Good morning, FutureParty people… except for, maybe, those New Yorkers with cars. In a first for an American city, vehicles will be charged up to $15 per day for the ability to drive in Manhattan below 60th Street — the “central business district.” If the ordinance survives multiple lawsuits, it’s meant to help ease congestion in the city. Expect those parking prices to shoot up, too.

In other news… Tesla hails a robotaxi strategy, Congress introduces potential digital privacy protections, and Twitch streamers gather for Fallout.

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• YouTube – MaXXXine

• X (Twitter) – David Lynch

• Google – Morgan Wallen

• Reddit – The Dark Knight

• TikTok – “Make You Mine” - Madison Beer

• Spotify – “Changes” - Empire of the Sun

.TRANSPORTATION.

Tesla is rolling out robotaxis

The Future. Elon Musk has announced that the EV maker is shelving its plans to build a more affordable $25,000 vehicle in favor of building a robotaxi. With companies like Cruise and Waymo either defunded or hitting governmental speed bumps, Musk may be betting Tesla’s future on its ability to master autonomous driving where its competitors haven’t.

Pilotless program
Tesla is going driverless (no, for real this time).

• Tesla’s robotaxi is being billed as the company’s savior, shifting its growth narrative (Tesla hasn’t released a mainstream car in five years and has missed production targets) and pumping its stock (it’s the worst performing company on the S&P 500 this year).

• So far, that plan has worked — the stock jumped over 5% at the news (investors always love a big-swing Tesla plan).

There’s only one issue: Tesla doesn’t have autonomous-driving capability yet. The brand’s “Full Self-Driving” software is only a “level 2” system, which means it still requires driver supervision. Additionally, the software has repeatedly come under fire from the National Transportation Safety Board.

So, how Tesla will sell that its vehicles are ready to drive themselves will be a tough road to go down.

61.2% of you voted Yes in yesterday’s poll: Are you engaging with the solar eclipse today?

“Watched it from the beach, was cool!”

“Got glasses, too.”

“The path of 100% totality is a front-row seat at the best concert you’ve ever seen, and anything else is the equivalent to just hearing the music from the parking lot.”

.A WORD FROM OUR FRIENDS AT NEXT EVO.

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Media, Music, & Entertainment

• New details about the potential Skydance deal for Paramount Global have emerged: the company would stay public, additional funding could come from Larry Ellison’s Oracle, and the former CEO of NBCUniversal Jeff Shell could have a leadership role. [Read More]

• Spotify is testing AI-curated playlists that can be generated from a text prompt. [Read More]

• Amazon is tapping several prominent Twitch streamers to livestream the first episode of Prime Video’s Fallout, including Shroud and Techniq. [Read More]

Fashion & E-Commerce

• Beyoncé’s song with Post Malone, “Levii’s Jeans,” has unsurprisingly popped the company’s stock by a whopping 20%. [Read More]

• Rolex CEO Jean-Frédéric Dufour would like to remind alternative asset investors that luxury watches aren’t stocks… so, invest at your own risk. [Read More]

• Uber Eats is getting its own vertical video feed to help restaurant discoverability on its platform. [Read More]

Tech, Web3, & AI

• OpenAI scraped millions of hours of YouTube data and other copyrighted sources to train ChatGPT. [Read More]

• Saudi Arabian officials are signaling that The Line — the futuristic, mirror-like city of the Neom development — will now house 300,000 residents as opposed to 1.5 million. [Read More]

• The Internet Archive has uploaded a fully digitized version of Aruba’s archives — the first country to get an online backup. [Read More]

Creator Economy

• Instagram made $32 billion in ad revenue in 2021 — surprisingly, $4 billion more than YouTube did during the same period. [Read More]

• TikTok is launching a new app in Europe called TikTok Lite, which pays users to watch and engage with videos — a bid to boost user growth in the region. [Read More]

• Night, the creator management firm, has purchased Rooster Teeth’s Roost Podcast Network from Warner Bros. Discovery. [Read More]

.TECHNOLOGY.

A federal privacy law enters Congress

The Future. The most comprehensive, bipartisan digital privacy legislation in years was introduced yesterday, giving users immense power over their data, how it’s handled, and what recourse they have when their rights are violated. Coupled with a potential TikTok ban, a newfound focus on digital privacy and security may kneecap Big Tech’s growth worldwide.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of privacy
Federal digital privacy protections may finally roll out to all Americans.

• The “American Privacy Rights Act” hails from Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA).

• It would limit what Big Tech and data brokers could collect on users; allow people to correct, delete, and download data companies have on them; and let users opt out of targeted advertising and platform algorithms.

• It would also give users the power to sue when their privacy rights are violated, skipping arbitration when cases relate to minors or when violations are “substantial.”

If the bill becomes a law, it would be enforceable by the FTC and individual states, which have slowly been passing their own digital privacy laws over the past few years.

Just yesterday, Maryland’s legislature passed two new bills — one that protects user data and another that protects kids from being tracked.

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• Read: Bloomberg dives into how Bluey, the Australian animated kids show that’s won over adults, has become a ratings juggernaut on Disney+.

• Listen: The Information digs into how the rise of AI is putting traditional media in jeopardy.

• Watch: The sequel to Road House is Jake Gyllenhaal and Conor McGregor going sneaker shopping with Complex.

The eclipse… in Fortnite.

LATEST PODCAST EPISODE

Today we get into how there may be a new IMDb specifically made for content creators, how those very same content creators are moving away from video into writing, and Endeavor's announcement that they are going private.