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The Walt Disney Co. continues to find itself in a crossfire, with Republicans taking shots from the right and Democrats landing blows from the left. Following a nearly weeklong drama surrounding the suspension and subsequent reinstatement of late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel, Disney has announced price hikes for Disney+ streaming subscriptions, escalating tensions as the company contends with both PR backlash and potential subscriber losses. We all know price hikes for Disney+ arent unusual, but could the timing be any worse? Journalist Marisa Kabas suggested on Bluesky Monday that Disneys decision to bring Kimmel back might have been rushed due to the planned price increases, citing an unnamed Disney source. Fast Company reached out to Disney for comment. How much are prices going up, and when do they take effect? The new rates hit October 21. The ad-supported plan for Disney+ jumps $2, to $11.99, while the no-ads premium plan jumps $3, to $18.99. The Disney+ and Hulu bundle jumps $2, to $12.99, while the no-ads premium bundle stays at $19.99. The full list of increases is posted on the Disney+ support page. Following the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel Live! by ABC last week, high-profile celebrities joined the chorus of critics calling out parent company Disney, loudly venting their frustrations. Tatiana Maslany, star of Marvels She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, urged her followers to cancel subscriptions, while Damon Lindelof, a co-creator of ABCs Lost, took to Instagram to say that he wouldnt work with Disney again if Kimmels suspension wasnt lifted. Analysts who spoke with Fast Company last week doubted that Disney would feel a long-term financial impact from boycott efforts. Shares of the Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) were essentially flat on Tuesday, closing at $112.25.
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E-Commerce
It’s no secret that Gen Z has a less optimistic economic outlook than older generations. So, it’s no wonder many of them are engaging in so-called “financial nihilism,” applying a gloomy outlook to their financial mindset, resulting in a new and different take on investing. Zoomers grew up with smartphones, the internet, and social media during difficult times like the 2008 economic crisis and Great Recession, and the subsequent protest movement, Occupy Wall Street. And as such, they’re disillusioned with traditional ways of doing things, which extends to how they invest and conduct their own finances. What is ‘financial nihilism’? First coined in 2021 by Demetri Kofinas, the host of the Hidden Forces podcast, “financial nihilism” is a trend that describes how Gen Z and even some younger millennials, who are profoundly disillusioned with the traditional financial system, believing its unfair and unpredictable, are finding it pointless to save for retirement or invest in the stock market, or in bonds, or other conventional ways. That’s given the state of things such as: stagnant wages, the soaring cost of living, massive student debt, and the difficulty of homeownership. Basically, they believe the American Dream is a scam, and they may have to live with their parents forever without ever owning a home. Gravitating to crypto, meme stocks, and ETFs Instead of playing the stock or bond markets in traditional ways, Gen Z is gravitating to more rewarding, but riskier strategies like investing in cryptocurrencies including bitcoin and meme coins, as well as meme stocks and sports betting platforms, CNBC reported. According to the outlet, Gen Z is the most likely generation to say they were either curious about or planning to invest in cryptocurrencies over the next five years, per a recent U.S. Bank survey. In short, what we are seeing is a loss of faith in the real value of money and the function of the market. Perhaps Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson summed it up best when he said: “It’s hard to fault people for wanting to get rich quick if they have lost faith in their ability to get rich slow.”
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E-Commerce
These days, investors, founders, analysts, and tech loyalists cant stop talking up how artificial intelligence will radically remake the future of work. But a new study suggests that while AI might have some amazing future uses, at the moment, it’s not doing much good to anyone. In a “State of AI in Business 2025” report, researchers at MIT Media Lab found that despite enterprise investments of as much as $40 billion in generative AI, 95% of organizations have seen no return on their investment so far. “Just 5% of integrated AI pilots are extracting millions in value, while the vast majority remain stuck with no measurable P&L [profit and loss] impact,” the report reads. “This divide does not seem to be driven by model quality or regulation, but seems to be determined by approach.” Tools like OpenAI’s Chat GPT and Microsoft’s Copilot have been widely tested, with more than 80% of organizations either exploring them or using them in pilot programs. But while these tools boost individual productivity, when it comes to overall P&L, there’s very little measurable impact, the study found. Enterprise-level AI systems aren’t doing a lot to impress either. While 60% of the enterprise companies that the researchers spoke with said they evaluated these tools, only 20% made it as far as the pilot stage. And just 5% took those to a full production model. A lack of contextual learning, brittle workflows, and misalignment with day-to-day operations were cited as the chief reasons the tools were rejected. The slop problem Behavioral researcher BetterUp Labs, in collaboration with the Stanford Social Media Lab, says it has identified one possible reason enterprise companies are rejecting AI: slop. Employees, the two labs say, are using AI tools to create low-effort, passable-looking work. They’ve taken to calling this “workslop”well-formatted slides, reports, summaries, or code that might seem helpful at first, but that ultimately prove to be incomplete or missing context, shifting the burden of work to someone else. “Of 1,150 U.S.-based full-time employees across industries, 40% report having received workslop in the last month,” the groups wrote. “Employees who have encountered workslop estimate that an average of 15.4% of the content they receive at work qualifies.” There is one advantage for workers when it comes to AI not living up to its billing: Job losses, so far, haven’t been as bad as doomsayers have predicted. Should more companies stick with AI integration, however, that could change. “While most implementations don’t drive head count reduction, organizations that have crossed the GenAI Divide are beginning to see selective workforce impacts in customer support, software engineering, and administrative functions,” the report reads. Dispelling doom When it works, AI can cut back-office operational expensesfor example, in administration, finance, and human resourcesthe MIT researchers found. In addition, it can improve customer retention and sales conversion by using automated outreach and by following up intelligently. Best of all, few of these improvements come with a human cost. “Early results suggest that learning-capable systems, when targeted at specific processes, can deliver real value, even without major organizational restructuring,” the report reads. That’s likely a relief to some workers who have heard little but fatalistic scenarios. In July, for instance, Aravind Srinivas, the CEO of Perplexity, warned that recruiters and executive assistants could be made extraneous as AI browsers become more prevalent. And in May, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei told Axios that AI could wipe out roughly 50% of all entry-level white-collar jobs within five years, which he said could cause unemployment to spike to between 10% and 20%. That warning, he said, was aimed at both lawmakers and his peers in the AI world. “Most of them are unaware that this is about to happen,” Amodei said. “It sounds crazy, and people just don’t believe it. . . . We, as the producers of this technology, have a duty and an obligation to be honest about what is coming.”
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E-Commerce
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