Good morning. On today’s docket:

• ⚖️ Epic Games won its monopoly case against Google
• 👀 Netflix is providing an unprecedented look into its streaming data
• 🧐 A look at yesterday’s inflation report

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be about a 4.97-minute read.

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“Be approximately right rather than exactly wrong.”

–John Tukey (1915-2000)

Epic Games was handed a victory royale over Google on Monday, when a federal jury ruled the tech giant’s Android operating system runs its app store as an illegal monopoly – a decision that could upend how businesses make money on in-app purchases.

Some quick background: In 2020, Epic began encouraging Fortnite players to pay the company directly for in-game purchases on mobile devices, rather than routing their payments through app stores owned by Google and Apple, who take a standard 30% commission. The two tech giants removed Fortnite from their app stores in response, leading Epic to file retaliatory antitrust lawsuits.

• In the Apple suit, a federal judge ruled against Epic for most of its claims, but also ordered Apple to allow developers to do direct business with users via the web.

But in the Google lawsuit, things went a bit differently. In contrast to Apple, which agreed to a trial decided by a single judge, Google requested a federal jury to oversee its Epic showdown.

• During the trial, Epic successfully argued that Google violated antitrust law by using agreements with companies like Samsung to prevent competing app stores from gaining traction on Android phones, allowing Google to earn excess profits from developers.
• On the flip side, Google failed to convince jurors that its app store payment policy is in line with the rest of the market, and that the Play Store shouldn’t be classified as a monopoly because Apple devices are more popular in the US.

👀 Looking ahead… A federal judge will decide early next year what remedies Epic will be awarded, which could include an order forcing Google to allow competing app stores on Android devices.

📊 Flash poll: Do you agree with the federal jury’s decision that found Google’s Play Store represents an illegal monopoly?

• Yes
• No
• Unsure/other

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🇺🇦🇺🇸 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with US lawmakers in Washington to appeal for more aid. Debate in Congress over more aid to Ukraine has reached a standstill heading into the winter recess, with many Republicans refusing to approve any aid bill without Democratic concessions on immigration. The US has sent more than $75 billion in economic and military aid to Ukraine since Russia invaded in February 2022. Separately, US intelligence officials revealed Russia has lost ~315,000 soldiers to death or injury in the fight against Ukraine, which represents ~90% of Moscow’s prewar army.

🇨🇳☕ China has overtaken the US as the world’s largest coffee shop market. The number of branded coffee shops in China increased by 58% over the past year, per a new annual analysis from World Coffee Portal. The US market, which held the top spot for the entire 20-year history of the research, increased by 4% over the same period. China’s recent coffee shop boom has come mostly in the form of small stores and delivery-focused formats.

🇲🇲 Myanmar is now the world’s top opium producer. The Southeast Asian country saw a spike in opium production following a military coup in 2021 that brought widespread economic instability, per a new UN report. Myanmar surpassed Afghanistan as the world’s leading producer following the Taliban's poppy farming ban in April 2022, which caused a 95% drop in local opium production. Opium production for the 2022-23 period was at its highest in over two decades.

Yesterday, Netflix released its first “What We Watched” report, which, similar to the James Webb Space Telescope, provides a look into something the public has never seen before – viewership stats on nearly all of its shows and movies.

The streamer has long had a reputation for lack of data transparency, which co-CEO Ted Sarandos yesterday acknowledged has led to some distrust in the creator community. Though, as Sarandos also acknowledged, the streamer kept its viewership data private so it could experiment while not giving away data to competitors.

But we’re now living in *Aladdin voice* a whole new worldddd – one that’s demanding more transparency. Hollywood’s actors and writers both mentioned access to viewership data during their strikes this year (in order to align pay with success), and brands advertising on Netflix’s ads tier are wanting info about how frequently certain shows and movies are watched, CNBC reports.

Some findings from the report, which analyzed 18,000+ titles and ~100 billion hours viewed between January-June 2023:

• Season 1 of The Night Agent was the most viewed show, with ~812 million hours watched.
• The Mother, starring Jennifer Lopez, was the most viewed movie, with ~250 million hours watched.
• Netflix originals were like a bodybuilder doing a set of rows – pulling their own weight. Viewing hours were nearly split between Netflix originals, which accounted for 55% of time watched, and licensed content, which accounted for 45%.

👀 Looking ahead… Netflix plans to update this report every six months.

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Microsoft is betting on nuclear power, aka the holy grail of energy production, to meet the company’s rapidly growing energy needs as it expands further into AI and supercomputing.

The tech giant recently announced agreements to buy electricity from existing nuclear fission plants to power its data centers, each of which can use as much energy as hundreds of thousands of individual homes.

• Microsoft is also investing in a next-gen nuclear fusion project from Sam Altman-backed startup Helion Energy, which plans to start supplying 50 megawatts of electricity – enough to power 50,000 homes – to Microsoft’s data centers by 2028.

The tech industry’s demand for energy has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years. The culprit? Power-hungry emerging technologies like crypto, AI, and electric vehicles. For reference, recent peer-reviewed research estimates that AI data centers and servers will consume up to 134 terawatt-hours of energy – more than the energy needs of Argentina’s 46 million residents (or 0.5% of global demand) – by 2027 in a middle-ground scenario.

👀 Looking ahead… To meet a projected increase in energy demand over the coming years, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and other tech giants have invested in thousands of mostly green-energy projects – and a majority of these are expected to come online in the next three years, per CNBC.

💬 Quoted… “He may be at the very top of the list as the worst person I’ve ever seen do a cross examination.”

• David Mills, a Stanford law professor and the behind-the-scenes architect of FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s defense at trial, provided Bloomberg with the above quote in a recent interview. SBF was convicted on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy – a verdict that took the jury four hours to reach – in early November, with his sentencing scheduled for March 2024. He faces up to 115 years in prison.

📝Stat of the Day: November’s Consumer Price Index, published yesterday, showed that overall inflation rose 0.1% on a monthly basis, and 3.1% year-over-year (down from 3.2% in October). Core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy costs and are considered a better guide to the path of inflation, rose 0.3% month over month – slightly faster than the 0.2% increase in October – and 4% year-over-year. In a sentence: sinking gas prices led inflation to remain mostly unchanged from October, but underlying price pressures – from apartment rents, restaurant meals, auto insurance, and many other services – remain stubbornly high, per the AP.

🤔 Did You Know?... Cats are one of the most wide-ranging predators on Earth, consuming at least 2,083 different species including sea turtles, emus, and domestic cattle, according to a new study published in Nature Communications. So, when your cat wanders home after a long day, it may be best not to ask them where they’ve been.

📰 Worth a Read: How exposure to language in the womb shapes the brain → (Big Think)

• 👆 You’re looking at some of the best science images of 2023 as selected by the journal Nature’s visuals team.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with The HOTH

• 💰 US markets rose across the board to close at new yearly highs (S&P: +0.5%; Dow: +0.5%; Nasdaq: +0.7%).
• 🛻 Ford will cut production of its F-150 Lightning electric pickup in half next year.
• 🏦 The Federal Reserve wraps up its last meeting of the year today. Here's what to expect.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• ⚽🇹🇷 A Turkish soccer club president and two players were arrested after punching a FIFA-licensed referee in the face and repeatedly kicking him on the ground during a match on Monday; Turkey’s soccer association has temporarily suspended all matches.
• 🍿 Wonka, starring Timothée Chalamet, is projected to earn $35 million in its upcoming debut weekend.
• 🎶 Ye (fka Kanye West) is expected to release his 11th studio album, a collaboration with Ty Dolla $ign called Vultures, this week; it’s his first album since making a series of antisemitic remarks and posts last fall.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with FinanceBuzz

• 🚀 Blue Origin plans to return its New Shepard space tourism rocket to orbit as early as December 18; the FAA grounded the spacecraft for 15 months following a failed launch last year.
• ☄️ The Geminid meteor shower is expected to peak in the night sky this week, coinciding with a favorable weather forecast for viewing.
• 🤧 An anonymous male patient tore a small hole in his windpipe from trying to hold in a sneeze, representing the first known case of its kind, per a new peer-reviewed study.

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MISCELLANEOUS

• 💊🚨 The largest US pharmacy chains give patients' medical records to law enforcement without warrants, according to a new congressional investigation.
• 🎓 Harvard President Claudine Gay will remain in her role following controversial Congressional testimony regarding antisemitism on campus, the school’s board of directors announced.
• ⚖️🗽 New York’s Supreme Court ordered the state to redraw its redistricting map; Democratic lawmakers are expected to use the opportunity to try shifting several swing congressional districts away from GOP control. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

CLICKBAIT

• 🤔🦷 Why do people have wisdom teeth?

Santiago Daniel was only 10 months old when he grabbed a crayon and started to scribble on the walls. 

• “He started to draw all over the walls, but he seemed so happy that I couldn’t stop him,” said mom Adianée Peña García. 

🎨 Practice makes perfect... Three years later, Santiago Daniel has moved his artwork from the walls to his easel, where he spends around 40 minutes a day painting whatever comes to mind.

💬 What she's saying: “I think if he had done it and I had taken away his crayons it would have killed his passion for creativity..." she said. “[Kids] probably won’t all be artists just because they scribbled on the walls, but they shouldn’t limit something that could help their growth, their creativity... Walls can be re-painted and kids are kids.”

The answer has 3 digits.

• 265: One number is correct and placed in the right spot
• 387: Nothing is right
• 234: One number is correct but wrongly placed
• 471: Two numbers are correct but wrongly placed

(keep scrolling for the answers)

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