Good morning. Even though we’re known as the DONUT, some people call us Santa cuz we’re always passing out gifts. We have a pretty sweet (no pun intended) referral program that you can check out at the bottom of this newsletter.

In today’s edition:

• 📱 Instagram has a reel problem
• 💰 The going rate for this year’s Super Bowl ads
• 🪙 A look at energy usage in crypto

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 3.71 minutes to read.

"Whatever you do, always give 100%. Unless you're donating blood."

–Bill Murray (b.1950)

A smart man once said: You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become TikTok. We’re paraphrasing, but that does raise a question: what if the pivot to video doesn’t work?

According to an internal doc from August titled “Creators x Reels State of the Union 2022” that was shared with the WSJ, Instagram users cumulatively are spending 17.6 million hours/day watching Reels – less than one-tenth of the time TikTok users spend on the platform daily.

♻️ Driving the data… a lack of original content, aka a reason to open it above everything else. Nearly a third of all Reels are created elsewhere, then uploaded to Instagram. The recycled videos (often containing a TikTok watermark) have become such an issue, Insta has publicly stated that it down-ranks any watermarked post.

• Roughly 11 million creators are on the platform in the US, but only about 2.3 million of them, or 20.7%, post a Reel each month.
• Engagement has also been falling, down 13.6% over the previous four weeks. And according to the docs, “most Reels users have no engagement whatsoever.”

📉 Big picture: Meta spokesperson Devi Narasimhan told Insider yesterday, "[The WSJ] uses outdated and, in some cases, incorrect data to paint a false picture of our progress on Reels.”

But regardless of whether that’s true, the company appears to be searching for a boost somewhere – it’s had a tough year. Meta reported its first-ever decline in revenue this past July, partly due to Apple’s iOS changes that impacted user targeting (resulting in advertisers paying the same amount of $, or sometimes more, for decreasing performance). Toss in the rise of TikTok, and it starts to make sense why Meta’s market value has dropped $620+ billion since peaking a year ago.

🤔💭 Thought bubble: Does the market (aka ppl like us) actually want Instagram to become more like TikTok? Hit that reply button and let us know your thoughts.

🏥 Thousands of Minnesota nurses walked out yesterday. Some 15,000 nurses from more than a dozen hospitals in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region began a three-day strike yesterday; union organizers said they’re seeking higher pay and solutions to issues around short-staffing, retention, and patient care. It marks the largest private-sector nursing strike in US history.

🛤️ Railroad operators are prepping for a mass strike this week. Several major US railroads – including Amtrak – have begun warning passengers/companies of upcoming service interruptions due to the possibility that 66,000 employees could go on strike when their contracts expire this Friday. The US economy would lose ~$2 billion every single day that trains aren’t moving, per a recent industry report – though Congress has the power to block the strike from happening altogether if a deal isn’t reached by the end of the week.

🚚📦 One of the biggest strikes of all-time is brewing at UPS. Many labor experts are predicting an upcoming strike of ~350,000 Teamster Union employees at UPS, the world’s biggest package courier, when their contracts expire next June. An estimated 6% of America’s entire GDP is moved via UPS trucks every year.

+Extra, extra: The proportion of Americans who support labor unions (71%) is at its highest point since 1965, per recent polling from Gallup.

A massive software upgrade called “The Merge” will officially come into effect for Ethereum, the world’s second-largest blockchain, sometime between today and Thursday, per co-founder Vitalik Buterin.

In case you missed our previous coverage, the Merge essentially means Ethereum is transitioning from a verification system called “proof-of-work” to a new system called “proof-of-stake” – theoretically cutting the blockchain’s overall energy consumption by 99+% in the process.

• Ethereum mining consumes about 72 terawatt-hours of energy per year in its current form, roughly equivalent to the total needs of Switzerland (pop. 9 million). But it’s obviously not the only blockchain.
• Bitcoin, the world’s largest blockchain, also relies on the energy-intensive “proof-of-work” system. Its mining consumes an estimated 150 terawatt-hours per year, more than the entire country of Argentina (pop. 45 million).

🪙 Zoom out: Nine countries, including China, have banned the mining of bitcoin or crypto altogether over the past few years due in part to its high energy consumption (though there are other driving factors).

And in the US, new gov’t statistics show crypto mining draws as much energy as the nation’s entire home computer usage combined (between 0.9%–1.7% of total consumption). America currently does 38% of the world’s bitcoin mining, up from 3.5% in 2020.

• If Ethereum’s new update succeeds in dramatically lowering its energy consumption, US lawmakers will likely implement regulation forcing bitcoin to move away from its “proof-of-work” system as well, per multiple crypto experts.

Football is back, baby.🥳 But if you pre-ordered an iPhone 14, there’s a new starting lineup you should know about…

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• Save your back and ditch your wallet for good with the Wallet Slayer Vol. 1 or Vol. 2!
• For a crossbody purse design, you can grab The Dancing Queen.

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It may be football season, but academics need something to argue about, too. Cue the 38th annual US News & World Report Best Colleges rankings, which were unveiled on Sunday.

📝 The top five… Based on a combination of tuition cost, university resources, student debt load, graduation outcomes, professional reputation/prestige, etc. (see the full methodology here), here’s what we’ve got.

        1. Princeton

        2. MIT

        T3. Harvard

        T3. Stanford

        T3. Yale

😬🧂 But this year’s list comes with a grain of salt: Columbia University dropped 16 rankings year-over-year, from #2 → #18. And the reason why invites some questions.

This past February, Columbia Mathematics Professor Michael Thaddeus was curious about the Ivy League school’s rise in rankings from 18th place, on its debut in 1988, to 2nd place in 2021. While other top-tier universities have also improved their standings, none did so quite as much as his employer – or quite as fast.

When Thaddeus compared data submitted to USN&WR to data the university had made public elsewhere, he found some discrepancies – “sometimes quite large.” And they always seemed to work out in Columbia’s favor.

• In a statement released on Friday, the university admitted to submitting inaccurate data for consideration in last year’s rankings.

💬 Quoted…​​ “Once we realized we use it so much in our vocabulary, none of us could get it out of our heads.”

• Kourtney Kardashian Barker recently launched “Lemme,” a line of all-natural edible supplements (aka gummies) with names like Lemme Chill, Lemme Focus, and Lemme Matcha. The ultimate goal is to have a Lemme gummy for all of life’s scenarios, she told the WSJ.

📺 Stat of the Day: The Super Bowl isn’t for another five months – but Fox has already sold 95% of its ad inventory, at a going rate of ~$7 million per 30-second clip.

🌎 Around the World: Ukraine has retaken ~3,500 square miles from Russia since the start of its counter-offensive earlier this month, military officials said yesterday; that’s more than 1/10th of the total area Russia had captured since its invasion began.

🤯 Did You Know?... Americans spent more on taxes last year than on food, health care, education, and clothing combined.

📖 Worth a Read: How Long Is the Drive to the Edge of the Universe? → (NY Times)

📊 Poll results: Yesterday, we asked whether y’all thought President Biden’s plan to forgive some federal student loan debt will ultimately be enacted.

• 37% said yes, 38% said no, and 25% were unsure or had a more nuanced opinion.

See the full 360° view here.

• ☝️ You’re looking at one of the winners from the Washington Post’s 23rd annual Travel Photo contest.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📱 Apple released its new iOS 16 software update yesterday; new features include the ability to unsend and edit iMessages, schedule emails, customize the lock screen, and more.
• 🏦 Goldman Sachs is reinstituting its practice of annually firing between 1% and 5% of low-performing employees, per multiple reports, which translates to hundreds of upcoming layoffs.
• 🚲 Peloton co-founders John Foley and Hisao Kushi are leaving the company as part of a broader restructuring plan under CEO Barry McCarthy.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 💰 The Dallas Cowboys ($8 billion) and New England Patriots ($6.4 billion) top Forbes list of the 50 most valuable sports franchises; 42 of the 50 teams are based in the US.
• 🌿 Cannabis is expected to stay on the World Anti-Doping Agency’s prohibited list of substances after an official review that followed sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson’s 2021 suspension, per the WSJ.
• 🏆 Succession took home the trophy for Outstanding Drama Series at the Emmy Awards last night. (The rest of the winners)

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🪐 Earth’s climate could become even more habitable for life if Jupiter’s orbit shifted slightly, per new peer-reviewed research.
• 📉 Child poverty in the US declined by 59% between 1993 and 2019, per a new study from Child Trends.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 💧🥣 Kellogg’s wants you to add water to its new cereal.
• 🏥 President Biden outlined his administration’s “Cancer Moonshot” plan – which aims to halve all US cancer deaths over the next 25 years – during a speech in Boston last night.
• ⚖️ The DOJ plans to accept one of former President Trump’s picks to serve as a special master in the Mar-a-Lago case, according to court filings published late yesterday. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

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A crowd gathers around a Ugandan soccer field, as the big game is about to start. But rather than excited fans cheering and applauding, the pitch goes silent – the only sound comes from the rattling ball on the field.

That's because the teams are all made up of blind athletes. And as members of Blind Football Uganda, they rely on their ears to hear the soccer ball as it whizzes between players.

⚽️ Soccer for all... Blind Football Uganda was founded last year by disability inclusion activist Jagwe Muzafaru. The league already includes four men's and two women's teams. 

• “[Playing soccer] helps [the athletes] from being in a situation such as depression, being lonely, or limited,” Jagwe shared. “People have seen what we are doing, and people have been inquisitive and ask, ‘How can a blind person play?’ So these sites are also helping me to mobilize people.”

👨‍🚀 Trivia: Who was the second man to step foot on the moon?

🐝 True or False?... Bees can’t sting other bees.

🤔 Riddle Me This: What has many needles, but doesn’t sew?

(keep scrolling for the answers)

👆 Check out the referral prizes you can get, all for introducing people you know to little old us. 

What to do: Copy your unique link below, then send it to anyone who you think would like the DONUT. Once you hit each milestone, you'll get an email with a link to claim your prize. (Pro tip: there's no need to ration points, you're entitled to a prize at each tier.)

Start referring.👇

👨‍🚀 Trivia: Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin

🐝 T/F: False; it only happens when one is mistaken for an intruder though

🤔 Riddle: A porcupine (or pine tree)