Techmeme
April 20, 2022, 9:30 AM

Top News

Emily McCormick / Yahoo Finance:
Netflix reports losing 200K net subscribers in Q1, vs. an estimated 2.5M net additions, and $7.87B revenue, vs. $7.95B est.; Netflix stock drops 25%+  —  Netflix (NFLX) reported an unexpected decline in first-quarter net subscribers as the company navigated an exit from Russia and an increasingly saturated North American market.
Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:
Reed Hastings says Netflix plans to offer cheaper, ad-supported plans and will examine what those plans will look like “over the next year or two”  —  Co-CEO Reed Hastings revealed the move on an earnings call after the streaming giant disclosed it lost 200,000 subscribers during its most recent quarter.
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Netflix estimates that its users are sharing passwords with 100M+ non-paying households globally, including 30M+ in the US and Canada, in violation of its rules  —  There's a whole lot of password-sharing going on across Netflix's customer base — and the streaming giant is eager to pocket …
Lauren Hirsch / New York Times:
Sources: Elon Musk is evaluating various debt packages, including preferred debt and a loan against his shares of Tesla, to secure financing for his Twitter bid  —  The world's richest man is trying to shore up debt financing, including potentially taking out a loan against his shares of Tesla, so he can buy Twitter for $43 billion.
Financial Times:
Matt Levine / Bloomberg:
Bloomberg:
Google and Meta restrict the accounts of Hong Kong's sole chief executive candidate, John Lee, citing US sanctions from 2020 on Lee for crushing protests  —  Google and Meta Platforms Inc. moved on Wednesday to curtail the social media presence of Hong Kong's sole chief executive candidate …
New York Times:
A timeline of warnings from investors over the past decade about a tech startup bubble that never burst; instead of a collapse, things got bubblier  —  The venture capitalists are sounding the alarm.  At posh conferences, they buzz about falling valuations for start-ups.
Yogita Khatri / The Block:
Coinbase launches its NFT marketplace in beta, after announcing the service in October 2021, with support for Ethereum-based NFTs and ETH payments  —  Quick Take Coinbase NFT has gone live in beta form.  It currently supports Ethereum-based NFTs and payments in ETH.
Maddie Stone / Project Zero:
Google's Project Zero: 58 in-the-wild 0-days were detected and shared in 2021, more than double the previous record, as the industry improves at finding 0-days  —  A Year in Review of 0-days Used In-the-Wild in 2021  —  This is our third annual year in review of 0-days exploited in-the-wild [2020, 2019].
Nikkei Asia:
Analysis: half of Apple's top 200 suppliers have facilities in and around Shanghai, where China's COVID-19 lockdowns are disrupting activity  —  slong COVID lockdown in Shanghai is creating chaos for Apple suppliers based in and around the city.  (Source photos by Getty Images and Reuters) …
Canalys:
Global smartphone shipments fell 11% in Q1 2022; Samsung grew its market share from 22% to 24%, Apple gained from 15% to 18%, and Xiaomi dipped from 14% to 13%  —  Worldwide smartphone shipments fell 11% amid unfavorable economic conditions and sluggish seasonal demand in the first quarter of 2022.
Kyle Alspach / VentureBeat:
Okta's probe into the January Lapsus$ breach of a third-party vendor concludes that it lasted only 25 consecutive minutes and impacted just two active customers  —  Okta said Tuesday that a forensic investigation that it commissioned found that the hacker group Lapsus$ accessed …
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
Robinhood revives its UK expansion plans and agrees to acquire crypto app Ziglu, one of the few crypto companies to secure Financial Conduct Authority approval  —  - Robinhood has agreed to buy Ziglu, a London-based fintech app that lets users trade bitcoin and several other cryptocurrencies.
David Pierce / The Verge:
Brave browser introduces De-AMP, a feature which bypasses Google-hosted AMP pages and takes users straight to the original website  —  Yet another nail in the AMP coffin  —  Brave announced a new feature for its browser on Tuesday: De-AMP, which automatically jumps past any page rendered …
Ivan Levingston / Bloomberg:
Just Eat Takeaway says it is exploring a partial or full sale of Grubhub, less than one year after buying it for $7.3B  —  Just Eat Takeaway.com NV said it's considering a partial or full sale of its Grubhub unit less than a year after buying it for $7.3 billion, in a reversal that highlights …
Dan Gallagher / Wall Street Journal:
FactSet survey of Q1 ad revenue: Google is expected to rise 23% YoY to $55.1B, Meta is expected to rise 8% YoY to ~$27.5B, and Twitter to grow 25% YoY to $1.1B  —  Google's search business expected to stay resilient while social platforms grapple with challenges

Sponsor Posts

Meta:
Open Source AI: Available to all, not just the few  —  Meta's open source AI enables small businesses, start-ups, students, researchers and more to download and build with our models at no cost.
Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Zoho:
CIO challenge 5: Can we find an effective solution that also minimizes operational costs?  —  Welcome to the next and final installment of our CIO series!  After what feels like a thousand cups of coffee …
Hamming:
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy  —  Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Thu. 11/21 - What The DOJ Wants Google To Do
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 9:30 AM ET, April 20, 2022.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Earlier Picks

Jordan Novet / CNBC:
Samantha Cole / VICE:
Alastair Gale / Wall Street Journal: