Flight of fear from Russia

A mountain pass north of Dariali, Georgia, has become a choke point for Russians fleeing their country, many of them men who faced being drafted and sent to fight in Ukraine. Many grabbed their passports, abandoned their cars and crossed the frontier on foot, fearing that Russia would slam shut one of the last, precious routes to leave the country. The Kremlin dispatched teams to border crossings to weed out draft-eligible men and hand them conscription notices, and rumours spread on social media that it would seal the border. President Vladimir Putin has ordered a draft of civilians to reinforce Russia’s army, which has suffered tens of thousands of casualties in the war he launched against Ukraine. Since then, at least 200,000 Russians, mostly young men, have fled, squeezing through the few crossings still open. The photographer Ksenia Ivanova spent two days near the border crossing collecting the stories of fleeing Russians and taking their portraits. Many offered only their first names, fearing repercussions should they ever return home. They spoke of divided families, the futility of protesting in Russia and the fear of dying in a war they did not support.

(Adapted from “Panic, Bribes, Ditched Cars And A Dash On Foot: Portraits Of Flight From Russia,” by Ksenia Ivanova and Catherine Porter published on October 1, 2022, by The New York Times)

Should your company sell on Amazon?

Selling on Amazon allows brands to reach millions of consumers — but at what cost? Smaller margins, more competition, the risk of commoditisation, and less knowledge about customers, as it turns out. But for many companies, the expanded reach can be worth the losses. Companies that choose to sell on the platform will need to make smart decisions about assortment offerings, page design, and fulfilment options so that they can take advantage of Amazon’s scale while protecting the long-term value of their brands. Yet brands face real challenges when selling on the platform — from competing products, third-party sellers, and even from Amazon itself. Additionally, Amazon’s growing advertising business (in which it charges fees for premium positioning in search results) has significantly reduced sellers’ margins on the platform. And in an era when companies use customer data to cross-sell, improve existing products, and find ideas for new innovations, Amazon’s walled garden and strict constraints on sharing customer data limit brands’ ability to learn about their customers.

(Adapted from “Should Your Company Sell On Amazon?” by Ayelet Israeli, Leonard A. Schlesinger, Matt Higgins and Sabir Semerkant, by the Harvard Business Review)

Netflix: the triumph of an underdog

In 2004, Netflix announced $500m in profits for the first time since its start in 1997. At the time, Blockbuster Video was worth $5bn. Blockbuster’s infamous bankruptcy and ultimate closure might seem like a case study in incumbent business failure, but MIT Sloan professor Birger Wernerfelt proposes it was an example of a resource-based mechanism that led to some “real but seemingly implausible outcomes.” Unlike the brick-and-mortar Blockbuster, Netflix didn’t need a physical store, and software was its only initial fixed cost, writes Mr Wernerfelt in his paper “When does the Underdog Win?” And instead of chipping away at Blockbuster’s collection of recent releases (which accounted for 75pc of its revenue), Netflix focused on older and hard-to-get movies. “It is not a big surprise to see a small entrant win if it started out with a unique and important resource,” Mr Wernerfelt writes.

(Adapted from “Triumph Of The Underdog: How To Beat The Odds As A Startup,” by Meredith Somers, published on August 31, 2022, by MIT Management Sloan School)

TikTok disorders

Naomi Sanders tried to set up her TikTok account so she wouldn’t see videos about eating disorders, but she says they’re impossible to avoid. “I still see posts related to eating disorders on my feed at least three times a day,” says the 15-year-old high-school sophomore, who has struggled with unhealthy eating habits since middle school. Nine months after a WSJ investigation showed that TikTok’s algorithms were flooding teens’ For You pages with videos encouraging weight loss and disordered eating, there are still plenty of them on the platform. ByteDance-owned TikTok said it would adjust its automated recommendations in general last December to avoid overly focusing on one type of content. Two months later, the company expanded its ban on eating-disorder videos, including those about overexercise and short-term fasting. Content creators and viewers have nonetheless figured out ways to evade TikTok’s measures.

(Adapted from “She Tried To Block Eating-Disorder Content On TikTok. It Still Pops Up Daily,” by Julie Jargon, published on September 24, 2022, by The Wall Street Journal)

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, October 11th, 2022