2022 has come to a close and we are in the early throes of what is shaping up to be a recession.
The last quarter was a doozy for a number of reasons.
Meltdown of FTX in November-December has finally (not that the writing wasn’t already on the wall) shown retail investors that crypto is not as mature of an industry or payment vehicle as once was hyped.
The House is now controlled by a Republican majority – I am not sure yet how this might effect regulation or how payments, taxes or subscription services will lean in the coming two years – but is worth keeping an eye on.
Supreme Court in my opinion is a wild card. With a conservative leaning majority, you would think that pro-business rulings could be on the horizon. A loosening of consumer protections could be at hand – which could potentially change some of the rules and regulations that affect how companies handle consumer data – PII, etc.
Economic woes following the collapse of the NASDAQ and inflated valuations of Fortune 500 companies. Strong favorites like TESLA and APPLE have seen their market caps plummet in the last 12 months.
Elon MUSK – I guess it would be hard to not include him in a summary of where we are today. First, this post is being written via my home’s Starlink connection (courtesy of SpaceX). Meanwhile, as a side effect of Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, he raised a concern with the Apple App Store “tax” which is levied on all companies using the store. His response was to raise the pricing for customers who which to purchase subscriptions through the App Store. More and more companies are taking a vocal stand against this monopolistic system that Apple has created (and profited from). I’ll be curious to see if the angst of CEOs/Founders with the power dynamic at play will shift how Tim Cook (and his fiduciary responsibility to shareholders) handles in-app purchases.
I could go on… but lastly I wanted to touch on tax regulations that are changing. Venmo was slated to start tax-reporting on its customers – which would have created havoc on the IRS and the millions of US citizens that use Venmo for payments. This ruling was pushed out – but I don’t know for how long it will last ( 2024 tax season?)… As P2P becomes more popular and ubiquitous we must be mindful of consumer tendencies and how that affects the types of payment methods that companies must support in order to retain and grow their customer base.