🖼️ Instagram’s NFT play, explained

Zuck teased it at SXSW in March and now it’s here: NFTs for the ‘gram.

According to a video from Instagram head Adam Mosseri, users will be able to display NFTs they’ve made or bought in their feed, Stories, and messages next week.

They’ll appear as “digital collectibles” that list both the owner and creator — and they’ll shimmer, apparently.

The feature will roll out 1st to a handful of US users including actress Cynthia Erivo, VaynerMedia CEO Gary Vaynerchuk (his NFT project is called VeeFriends), and artist Elise Swopes, per TechCrunch.

Mosseri said they’re starting out small because Instagram wants to “learn from the community.”

Zuck also announced…

…that NFTs will make their way to Facebook, and Instagram will eventually get augmented reality NFTs that users can post to Stories using Spark AR — Meta’s AR studio, AKA the tool people use to make all those filters.

Per Mosseri, this is all part of a broader strategy to help creators earn money…

… but will they?

Instagram already serves as an ecommerce platform, so it makes sense that people would eventually be able to buy, sell, and trade NFTs there.

But earlier this week, a report from The Wall Street Journal declared the NFT market is “collapsing.” A daily average of 19k NFTs were sold the 1st week of May, compared to 225k in September — a 92% drop.

Zach Friedman, co-founder of crypto brokerage Secure Digital Markets, told WSJ what stands out now are “utility” NFTs, which come with perks like bottles of wine or lifetime Coachella passes.

Would that work for Instagram?

Well, we know Meta is all about the metaverse, including its Horizon Worlds — a digital platform where users can build worlds and experiences and interact with each other.

Zuck previously talked about how even the clothes your avatar wears could be NFTs, and hinted people could use Instagram to mint NFTs in the future.

To that end, it’s possible creators could produce and sell NFTs that correspond to digital items for use across the metaverse, or access to virtual events or venues.

Perhaps one day, your avatar will even be able to mint or buy itself some legs.

If you’ve ever wondered just how passionate people are about free samples at Costco, look no further than these 2 incidents:

• 2015: At a Southern California Costco, a 78-year-old was punched in the face after accusing a 24-year-old of hogging too many Nutella waffle samples. An arrest was made.
• 2018: At a South Carolina Costco, 2 septuagenarians on a cheeseburger sample binge got into a spat over line etiquette that ended in a hat-flying slap to the face.

It may seem odd that a few small nibbles on toothpicks would incite violence. But this conduct is rooted in behavioral psychology.

In short, free stuff makes us do very strange, irrational things.

In this feature, we look at how “free” affects consumer behavior across 3 areas: grocery stores, shipping, and online content.

Remote work has infiltrated every industry — but none more than tech.

Between January 2020 and February 2022, remote tech jobs are up 420%+ in the US. For context, that’s a jump from 4.4% to 22%+ of total tech jobs.

And now, thanks to a combination of macroeconomic factors, many of those same jobs are moving abroad, per WSJ.

Where are they going?

One popular destination is Canada, due to its comparatively lax immigration policy for tech workers:

• The US issues 65k visas for skilled workers annually, plus 20k for workers who hold graduate degrees from American universities.
• Canada doesn’t cap its visas for incoming tech workers, resulting in an influx of immigrants from China, India, and Eastern Europe in recent years.

This difference in immigration policy is one reason Toronto, which has added more tech jobs than any other city in North America since 2016 (81k), has been called the next Silicon Valley.

In the US…

… many tech companies are desperate for new hires. The unemployment rate for tech jobs was 1.3% in March — the lowest it’s been since 2019.

Critics argue that if the US doesn’t change its immigration policy to bring in more skilled workers, it could lose its crown as the global leader in technology and innovation.

One company that’s benefitting from the mismatch between America’s visa supply and tech job demand? MobSquad, which pairs American tech companies with foreign workers, then helps them move to Canada.