Channel Surfing Netflix

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Happy Thursday, Future Party. Apparently, there are people out there who still buy new albums on CD — which, positively, puts more money in the pockets of artists. But Lorde fans were in for a rude awakening when their CD of Lorde’s new album Virgin simply… doesn’t play. It turns out the disc is so transparent that most CD players, car sound systems, or whatever people are trying to play the album on, can’t read it. Maybe it’s just a prank to give everyone a bit more silence in their lives.

Netflix is ramping up unscripted programming in music, game shows, and competition series in order to become the true cable replacement that so many of its users already view it as.

The Big Picture: For many audiences, especially younger ones, Netflix is synonymous with television as cord-cutting reaches a fever pitch. But there are still mainstay genres that feel… well… very old-school TV. Netflix wants to ensure it has that programming too, in an effort to win over customers wary of canceling their cable subscriptions.

Behind the Scenes: Soon, the only thing you won’t be able to watch on Netflix is the literal flipping of channels.

Final Selection: Netflix is sparing no expense to get the varied programming up and running, recently hiring NBCUniversal exec Jeff Gaspin (he greenlit The Voice) to oversee the content expansion. The streamer sees this type of content as integral to boosting its ad-supported tier, per WSJ.

Prediction: Going back to channel surfing, don’t be shocked if Netflix also rolls out that functionality to totally mimic the lean-back cable experience.

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Cloud-infrastructure provider Cloudflare is debuting a new marketplace that will allow publishers to paywall their sites, forcing AI firms to drop some cash each time they want to crawl them.

Why It Hits: Querying chatbots is killing the publishing industry, which relies on people actually visiting their sites in order to make money. Many publishers have responded by either suing AI firms or striking licensing agreements. But by utilizing the new tool from Cloudflare, publishers may no longer have to choose between the extremes.

Behind the Code: Cloudflare is instituting a new digital transaction called “Pay Per Crawl.”

Checkout: Up until a couple of years ago, the economy of search revolved around securing referrals from Google. For every 14 times Google scraped a site for search results, websites received a referral. Now, websites can expect only one referral for every 1,700 times that OpenAI crawls them, or one for every 73,000 times that Anthropic crawls them. That’s not sustainable for publishers. That’s why Cloudflare, which serves 20% of web traffic, is stepping in.

Prediction: With the rise of AI agents that visit websites on behalf of users, Cloudflare hopes it can help create a digital economy where those agents will need a budget to curate information across the internet. So, expect that the higher the budget, the better the results will be.

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51.7% of you voted Yes in yesterday’s poll: Are you retired?

“Loving it!”

“Yes, but I am busier than I was when I was working. Part-time jobs keep you busy and sharp.”

“I could as I have plenty saved and a pension and good investments, but I don’t want to.”

Let’s keep the conversation going. Join our Poll Of The Day newsletter, so your opinions can shine. Discover how your views line up with your peers’, check out cool insights, and have some fun. It’s data with personality.

💰 Paramount Global has settled Donald Trump’s lawsuit for $16 million… finally allowing its merger with Skydance to go through.

🎥 After a string of underperforming titles at the box office, Blumhouse is shifting its strategy to make more event-driven horror movies.

🎮 A Dentsu report found that only 5% of global ad spend goes to the video-game industry, despite it being one of the most popular forms of media.

📈 Design-software startup Figma is going public on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “FIG.”

🖊️ AI writing-assistance startup Grammarly is acquiring email app Superhuman in an effort to become an “AI productivity platform.”

🤖 X is opening up its Community Notes feature to AI bots. Nope, nothing will go wrong here.

🏦 Cryptocurrency company Ripple, which manages the stablecoin RLUSD, has filed for a US banking license.

🤝 The White House struck a trade deal with Vietnam to lower their tariffs from 46% to 20% — a sign of relief for the fashion industry.

🥐 Bakery tourism is serving up some much-needed travel dollars as young vacationers go far for a sweet treat.