Hello! Good luck and safe travels this Labor Day weekend if you’re one of the 14 million passengers the TSA is expecting to screen from today through Wednesday. Today we're exploring:
Feeling fine
Visa and Mastercard are gearing up to boost the fees that retailers typically shoulder when they accept payments from customers using credit cards, according to the WSJ.
The fees, often concealed from shoppers and swallowed by the merchant, pose a growing headache for businesses of all sizes. When customers swipe or tap their cards, 2-3% of the transaction funnels to their card-issuing bank. Part of this "interchange fee" then loops back to payment networks, dominated by Visa and Mastercard, giving them an enormous amount of industry leverage.
It takes two
Although the planned fee increases are somewhat different — Mastercard’s is a new pre-authorization fee for credit card purchases, while Visa’s new fees are starting with online transactions in October — the timing is conspicuous for two companies that dominate the payment landscape. US merchants paid an eye-watering ~$93 billion in Visa and Mastercard credit card fees last year — an inescapable part of doing business in 2023, that has made the two companies into absolute giants.
Indeed, their combined operating profit has grown 40x in less than 20 years, to more than $31bn last year. And, despite splashy marketing like sponsoring the Olympic Games and MLB, the two companies remain pretty lean, with a colossal 50% to 65% of their revenue dropping through into operating profit. Taking a few pennies on the dollar is a simple formula, but it's one that can quickly add up to billions.
The Sandman cometh
34 years after his first movie, and with over 80 acting credits to his name, Adam Sandler just bagged the best-reviewed film of his career according to review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, where it currently has a 97% approval rating with critics. Writers are heaping praise on the 56-year-old’s latest straight-to-Netflix effort You Are So Not Invited To My Bat Mitzvah, a comedic family affair with Sandler’s wife and daughters also taking starring roles.
Everyone’s a critic
Like or loathe Sandler’s shtick, there’s no denying the actor’s Hollywood stopping power, having taken his first lead role in 1989’s Going Overboard. Since then, the Sandman has been a staple on the big and small screen, become an unlikely fashion icon, and been nominated for Emmys, Grammys, and Golden Globes. Despite all of that, however, hard-nosed critics haven’t always been Sandler’s biggest supporters.
Early in Sandler’s career, when the actor’s SNL days were coming to an infamous end, his movies were a hit with audiences, pumping out fan favorites like 1995’s Billy Madison and 1996’s Happy Gilmore. Critics, on the other hand, weren’t so keen, and it’s taken Sandler a long time to win them around properly. Indeed, on Rotten Tomatoes, Sandler’s 4 most critically acclaimed movies have all come in the last 6 years — though recent audience reviews haven't been quite as glowing as they were for his earlier work.
2022’s Hustle — one of the many movies Sandler’s made for Netflix as part of a twice-extended, ultra-lucrative deal with the streamer — is the only film critics and audiences totally agree on, and both crowds are gushing about it with 93% approval ratings.
Wonderlust
Even with some of us trying to desperately cling on to the final days of summer, September has finally arrived, bringing with it another inevitability of the changing seasons: a brand new iPhone model.
The world’s largest company has set aside September 12 for an oh-so-mysterious event called Wonderlust, where they will almost certainly debut the new iPhone 15. Rumors are circulating about improved satellite communication, better wireless charging, and, of course, a bigger screen.
Phoning it in
In a surprise to pretty much nobody — given global inflation, Apple’s ongoing manufacturing struggles, and the 14 previous editions of the phone — the iPhone 15 is likely to be the most expensive to date, with Forbes forecasting prices ranging anywhere from $799-$2,000.
Though the price point may be rising, the hype that new models generate seems to have faded. In the decade following Steve Jobs’ 2007 unveiling of Apple’s first mobile phone, worldwide Google Trends data shows that people would routinely rush to search ‘new iphone’ whenever the latest was announced, but recent releases haven’t mustered the same online buzz. 2020’s iPhone 12 Pro amassed a third of the search volume as both 2018’s XS / Max and 2013’s 5C / 5S models.
Go Deeper: How Apple makes its money.
• Overwhelmed with choice on streaming services, viewers are now taking over 10 minutes on average to decide what to watch as the number of shows jumped 39% in 2 years.
• The Dallas Cowboys have once again topped the Forbes list of the most valuable NFL teams.
• This week saw the annual ultimate food fight, as ~15,000 people descended on the Spanish town of Buñol to throw 120 tons of tomatoes.• 71% of Americans polled now approve of labor unions, the highest figure recorded since 1965.
• Thinking of buying a new house? A tool for chart lovers to help work out the cost of a mortgage.
• The number of soft drinks on offer in the US is ever expanding, but still remains dominated by 3 companies.
Off the charts: After disrupting golf, Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund is now planning to rattle a new sport, dominated by which industry heavyweight that we charted about in January?
