🌎 Social Media Extinction

Australia has officially banned social media for teens

This will make a great Instagram post… oh wait. Australia’s nationwide ban on social media for kids under 16 went into place this week, making it the first country to completely bar underage users from major platforms.

How does this work?

Under the new measure, basically every major platform (including Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, X, Reddit, Kick, Twitch, Facebook, and more) must strictly enforce age verification:

• Whether through live video selfies, government IDs, or email verification, platforms must now prove users’ ages… or risk repeat-offense fines that can climb to over $32 million.

• Almost 86% of Australians between the ages of eight and 15 who use social media in the country will be affected, according to the Australian government.

The rollout is off to a bumpy start: Early reports suggest the new age checks are already misidentifying teens and that many users are skirting the ban with VPNs.

Australians support the ban

Last year, a YouGov survey found 77% of Australians favor the ban, with supporters arguing it could rein in cyberbullying and help safeguard children’s mental health:

• Recent research has shown that 96% of 10 to 15-year-olds use social media, often encountering harmful content, grooming, or cyberbullying.

What are critics saying? The ban has drawn ire from platform executives, free-speech advocates, parents, and teens, who claim it’s hard to enforce, invades privacy, and could drive minors to riskier, harder-to-monitor corners of the internet.

• Meanwhile, two Australian 15-year-olds are taking the fight to court, saying the ban unconstitutionally silences young people.

It’s spreading to other countries: While social-media bans have faced legal challenges in the US, many other nations, like Denmark, Malaysia, Norway, and the EU, are already following in Australia’s footsteps.

Instacart is charging people 20% more for the same products

Prepare to pay peak prices, people. An investigation by Consumer Reports and the non-profit Groundwork Collaborative found that Instacart has been experimenting with AI-powered pricing, which could cost shoppers up to $1,200 more per year.

What else did the study find?

The study (see here) instructed 437 volunteers across four US cities to buy identical products on Instacart and compare them to in-store prices.

Despite shopping for the same products at the same stores, researchers found that almost every shopper faced some form of algorithmic price manipulation:

• The participants found price differences on about 75% of items at major retailers like Costco, Kroger, Safeway, and Target.

• At a Safeway in Washington, DC, Instacart listed a dozen eggs at four different prices, $3.99 to $4.28, $4.59, and $4.79, depending on the participant.

While some price differences were just a few cents… others were more substantial. For example, prices on grocery staples like bread, cereal, and pasta were marked up to 23% more for some customers.

It’s because of AI pricing

Instacart $CART ( ▲ 2.68% ) admitted that it runs what it calls “pricing experiments” with a “limited number” of retail partners, but it claims that most customers see standard costs and denies using personal data to set individualized prices.

• Instacart uses AI pricing software from Eversight (which it acquired in 2022) that can generate a 2%–5% profit bump for retailers, according to the study.

How do retailers get those extra profits? By increasing prices for customers:

• Experts told Consumer Reports that Instacart was testing how much customers would tolerate on price changes, which was essentially confirmed when Costco accidentally forwarded CR an email describing the strategy as “smart rounding.”

Instacart is doubling down: The online grocery giant recently announced a partnership with OpenAI that will allow users to create recipes in ChatGPT and purchase all the ingredients directly within the chat interface.

China’s export surplus just reached a record $1 trillion

Shein and Temu deserve some HOF jerseys. China’s annual trade surplus topped $1 trillion for the first time in history this year, underscoring the nation’s continuing role as a global export powerhouse.

How did China do it?

Amid high tariffs and US–China trade tensions, Chinese shipments to the US plunged, prompting Beijing to accelerate exports to nearly all of its other major trade partners.

That shift fueled an export boom last month, pushing China’s trade surplus for the first 11 months of the year to almost 10% higher than all of 2024 combined:

• Despite US-bound shipments plunging 29% (marking eight straight months of double-digit drops), China's overall exports still climbed 5.9% compared to the same time last year.

How did Beijing offset those losses? By sending a large swath of high-demand electronics, machinery, and automotive products overseas. China saw a 15% increase in exports to the EU, its fastest growth in over three years, along with a 28% spike to Africa and an 8.4% jump to Southeast Asia.

The surge isn’t necessarily a good sign

While the record trade surplus highlights China’s world-class export sector, it also brings some underlying issues to the surface:

• Economists note that Chinese consumers aren’t spending much, exports are growing fast, and imports aren’t keeping up, which is what led to the large surplus.

Why is that bad? China’s increase in exports largely comes from its weakened currency, which makes its goods cheaper overseas but limits Chinese consumers’ buying power, a sharp reminder of how reliant its economy is on foreign demand.

Looking forward: As Beijing shapes its economic policies going forward, the nation is likely to face pressure from its citizens and trade partners alike to jumpstart domestic buying power and ease ongoing trade deficits.

In partnership with Roku

Find customers on Roku this holiday season

Now through the end of the year is prime streaming time on Roku, with viewers spending 3.5 hours each day streaming content and shopping online. Roku Ads Manager simplifies campaign setup, lets you segment audiences, and provides real-time reporting. And, you can test creative variants and run shoppable ads to drive purchases directly on-screen.

Bonus: we’re gifting you $5K in ad credits when you spend your first $5K on Roku Ads Manager. Just sign up and use code GET5K. Terms apply.

Use code GET5K now

SpaceX could launch the largest IPO in history

Hopefully this one doesn’t explode. SpaceX, the Elon Musk‑led aerospace company, is planning for an IPO next year that is seeking to raise over $30 billion from investors… that would make it the largest IPO ever.

To the moon

According to people familiar with the matter, SpaceX is targeting a valuation close to $1.5 trillion for the entire company, putting the rocket and satellite manufacturer in a league of its own:

• That would shatter the previous record Saudi Aramco achieved at its 2019 debut when it raised $25.6 billion.

• It would also make SpaceX the most valuable company ever to go public and push CEO Elon Musk’s net worth close to $1 trillion.

Why go public? SpaceX is speeding up its IPO plans partly thanks to the rapid growth of Starlink, which has plans for direct-to-mobile service, and the ongoing development of its Starship rocket for moon and Mars missions.

SpaceX isn’t alone in its IPO dreams

Other private tech companies that are valued at over $100 billion, like OpenAI and Anthropic, are likely to watch investor reaction to a potential SpaceX IPO in case they want to pursue their own ambitions:

• OpenAI, the only private startup reportedly valued higher than SpaceX, and Anthropic have both begun preparing for possible IPOs next year.

• Both companies are projecting at least $20 billion in revenue next year, roughly in line with SpaceX’s own forecast.

Looking forward: According to Bloomberg, a warm reception for SpaceX could thaw the currently frozen IPO market, nudging more of the $2.9 trillion in private companies off the sidelines.

Humans are mostly monogamous mammals, scientists say

Apparently, commitment isn’t totally extinct. A new study by researchers at the University of Cambridge compared reproductive patterns across dozens of mammal species and found humans are close to the top of the totem pole when it comes to monogamy.

How did they figure this out?

Researchers analyzed animal lineage data and human self-reports, comparing rates of full and half-siblings to rank 35 species by how faithful they actually are.

Humans, interestingly enough, came in at number seven with 66% of siblings sharing both parents. However, humans rank below:

• The California deermouse (a perfect 100%), African wild dog (85%), Damaraland mole rat (79.5%), moustached tamarin (77.6%), Ethiopian wolf (76.5%), and Eurasian beaver (72.9%).

• But, we rank above the white-handed gibbon (63.5%), meerkat (59.9%), grey wolf (46.2%), and red fox (45.2%), and we’re far higher than our primate cousins, as mountain gorillas sit at 6% and chimpanzees at just 4%.

What does this tell us? Mark Dyble, the evolutionary anthropologist behind the study, told the Washington Post that “the data suggest that we are” a monogamous species. The findings reinforce the idea that social monogamy is a prominent pattern in human reproduction, even if cultural practices and individual behavior vary widely.

Catch up on this week’s weird news

 > Researchers recently detected winds erupting from a black hole at over 134 million miles per hour, which is roughly 20% the speed of light and the fastest ever recorded.

 > Physicists have created a universal mathematical equation that predicts how almost any fragile object, from glass to sugar cubes to ceramics, will shatter.

 > A new study analyzing decades of PGA Tour data found professional golfers performed slightly worse when paired with someone from a different political party.

 > Google announced its first AI smart glasses will arrive in 2026 with one “audio-only” model embedded with Gemini, and another with an in-lens display for navigation, translation, and other live info.

 > Gen Z’s latest relationship concern is the “swag gap,” which the WSJ calls a “fundamental difference” in the way two individuals carry and present themselves. You can just say the other person doesn’t have aura.