I, robot
Roomba hits the wall
Good morning, neat freaks. This is your Stock Market Rundown for November 29th, 2023. Thanks for joining me. Let’s dig in:
TODAY’S TOP STORY: DUST BUSTING
Monopolies: they’re the bane of consumers, but the source of a jackpot of profits. Think telecom... railroads… and vacuum cleaners? That’s what the EU is arguing, anyway.
Regulators in Brussels are blocking Amazon’s billion-dollar acquisition of iRobot, manufacturer of those cute li’l Roomba robots that auto-magically sweep up your floors. The grumpy Eurocrats argue the acquisition could blunt competition in the robot vacuum cleaner market, because Amazon could exploit their heft to algorithmically demote rival devices.
Privacy activists are also giving the tie-up a thumbs down, fretting that controlling Roomba would give Amazon a chokehold on the smart home device market. Heck, Alexa is already eavesdropping on your kitchen-nook conversations—is uploading your floor plan to the cloud really that big a deal?
iRobot was founded in 1990 by MIT scientists, and started out building robots for the defense industry, like bomb disposal units used in war zones. But it became a household name when it unveiled the Roomba twenty years ago, bringing sensors and algorithms to the fight against dust bunnies.
This setback for Amazon doesn’t mean the iRobot deal is deactivated. It just means they’ll have to negotiate some concessions to ensure competition prevails in the lucrative dust-sucking industry. Personally, I do fine with the 30-year-old Kirby Ultimate Diamond Edition vacuum I inherited from Grandma… does a bang-up job getting my pomeranian’s dog hairs off the couch.
SO WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?
Recently-released movie The Marvels had the worst box office of any movie in the entire Marvel franchise. Are audiences finally tiring of two-dimensional characters slowly walking away from CGI explosions?
More shoppers are relying on “buy now, pay later” payment plans, with one in five Americans using the short-term installment loans for online purchases. If you’d rather not risk personal-finance ruin in 2024, I recommend “buy now, pay now.”
American Airlines is currently in a war with travel agents over ticket distribution, with both sides charging consumers are being hurt. Who knew travel agents still existed? I thought that job was defunct, like elevator operator or microwave oven repairman.
Forget Black Friday: retail experts say the best time to buy Christmas presents if you want deep discounts is the weekend right before Christmas, when stores are desperate to unload inventory. Turns out all those procrastinating husbands at the mall on Christmas Eve actually had the right idea.
That’s it for today, my friends; see you bright and early tomorrow morning. Yours in capitalism, The Axe
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