Curse Of The Black Lotus - npr:

SMITH: And they had a pretty neat trick to doing this. They would basically print a bunch of cards, then they would go out to the card shops to see what the packs were selling for. And if they were selling for more than retail price, they would print some more and some more and some more. And eventually, even the most stubborn speculators gave out. They were able to push the price of each pack down to what they really wanted to sell them at - about 3 bucks.

The collectors were not pleased.

ELIAS: We heard from so many people that we were destroying the game back in 1994 and in ‘95, over and over again. Like, this is the end. You guys have screwed everything up, with much more colorful language.

Zoom’s “Genuine Oversight”, Zoom’s Strengths and Weaknesses, Virality Versus Network Effects - stratechery:

One of my favorite axioms about life — and it applies to both companies and individuals — is that strengths and weaknesses are often two sides of the same coin.

Such a good way to put it. Zoom rises among all the loss making IPOs exactly because its Chinese R&D arm costs much less than their US camaraderies. At same time, the lack of oversight draws out all the drama that usually only exists at consumer-facing companies like Facebook and Uber. You’d have thought enterprise-facing companies usually are more cautious about move fast and break things.

Why Home Prices Are Rising During the Pandemic - wsj:

The economy is shrinking, businesses are closing and jobs are disappearing due to the coronavirus pandemic. But in the housing market, prices keep chugging higher.

Chug as a noun refers to the muffled sound the engine of a train or boat or car makes when it runs. Turning it to verb means the thing is moving, hence chugging higher simply means moving higher.

There’s another use of chug that people are more familiar with: chug a beer - drinking a can of beer in one action without breathing. But people apparently can chug everything, and there are people teach you how to chug like a pro/bro.

CCP to Monitor Postings on Foreign Self-Media - chinascope:

To understand why is to know that the purpose of social network platforms are not for social, but to represent.

No Singin’ the Blues Here: Band Changes Lyrics for State TV - sixthtone:

During a music festival broadcast on Hunan TV to commemorate Youth Day on May 4, viewers noticed that some of the lyrics to New Pants’ 2016 hit single “Do You Want to Dance?” had been changed to strike a more harmonious chord.


Discretionary Spending Up Among Stimulus Payment Recipients - secondmeasure:

Responsive image

This is so weird, did people not care about sleep before? Why the shelter-in-place order drives the mattress purchase?

The Quadrennial iPhone SE Schedule - daringfireball:

Compared to the iPhone XR, well, this is interesting:

                 64 GB       128 GB      256 GB

iPhone XR        $600        $650        —

iPhone SE        $400        $450        $550
North Korea - All the dictator’s men | DW Documentary - youtube:


Life in North Korea | DW Documentary - youtube:


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