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In the earlier days of the Internet, tech companies relied on free content to attract users. As the volume of digital content surged, however, quality did not necessarily keep up. It was a struggle to weed through low-quality content, and the time-poor, money-rich in China were willing to pay someone else to do the curating. This was when Ximalaya invited users to become hosts themselves and began to leverage their reputation to charge a fee for their content. With high accessibility, a growing awareness of intellectual property among Chinese netizens, and the convenience of mobile payments Ximalaya got the Chinese to pay for digital content. Ximalaya now has over 5 million hosts who curate and advertise their content, driving sales for the company as a result.Continue Reading

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“Factories with Fences” and “American Made” boasts UNICOR. Better known as the Federal Prison Industries program, UNICOR makes nearly half a billion dollars in net sales annually using prison labor, paying inmates between 23¢ to $1.15 per hour. Despite already earning one-sixth of the federal minimum wage, inmates with final obligations must contribute half of their earnings to cover those expenses. UNICOR, in addition to other government-owned corporations and private prisons, makes millions upon millions of dollars using nearly free prison labor.Continue Reading

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In: BRB Shorts, Financial Literacy

When I was in middle school, I hit a phase where I became addicted to money-earning apps, like FreeMyApps. Over the period of a few months, I had earned around $300. With that money, I probably could have bought something useful–but no, being my middle school self, I decided to spend all my hard earned money on Clash of Clans and bought 42,000 gems (the in-game currency of Clash of Clans). It seemed like a value buy at the time–42 thousand gems sounds like quite a lot. But, within one day, I had used up all my gems.Continue Reading

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In: BRB Shorts, Investing

It’s no secret that COVID-19 has transformed the American economy. Manufacturing plants are shutting down, employees who can are working from home, and companies are struggling to stay afloat. Although many of these changes are temporary in such scale, they may be permanent in a smaller scale—i.e., some number of employees who were previously commuting to work will likely permanently switch to working from home after being introduced to this possibility.Continue Reading

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About a year ago, I wrote this article about why the Fed was raising rates in trying to engineer a soft landing. The objective was to prevent an overheated economy and high inflation rates, given the record unemployment levels among other things. The theory goes that tight labor markets lead to wage growth. Wage growth leads to high inflation. Raising rates might prevent that. This was the sentiment at the Fed over a year ago.Continue Reading

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HOOQ, a premium video-on-demand streaming service, is a joint venture between Warner Media, Sony and Singtel (Asia’s leading communications group). Sony and Warner Media provide a library and develop customized content while Singtel provides captive access to its mobile subscriber base in the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia. The challenge HOOQ faced was much of their subscriber base would view content on mobile devices, which under current networks can take hours to download or have high latency, Continue Reading