Europe is set to introduce the Digital Markets Act, Comcast may increase prices for its broadband customers, and Meta is on a losing streak this year.
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That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now, welcome to Hashtag Trending. It’s Monday, October 31, happy Halloween and I’m your host, Tom Li.
Tomorrow, Europe is set to introduce the Digital Markets Act, a bill that will have sweeping effects on the way big tech companies operate in Europe. As Wired reported, the law would kick off efforts to make products from big tech companies more open and interoperable. Specifically, the law would revamp the way core products Amazon, Google and Meta work. Gerard de Graaf, a key official who pushed the DMA, said he believes mobile devices of one ecosystem should have access to app stores from another. He specifically highlighted iPhones, saying that they should be able to download apps from stores other than the iOS App Store. Introducing the DMA is only the first step of a long process. Lawmakers need to identify which companies are the divisive “gatekeepers” and act accordingly.
Source: Wired
Comcast will likely raise the prices for existing customers to keep profits up. The company gained just 14,000 new broadband subscribers in Q2, 2022, while losing 561,000 video customers and 316,000 VoIP phone users. In an earnings call, Comcast executives said they’ll be targeting the average revenue per user, or ARPU for short, in the near term. Comcast CEO Brian Roberts told investors that Comcast will maintain healthy growth in its other businesses in the meanwhile, including wireless and business services, according to a report by Ars Technica.
Source: Ars Technica
Meta has lost so much value this year that it’s no longer in the top 20 most valuable companies. At its peak, Meta broke the $1 trillion ceiling and joined the ranks of super-elite companies like Apple and Microsoft. But a barrage of privacy issues, changing ad policies, and unfruitful investments in the metaverse sent Meta’s prices tumbling. After posting an abysmal earnings report last week, the company’s share price slid 24 per cent. Since the start of 2022, Meta has lost around 70 per cent of its value. It’s now worth less than Home Depot, and just a hair above Coca-Cola.
Source: Global News
Twitter CEO Elon Musk is planning some sweeping changes for the social platform. In a Tweet, Musk announced that Twitter’s verification process will be getting a revamp. First reported by Platformer, verified Twitter users will have to subscribe to Twitter Blue, a premium tier of the service, which currently costs $4.99. In addition, The Verge reported that Twitter is mulling over increasing Twitter Blue’s subscription cost to $20. None of these decisions have been confirmed by Twitter, but the same Verge article also wrote that Twitter employees have until November 7 to launch the feature or face termination.
https://www.livemint.com/news/world/twitter-will-revise-how-it-verifies-users-elon-musk-11667179492376.html
That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Hashtag Trending is a part of the ITWC Podcast network. Add us to your Alexa Flash briefings or your Google Home daily briefing. Make sure to sign up for our Daily IT Wire newsletter to get all the news that matters directly in your inbox every day. Also, catch the next episode of Hashtag Tendances, our weekly Hashtag Trending episode in French, which drops every Thursday morning. If you have a suggestion or a tip, drop us a line in the comments or via email. Thank you for listening, I’m Tom Li.