Five Moments - Ghost Franchises, Pandora Lost the Streaming War, Hawaii Reinvents Itself, UBI, & Briston Maroney
Happy Sunday and welcome back to Five Moments!
I hope everyone has had a corned beef and soda bread fueled celebration in honor of St. Patrick’s Day! This holiday has always marked the coming of spring for me, so naturally it is forecasted to snow in Chicago next week. But anyway, onto this week’s issue. We are back with a packed issue full of fun and interesting stories in just Five Moments.
Enjoy!
Ghost Kitchen Franchise Moment
A few weeks ago we touched on the rise of ghost kitchens and what this industry shift means for local, mom and pop restaurants. This week the NYTimes has the story on ghost kitchen franchises.
You’ve Heard of Ghost Kitchens. Meet the Ghost Franchises:
In the delivery app era, the ghost franchise can be a lifeline for the independent restaurateur, a way to make thousands of dollars a month in a devastating time. It can also be a liability, exploding the marketplace in ways that serve big brands more than small businesses.
The basic premise is that restaurant your local italian restaurant could now be virtually marketing themselves under several different names and in many cases they may just be supplying the food for someone else’s virtual restaurant franchise. Local Chicago restaurateur,
At first, Mr. Garofalo was skeptical of the ghost-franchise model. But as the pandemic cut off foot traffic, he decided it might make sense. “At this point, you’re looking for ways to generate dollars, keep staff on,” he added.
As I mentioned in my last post about this shift - I think some crafty restaurant owners may be able to make some incremental cash in the short term (which is great). However, it seems as though these delivery and ordering platforms (e.g. Uber Eats, Doordash, etc.) are commoditizing take out food and some savvy businesses will capture a giant portion of the market and many mom and pops will be driven out by this well-capitalized competition.
Pandora Lost the Streaming War Moment
Tyler Hayes at Vice’s Motherboard had a really interesting story on the history of Pandora and the innovative music licensing deals that they pushed to become the internet’s favorite radio station.
How Pandora Won Its Royalty Battle But Lost the War to Spotify
For a few years in the late 2000s, Pandora was the on-demand DJ for tens of millions of people, creating the soundtrack to college dorm room parties, quiet coffee shops, busy kitchens, and family get-togethers. The days of building massive MP3 music collections through file-sharing was receding quickly into the past, and instead the shared experience of radio was making a comeback via the clever algorithmic matchmaking of Pandora's endlessly customizable stations based on individual taste
If Pandora continued growing it would become a threat to power and control within the music industry. Circumventing directly licensing music through its use of the DMCA was seen as combative since digital music was already marked as undermining established business. Pandora was scrappy, having already moved Congress into action once, and that was worrisome.
Hayes’ reporting charted out how these same deals that helped Pandora achieve success as an internet radio provider, ultimately put them behind the 8-ball to execute on demand streaming. As we now know - this crown went to Spotify, but in Pandora’s mind it was an avoidable miss.
Pandora’s Founder:
I think that we still squandered an enormous opportunity having survived all [those settlement negotiations] by not pivoting to on-demand fast enough,” said Westergren. “I feel incredibly proud and sort of marvel at what we got through, but I also have a lot of frustration about how we let it slip away after we established such a lead.”
This really is an excellent piece on the intricacies of how music publishing deals get hashed out and the implications these seemingly under-the-radar policy changes can have on an industry.
Hawaii Moment
Small, regional news outlet NYTimes had a very interesting report documenting how Hawaii has utilized the pandemic-pause in travel to reimagine tourism throughout the islands.
In Hawaii, Reimagining Tourism for a Post-Pandemic World
Before Covid, ‘tourism was at this point where everything was about tourists.’ With the one-year anniversary of travel’s collapse, the state, like other overtouristed places, is hoping for a reset.
“Before the pandemic, tourism was at this point where everything was about tourists,” said Lindsey Ozawa, a farmer and chef in He’eia on Oahu. “Tourism had become extractive and hurtful, with tourists coming here and taking, taking, taking, taking, without any reciprocation with locals.”
Hawaii is in the process of revamping how it controls traffic, instituting reservation systems at parks, and exploring other ways to ensure that tourism is alive and well long into the future of Hawaii. Many people have taken these last twelve months to re-examine their surroundings and determine what they need to be successful and happy, and it is interesting to see that occurring in an entire industry and state.
Without visitors running amok, institutions, government agencies and individuals who work in the travel industry or are touched by it have been searching for ways to change a sector that many describe as a necessary evil or an addictive drug from which destinations need to wean themselves.
Universal Basic Income Moment
The city of Stockton, California, embarked on a bold experiment two years ago: It decided to distribute $500 a month to 125 people for 24 months — with no strings attached and no work requirements
The story from Vox - When a California city gave people a guaranteed income, they worked more — not less
The most eye-popping finding is that the people who received the cash managed to secure full-time jobs at more than twice the rate of people in a control group, who did not receive cash. Within a year, the proportion of cash recipients who had full-time jobs jumped from 28 percent to 40 percent. The control group saw only a 5 percent jump over the same period.
This experiment initially ran from February 2019 to February 2020 (e.g. before COVID) and will continue through 2022, so the full results will not be in for awhile. However, this small trial demonstrates the viability of experimenting with public policy, even in the face of sustained criticism.
The researchers wrote in their report that the money gave recipients the stability they needed to set goals, take risks, and find new jobs. One man in his 30s had been eligible for a real estate license for over a year but hadn’t gotten it because he just couldn’t afford to take time off work.
Beyond allowing people to find work and improve their financial situation, the researchers also found UBI offered other positive benefits including the improvement of mental health.
Music Moment
Briston Maroney recently released a three song EP It’s Still Cool If You Don’t. Maroney is from Tennessee and appears to be aspired by a myriad of music genres - he bounces across new wave, “singer-songwriter” indie, and rock on this new EP.
Briston Maroney - It’s Still Cool If You Don’t
Briston Maroney - Small Talk
Cutting Room Floor
Stories that are great to read but did not make it into the newsletter
The plan to rear fish on the moon | Hakai Magazine
139 year old Victorian Mansion Moved in San Francisco | Moss and Fog
FBI Informant Reveals How He Got Involved in Plot to Kidnap Governor Whitmer (Facebook) | Detroit Free Press
America Is Not Made for People to Pee | NYTimes Opinion
What was your favorite Moment this week?
Click the link to let me know which story was your favorite!
👻Ghost Franchises
📻 Pandora
🏝Hawaii
💰Universal Basic Income
🎵Music
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Next Distribution 3/21/2021