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Digital year in review 2021
It is time for the digital awards of 2021! This is a review of the year in digital technology, told with a bit of sass and snark. In keeping with the times, this year-in-review award ceremony will be a virtual experience.
Amazon’s bad receipts
WE CAN GET THEM TO CHANGE — PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION.
When I (or someone else in my household) orders something from Amazon, i get emailed a receipt. This is useful because then I can see what was ordered, whether it is the right thing or shout at someone who ordered something we already have.
Before August 2020, they looked like this.
The year in review for digital technology
It is that time of the year again! Time to review the digital events of 2020 and recognize achievements. Your humble correspondent has no idea how to do this at a grand scale without making a mockery of it. If the post can skewer Hollywood at the same time, then all the better.
Remarks on Paul Milgrom
News today that my PhD Supervisor, Paul Milgrom, won the Nobel prize for economics. He won it with his PhD Supervisor, Bob Wilson. Both were long overdue for the honor.
Triggers, Transmissions, and Adjustments
Take a step back from the daily details of events. Compare the recession unfolding in the United States at this moment with the two previous downturns. Today’s economic events share a surprising set of common features with the dot-com boom and bust of 1997 to 2001, and fewer similarities with the financial meltdown of 2008-09. For reasons I will explain later, we ought to be thankful for the latter.
Uncomfortable economic waters
For IEEE Micro, July-August. The corona virus turned crowded places into transmission hot spots. Coffee shops, popular restaurants, and arenas closed in the United States in March, along with dentist offices, schools, and other places where super-spreading took place. Shelter-in-place mandates went into effect starting on March 17 in many states, and more than forty states instituted such orders by the end of March.
Covid-19 and ‘Forced’ Experimentation
I have started a new email newsletter, Plugging the Gap, that looks at economics and Covid-19. Here is today’s post which overlaps with usual Digitopoly fodder. You can subscribe here.
App Store Pricing Controversies
This week, a new email service, Hey.com, had their app halted (and maybe potentially removed as it had been previously listed by what Apple has called ‘an error’) because they do not offer the ability to purchase the service through the app. Without paying for the app, the Hey service is useless. Thus, Hey offers a subscription fee of $99 per year on their own site.
The Market Design Community and the Broadcast Incentive Auction: Fact-Checking Glen Weyl’s and Stefano Feltri’s False Claims
[Editor’s Note: This is a guest post from Professor Paul Milgrom, the co-founder and Chairman of Auctionomics, is the Shirley and Leonard Ely Professor of Economics at Stanford University.