While the general movie theater industry struggles, IMAX is achieving record sales. This demonstrates that in a shrinking or commoditized market, the most viable growth strategy is to offer a premium, differentiated experience that consumers cannot replicate at home.
The emerging habit of "Planuary"—booking all of a year's travel in January—creates a significant, concentrated financial event for consumers. While it secures better rates and provides peace of mind, it turns annual travel budgeting into a high-stakes, single-month credit card challenge.
Meta is committing to buy decades of nuclear power for massive AI data centers without a clear monetization strategy for its AI products. This reveals a colossal-scale strategy of building costly, long-term infrastructure as a prerequisite to even discovering the future business model.
The children's phone startup Tin Can crashed on Christmas after a massive surge of new users activated their gifts simultaneously. While a technical failure, this "good problem to have" served as powerful, public validation of the product's desirability and strong product-market fit.
Nike's quickly sold-out shoe is less about revenue and more about signaling a pivot to novelty and R&D. This "shock and awe" strategy, which includes a self-inflating jacket, aims to awe consumers and shock competitors, countering the narrative that culture has hit "peak sneaker."
The success of NYC's congestion pricing has been largely ignored by the media. This highlights how media business models, optimized for clicks on negative stories, can leave successful public policy underreported, creating a skewed public perception that only failures are newsworthy.