Centives

Jet packs based on water propulsion are the next big tourist industry pull writes Jennifer Medina:

• On coastal towns people can enjoy 15 minutes of airtime for about $200.
• The activity is so popular that waiting lists can be up to a month long.
• Canny operators give tourists Facebook ready photos and high definition videos of the experience, professionally edited to fit their favourite song.
• At least one couple has gotten married while they were in the air.
• Supply is limited in part due to the cost of the jetpacks themselves – they used to cost $100,000 each. Nowadays though it’s possible to purchase one for as little as $10,000.
• Another factor constricting supply is officials cracking down on the practice due to complaints about noise and scared residents mistaking users of them for the beginnings of an alien invasion.

Read more about the business, what those who have tried it have to say about it, and more over here.

Source: The New York Times

Via: Marginal Revolution

The Economist took an exhaustive look at the sex industry. In particular they analyzed at the factors that affect supply and demand:

• Prices vary with the type of services provided – those who are willing to have sex with multiple individuals at the same time can make the most.
• They also vary with the physical attributes of the seller. Blonde women with long hair who are described as athletic and have at least a D have the highest earnings.
• In fact breast implants will make sense for many flat chested prostitutes who can upgrade to a D cup for $3,700. This will boost hourly wages by about $40 and pay for itself after 90 hours.
• Just like in other job markets having a degree boosts wages as well – likely because educated prostitutes have clients that are paying for longer, more intimate sessions, rather than just sex.

Then the news magazine delved into why hourly rates for prostitutes have tumbled:

• They have decreased by close to $100 an hour, and the global financial crisis explains at least some of that.
• Migration which has led to an influx of lower earning sex workers has also brought down prices.
• The rise of the internet has allowed more women to get into the trade more discretely further boosting supply.
• While demand has likely decreased – free sex is easier to find than ever before with apps such as Tinder, and the ease with which couples can get divorces means there are fewer sexually frustrated marriages.
• The internet has moderated the effects of demand shocks. During the 2008 Democratic and Republican national conventions an influx of prostitutes to the cities where they were held limited price increases.

Read more details, see visualizations of the data, and find out why The Economist ultimately supports legalizing prostitution over here.

Source: The Economist

Over at Vox Brad Plumer wrote an exceptionally good article about how casinos get players to play for extended periods:

• Casinos are designed so that guests don’t have to turn at 90 degree angles – doing so activates decision making sections of the brain, and they don’t want that.
• Slots are now responsible for up to 85% of a casino’s profits. Regulators have encouraged them as a cheap source of tax revenue in challenging economic times, without the negative stigmas associated with other types of gambling such as poker.
• Technological advances have let casinos better manipulate human emotions through slots. They used to be all or nothing machines, but these days the machine can give you 30 cents back if you play for a dollar – the brain registers such “partial wins” as real wins.
• Gambling houses these days come with ergonomic seats that don’t cut off circulation and allow players to stay seated for hours.
• They also design seats so that buttons are as close to the player as possible, requiring very little movement of them.
• Casinos have learnt that having players feed coins into machines gives them time to think. Instead they encourage the use of cards with magnetic stripes, so the money being lost seems less real.
• The stereotypical gambler in Las Vegas is now a 35 year old mother of two.

Read how casinos use food to retain your attention, why some players are irritated when they win the jackpot, how machines skirt the edge of the law by making adjustments to the volatility of machines based on your mood and much more over here.

Source: Vox

Hollywood is struggling, writes Pamela McClintock. They have to spend more money than ever before to convince people to go watch their films.

• The latest Transformers film has become China’s all-time top grossing film, making over $300 million.
• It only cost about $5 million to market the film in China – incredible returns when compared to the $100 million spent on advertising in North America.
• Marketing costs for films have shot through the roof; in 2007 the original Transformers spent $150 million on ads. Now ad campaigns are around the $200 million mark – a 33% increase.
• And marketing campaigns in general are becoming less effective. They rely heavily on television but there’s no one single show that commands a wide audience. So movies have to be advertised on multiple timeslots and networks.
• Yet television spots aren’t getting any cheaper. They can go for as much as $700,000.
• Executives seem to underappreciate the power of social media. They only spend about $1 million marketing on it, but it plays an outsized influence on people’s movie preferences.

Read more about how the Chinese government helps keep marketing costs down abroad, why movie revenues are trending down, and more over here.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

The Economist took a strong stand against streetcars:

• Proponents of streetcars note that they bring prosperity and development. Areas in Arizona, Washington D.C., and Texas are all considering implementing lines.
• However it’s much cheaper to build a bus line. The capital cost per mile of streetcars can go up to $75 million, while the equivalent amount for buses is just $30 million.
• Moreover buses are able to move around obstacles, while streetcars are stuck until the obstacle is removed. Thus more often than not streetcars adds to congestion rather than alleviate it.
• Streetcars are also slow, and typically have more frequent stops over walkable distances.
• Developers seem to like building them because they’re ‘sexier’ than buses and because they attract tourists. All in all though the benefits aren’t worth the costs.

Read more of the argument, find out why they work better in Europe, and see details of the cost-benefit analysis over here.

Source: The Economist

The American national security establishment did not react well to the Red Wedding

We’re in the golden age of television and pesky business like running the world shouldn’t get in the way of enjoying it. Molly Fitzpatrick wrote about the TV watching habits of the world’s foremost leaders:

• Think of any moderately popular TV show and Obama has probably claimed to have watched it. Critics suggest he has an addiction while others think he merely watches enough snippets to keep in touch with his young support base.
• The Queen of the United Kingdom visited the studio where Game of Thrones is filmed, but refused to say whether or not she watched it, and declined an opportunity to sit on the Iron Throne.
• Meanwhile her Prime Minister, David Cameron, loves murder mysteries so much he’s used them to justify his national security strategy.
• Biden – America’s Vice President – being Biden has admitted to watching the Toddlers and Tiaras spinoff “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo” on…Air Force One of all locations.
• In contrast the Dalai Lama professes a love for the Discovery Channel.
• Canada’s Prime Minister loves the Canadian Murdoch Mysteries so much he even made a cameo appearance on the show where he played a character who doesn’t recognize the Prime Minister.

Read more about the world leader who loved Mickey Mouse cartoons, the surprising individual whose obsessed with The West Wing, and what Popes past and present like to watch over here.

Source: The Guardian

Dashka Slater delved into the history of dog biscuits:

• In 1860 an in Ohioan noticed that stray dogs loved chowing down on the dry biscuits that sailors consumed on long voyages.
• Soon the man started packaging and selling them. At each 50 pound bag costing a day’s wages they were an upmarket product aimed at the wealthy.
• They’ve played a part in a murder mystery. In 1902 a prizewinning show dog was assassinated by what is widely believed to be a poison laced dog biscuit.
• The treats became bone shaped after another American inventor had trouble getting his pooch to eat a milk based version in 1907. He realized that shaping them as bones was all it took to convince the dog to try them.
• These days dog biscuits are a $2.6 billion a year market.
• Like human food they’ve also become loaded with more and more calories – over 50% of all American dogs are now thought to be obese.

Read more about the history of the dog biscuit, how they’re linked to margarine, and why the dogs might be taking pity on us by eating the biscuits over here.

Source: The New York Times

Adam Clark Estes was taken in by the majesty of New York’s Times Square:

• Times Square supports 385,000 jobs. Everybody from those designing the content on the digital billboards, to those working in the power plants that keep it all running, and even those who clean the rooms of hotels overlooking it owe their livelihood to the Square.
• Times Square creates about $110 billion every year – 11% of New York City’s economic output.
• It costs about $368 million a year in water, electricity, and greenhouse gasses to keep it all running.
• Digital billboards are so crucial to the city’s identity that a zoning code requires buildings in the area to have illuminated signs that meet minimum size requirements.
• The area was called Times Square after the New York Times set up an office there.
• That office has since been abandoned, and is now completely empty. It was more profitable for the real estate owners to just cover it in ads.
• Up to 460,000 pedestrians walk through and enjoy the spectacle every day.

Read more about the billboards, how they work, their past, and an overarching history of one of New York’s most famous landmarks over here.

Source: Gizmodo

Counterfeiting is a crime. Yet movies sometimes need to depict money on screen. Zachary Crockett wrote about what happens when the two clash:

• In the 1900s counterfeit money became a problem and the government banned its use in movies.
• Lucky for movie makers the Mexican revolution ended in 1920 and Mexican currency suddenly became worthless. It could then safely be used in movies.
• When that ran out directors went back to using real money. However as they got better and better at producing it they found that people (inadvertently or otherwise) started trying to spend it.
• The government cracked down, and one prop maker saw nearly $200 million of its fake money destroyed.
• These days movies will show a stack of bills where only the top bill is real currency. The rest is just blank sheets of paper unseen by the audience.
• Or a bank could loan a film the money. Bank guards closely monitor it during filming and it is carefully counted before and after the scene is shot.
• Some small firms also specialize in currency from specific eras. Such money is rented out for short durations to makers of historical films.

Read more and see how realistic movie money got, why the government cracked down on Rush Hour 2, and more over here.

Source: Priceonomics

Colman Andrews wrote about TastingRoom, a service for the wine drinking generation:

• TastingRoom is like a dating site…but for wine. It uses algorithms to figure out the wine that best suits an individual.
• Users pay $9.95 to get six mini-bottles of wine. They then rate the wine which allows the website to build a profile of the customer’s wine preferences.
• For $59.95 the users can then get a half case of wines tailored specifically to their preferences.

Read more about the service and how it works over here.

Source: The Daily Meal