Every year, VC Mary Meeker (previously) publishes her must-read Internet Trends Report, which comes as a powerpoint deck with hundreds of slides (you can watch her power through them in 30 minutes flat at the Re-Code conference).
* More than half the world is online so growth is slowing
* Ecommerce is still eroding brick-and-mortar retail
* Infosec is a dumpster-fire, with global political repercussions
* China and India each have more internet users than the US or Europe
* Internet ad growth is nosediving
* Programmatic rules internet ads
* User acquisition costs are climbing
* Freemium has moved from entertainment (where it is still strong) to business (where it’s growing)
* TV is tanking, mobile video is rising, now beats TV
* Payment systems like Square are experiencing strong growth, serving businesses that were historically unable to accept electronic payments
* Gig working is growing
* Image-based communications (videos, photos) are growing at the expense of text-based communications
* Gaming is growing, as is game-streaming
* Businesses are collecting more data than ever
* “Data-plumbers” who provide back-end services for billing, account management, etc are a growth sector and key to the success of many larger businesses
* Customers are more privacy conscious but still willing to share their data in exchange for “personalized services”
* People are less happy with social media and how it affects their lives
* Encryption is growing
* Bad news sells better than good news
* Social media amplifies bad acts, bad news, bad feelings, bad beliefs
* Internet freedom is in global decline, balkanization (“splinternet”) is one the rise
* Unemployment is a growing problem everywhere except the USA
* Online training and education is growing, driven in part by the mounting costs of traditional college
* Immigrants are key to US growth, with many successful tech businesses founded by first/second-gen immigrants
* Proportion of people in America born abroad is at a high-water mark not seen in a century
* US health insurance, costs, efficacy: a total dumpster-fire
* Big Tech is moving to hold Americans’ health data and involve itself in their health decisions
* Chinese consumer confidence is in the toilet
* Chinese growth is in the toilet
* Chinese account balance is plummeting
* Chinese exports have leveled off
* Chinese mobile saturation is high, and mobile growth has ended
* Chinese mobile internet usage continues strong growth
* Chinese “super apps” are totally unlike anything used in the west
* Chinese education is migrating online
* So are Chinese government services
(via Copernican Shift)