How China's online gaming industry is different -- regulatory protection for incumbents allows them to internalize efficiency gains

Had this thread 2 weeks after ChatGPT was released

I think the Logical Progression has held up pretty well

x.com/nosunkcosts/...

Github

www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/u...

Occam's razor

Hotel breakfast where the fruit section has 3 watermelon trays, 3 mango trays, and one tray for all other fruit

Breakfast buffet market efficiency is increasing

I wonder if there is any self-reflection on the part of Tyler Cowen as to the cesspool that has become Marginal Revolution

These are the top 2 comments

marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevo...

I still think it's notable that the US is currently running a fiscal deficit ~100-175bps above NGDP growth i.e. fiscal policy remains expansionary while the median DM is running ~100bps *below* NGDP growth

(the oil shock may change things for them fwiw)

RoW equity returns from Trump 2.0 election to pre-Iran war and to today have been ~2x US equity returns, mainly driven by a ~20% relative re-rating of ex-US equities vs. US equities

"Prominent, perhaps previously politically ambiguous, person accused of serious crimes suddenly goes hard, far-right" is a secular megatrend

bsky.app/profile/nosu...

If you like to crime, there is a cozy political home for you bsky.app/profile/nosu...

Vast majority of crypto-whining during Biden was simply "they won't let us defraud people legally"

bsky.app/profile/nosu...

All that glisters: Maga influencers promote gold but investors feel short-changed Marketing pitches tell retirees the precious metal is a safe harbour amid claims of misrepresentation and exorbitant fees

www.ft.com/content/de54...

Scams, grifts, crypto, financial fraud, crime are fully intertwined with the 'Conservative project' -- there is a clear selection effect at play here: if you enjoy criming and scamming, the GOP is the party for you -- kick back some funds in political support, rinse your audience, get pardoned later

Had a thread on this last year, but this article gives you numbers and explains why right-wing dominance of social media is structural: right-wing influencers see their audience as suckers and marks, which allows them to garner the marketing dollars from the highest GM companies like gold scammers

So OpenAI has unfunded commitments/implicit liabilities on delays and overages related to $ORCL's cloud capacity additions that it would need to fund with equity

What is OAI's implicit cost of capital vs. $ORCL's cost of debt?

www.theinformation.com/articles/ope...

Apparently Altman is keeping OpenAI's CFO out of discussions that relate to financing and spending

Honestly, she may end up being grateful that she wasn't in the room eventually

K-pop driving a revival in US CD sales

Sounds like his 'secret' is that he takes a lot of directional risk in levered situations?

www.wsj.com/finance/inve...

It's all just one big market -- crypto, sports betting, meme trading, prediction markets, 0DTE options, online casinos

It's all various forms of gambling with a high rake for the intermediary

This is why CAC is converging across all these different providers

Jonathan Majors Fell Through A Window On Daily Wire Action Flick, Leading Crew To Walk Off Set, Producers Say They “Don’t Negotiate With Communists” Details about the safety concerns that led to the strike on the set of Jonathan Majors' Daily Wire action film have emerged.

at no point in this sentence could i possibly predict what would come next

it's like an anti-markov chain

deadline.com/2026/04/jona...

Not sure I believe the latter statistic

I don't get this argument -- doesn't this depend entirely on the evolution of AI vs non-AI music listening share and engagement?

China is ground zero for the AI music disruption

- 57% of new independently released songs are AI-generated
- Structurally lower content costs due to the lack of royalties is enabling new aggregator and distribution models
- Incumbents are having a hard time responding due to the worse economics

Disengagement: more attractive than ever

ht: @pkrugman.bsky.social

You love to see it

www.ft.com/content/dcbd...

There is no such thing as being “too-online”

The deviant condition in today’s world is being too offline

bsky.app/profile/nosu...

If you aren't 'too-online', I think you'll find the whole thing to be either the invigorating ("never seen anything like this") or infuriating ("what the actual fuck")