Amazon, the everything spy

Good morning! ‘Cut, copy, paste’ isn’t just one of the most indispensable commands in computing. It’s also the go-to mantra for creatively-bankrupt social media companies. First Meta aped Snap by launching Stories for Instagram. Then it introduced Instagram Reels, inspired by TikTok shorts. YouTube followed up with Shorts, another TikTok clone, before TikTok itself started pushing longer videos. Now, the world’s most popular shortform video app is aping ye olde Instagram with a derivative app named TikTok Notes. The Verge reports that Notes is platforming Insta-like photo and text posts and is in testing mode in Canada and Australia. Whatever, wake us up when this race towards the bottom of the barrel ends. 🥱

🎧 Q&A with agricultural policy expert Devinder Sharma on what an above normal monsoon means for rural incomes and the food economy. Also in today’s episode: China’s dystopian social credit system. Tune in on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Anup Semwal and Soumya Gupta also contributed to today’s edition.

The Market Signal*

Stocks & Economy: The US economy’s resilience is not only smoking the hopes of a rate cut, it is raising the possibility of a rate hike. New York Fed chief Fred Williams has said that a hike is possible if needed. A rate cut, if it happens this year, is likely only towards the end of 2024. 

Infosys and TCS have reported shrinkage in the workforce. That is not a good sign for IT industry jobs, already threatened by artificial intelligence-led automation. While Infosys’ headcount fell by 25,994, net hiring by TCS dropped by 13,249. The last calendar year marked the first time when net IT services job growth became negative. 

Asian markets fell in early trade, taking cues from the US, where stocks fell after robust economic data pushed back rate-cut hopes. The GIFT Nifty indicates a sell off in Indian equities too.

POLITICS

Election Shenanigans

Phase one of India’s mammoth seven-phase election kicks off today, and the electorate is still struggling with fundamental questions about their vote. Yesterday, the Supreme Court reserved judgement on petitions demanding that all votes cast on Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) be matched with their audit receipt, called the VVPAT. A day earlier, teams for Left party candidates in Kerala alleged four EVMs falsely registered votes for the BJP during mock polling. 

Eye on the south: All of Tamil Nadu will vote today, a state where the BJP is trying to gain ground. But Tamil voters are suspicious of the party’s aggressive promotion of Hindi while political parties worry the BJP may suppress their representation with a new delimitation exercise if it comes to power. 

Psephologist Pradeep Gupta, known for successfully predicting past elections, said the BJPmay struggle in 13 states including Rajasthan, which also goes to the polls today.

PODCAST

Join journalist Puja Mehra as she breaks down one story to give you all the context you need to understand how it fits into the larger picture of India's economy.

In the inaugural episode of How India’s Economy Works, she speaks to former Finance Minister of Jammu & Kashmir Haseeb Drabu about the inner workings of the Kashmir economy, what the abrogation of Article 370 meant for businesses, and much more.

ENERGY

Drill Baby, Drill

Oil prices won’t chill this year. Though the Iran-Israel tussle didn’t spike oil prices right away, the odds of Brent crude, the international benchmark, fetching $100 a barrel (Rs 8,354.74) seem plausible this year. 

Why?: Constrained supplies. Mexico is halting some exports. Libya and Sudan are in turmoil. The US has reimposed oil sanctions on Venezuela and may slap new restrictions on Iran. India’s refiners are avoiding Russian crude ferried by a major state-owned carrier due to US sanctions. Oil cartel OPEC, whose members pledged last November to slash production by 2.2 million barrels a day, will keep the restrictions at least until the end of June.

While oil supply is screwed up, manufacturing has picked up in the US, China, and Europe. In the summer, folks will also get on the road and travel. So, simple maths: rising demand + tanking supply = skyrocketing rates.  

E-COMMERCE

This Investigation Is A Banger

Sorry we couldn’t think of a better headline, but it is what it is. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reveals that Amazon conducted corporate espionage against rival marketplaces, payment services, and logistics companies. Targets include Walmart, eBay, Alibaba, Meta and Google (for payments) DHL, UPS, and FedEx.

Details: Amazon created a covert ‘benchmarking’ initiative named Project Curiosity. Project Curiosity started a shell operation named Big River (BR), which posed as a third party seller on other marketplaces. Its employees were trained to never leave a paper trail and divulge the nature of their work with other Amazon colleagues.

BR’s intelligence gathering extended to attending rivals’ seller conferences. It used the information to tweak Amazon’s marketplace and fulfilment programmes for a competitive advantage.

India angle: BR gained access to Flipkart in 2018, when Walmart acquired a majority stake in the company. It’s still selling photo frames under the ‘Crimson Knot’ brand—deceptively described as a “small wood workshop” in Bengaluru—and using Flipkart’s logistics services.

FYI

Sugar rush: India’s food regulator FSSAI has opened an inquiry into allegations that Nestlé added sugar to baby food in India but not developed markets. 

Asian vacation: Apple chief Tim Cook may make some devices in Indonesia as it diversifies beyond China to other Asian hubs including Vietnam and India. 

Data-juice: Adani Enterprises and its Swedish JV partner plan to spend $5 billion in the next five years on expanding their data centre business. 

Add to cart: The Tatas are in talks to acquire Fabindia; the ethnic apparel retailer abandoned its IPO plans last year. 

Raided: The Enforcement Directorate seized assets worth ₹97.9 crore belonging to actor Shilpa Shetty and her husband Raj Kundra in a Bitcoin fraud investigation. 

THE DAILY DIGIT

86%

Google Pay and PhonePe’s share of total UPI transactions by volume. The National Payments Corporation of India wants to curb the duopoly. (TechCrunch) 

FWIW

Don’t shoot the messenger: Gadget heads don’t need an introduction to MKBHD. For the clueless lot: MKBHD is the professional moniker of YouTuber Marques Brownlee, whose wildly popular product reviews helped him amass over 18 million subscribers on YouTube. He was recently called out on Twitter (X) for calling the Humane AI Pin the worst product he’d ever reviewed… “for now”. Humane’s purported smartphone replacement was supposed to be the next revolutionary consumer product, but it’s proving to be a damp squib. MKBHD is being blamed for “bankrupting” the company with his review, but he responded with this video on bad products being their own worst enemy. We’re on his side. Humane is no underdog—it raised millions of dollars for a device that was in “stealth mode” for quite a while. There’s a line between tech optimism and tech delusion, ya know?