Amazon and Swifties

The Amazon Tax

Seth Godin | 18th August 2026

Amazon makes nearly a billion dollars in profit every week from selling search ads to merchants and publishers. The perverse side effect of this system is that it gives them “an incentive to make their organic search results worse — giving producers more incentive to buy more ads”. For decades, Amazon claimed to be a customer-centric company, and they were. They cannot make this claim anymore (600 words)

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Person want thing do? Do Person Do Thing: say no-big thing, make many person think good.

The Economics Of Swifties

John Quiggin | Crooked Timber | 18th August 2026

Taylor Swift re-recorded her back catalogue in 2021, outwitting the record companies who owned the originals and setting the stage for her 2023 Eras tour. A lovely voice and good songwriting aside, she is not an innovator. What explains her longevity as a pop star? Perhaps the decline of the centrality of the teenager in popular culture, which has allowed Swift to build a career over decades rather than years (1,300 words)