Tag: capitalism

Maggie is so cool.

Maggie Rogers is doing something cool again. As a reminder, her career launched with one of the coolest internet moments ever. As an undergrad at NYU, she got to attend a masterclass with Pharrell, and promptly blew his mind. Watch his visible, emotional reaction as he hears her song “Alaska” for the first time:

Several years and albums later, Maggie is about to kick off an arena tour. Like many artists, her reach (and ticket price) has outrun her fans’ perception of her. I think to many of her fans’, she’s still the quiet, indie, bedroom Taylor Swift.

Artists have struggled with ticket pricing in the streaming era. Touring and merch is now how anyone not named Taylor Swift makes money. But pricing tickets to maximize revenue can make your fans turn on you. Artists want to keep tickets affordable, but then resellers scoop all the tickets and capture the difference between the list price and the market clearing price. So for a few years there, some artists martyred themselves to their own image, by keeping GA tickets at $50 or whatever. They blamed the scalpers for the fact that no one at the shows actually paid that price.

The ticketing platforms slowly caught up, and have added price differentiation, or even launched their secondary markets where the artist is allowed to keep some of the resale value. But still, the only way to ensure your die-hards got affordable tickets was to do pre-sales via your email list, which can still be gamed.

So Maggie is doing something cool. She announced last-minute shows in major cities (Chicago is tomorrow at House of Blues, a mid-sized venue). Tickets will go on sale same-day, IN PERSON (9 AM for Chicago). Anyone who lines up at the box office but doesn’t snag a ticket for the intimate show tomorrow, can still buy a ticket for the United Center show in October, and I think some special merch.

I don’t know if Maggie is the first to do this, but I love it. It perfectly matches her image as a modern songwriting powerhouse with throwback indie roots. And it perfectly matches her desired relationship with her fans, while acknowledging her level of real-world of fame and success.

Ask not what Brown can do for you … but why other companies can’t.

Ask not what Brown can do for you … but why other companies can’t. The other day I walked into the UPS Store in a huff. I’d ordered two new pillows from one of those online sleep product companies with a 30-night return guarantee, and I needed to exercise that option.

The pillows were just badly designed products. I’d always been a die-hard featherhead, but Wirecutter’s review of Nest’s customizable shredded foam pillow was compelling enough that I decided to try it. Huge mistake. Adjusting the filling makes a huge mess, I could never get the pillow to be thin enough to sleep on, and the more I tried, the less comfortable it got.

Despite the return policy, the Nest is really bad at returns. From requesting a shipping label to repacking the product, everything was difficult. You have to email someone to initiate a return, and when you do, they try to talk you into keeping the product! Then you have to restuff the pillows, which makes a huge mess with all the shredded foam. After I thought I finally had it set, I realized they’d sent only one label, but the pillows had separate return bags.

Cue Elliot at UPS. Elliot greeted me with a smile and asked how he could help. I explained the whole thing and he looked me right in the eye and said, “I got you, just give me the pillows and the return label, I’ll make it work.”

I didn’t realize Dalle now enriches prompts for you, inferring what you’re after and filling in more details. I asked Dalle for an image of a “What Can Brown Do for You? ad for 2024.” It titled the file: “Envision a modern advertisement showcasing the slogan ‘What can brown do for you_’ for the year 2024. The image features a futuristic, sleek delivery.jpg”

I love UPS. Because this is how it always how it is, they just make life easier. So Elliot made my day. And though Nest Bedding really frustrated me, I was also comforted knowing they will either become better at helping their customers, like UPS is, or they will not be around forever.