💦 Anti-tourist protests

…and Etsy's "Amazonification"

(Paco Freire/Getty Images) Warm welcome in Barcelona Sponsored by Yesterday's market moves Dow Jones 39,721 (+1.09%) S&P 500 5,634 (+1.02%) Nasdaq 18,647 (+1.18%) Bitcoin $57,431 (-1.06%) Dow Jones 39,721 (+1.09%) S&P 500 5,634 (+1.02%) Nasdaq 18,647 (+1.18%) Bitcoin $57,431 (-1.06%) Hey Snackers, Chip prices are popping, and this time we're not talkin' Nvidia. The cost of a 16-ounce bag of potato chips is up 30% since 2020. Now more Americans are laying off the Lay's.  Stocks jumped again yesterday, led by tech, after Fed Chair Powell said the US central bank needed to keep a close eye on the labor market. Some traders took that as a sign that the Fed was moving closer to rate cuts. Today all eyes are on June inflation #s. 📨 Got a question about personal finance? Send it to Sherwood's new personal-finance columnist at advice@sherwood.news. We may feature it on Sherwood News. WET-TAPAS Tourists are sprayed with water guns in Barcelona as overtourism heats up Sightseeing gets awkward… Nearly 3K protesters hit the streets of Barcelona over the weekend to rail against overtourism in the Spanish city. Some protesters sprayed water guns at tourists eating on restaurant patios (it's hard to enjoy your tapas while folks are yelling at you to go home). The protesters included Barcelona locals, housing activists, and neighborhood associations. They blame the city's lack of affordable housing on short-term rentals filled by visitors, and they're fed up with overcrowding. Airbnbye: Last month Barcelona said it would ban short-term rentals by 2029. But NYC's short-term-rental ban, which started last year, doesn't seem to have helped much. By the #s: 26M tourists visited Barcelona last year, bringing nearly $14B in spending to the city. That's sharply up from 20M visitors before the pandemic. So over tourism… Protests have broken out in other Spanish vacation hotspots like Majorca, Málaga, and the Canary Islands. It's not just Spain: overtourism is a global issue and top destinations are rolling out restrictions to curb it. Instagram-(in)famous locations like Bali and Iceland now charge a tourist tax. Japan's Mount Fuji now has a daily cap on visitors and there's a toll on one of its popular hiking trails. Alaska last month limited cruise-ship passengers. Overtourism has worsened since the postpandemic "revenge travel" boom kicked in. Venice's visitor numbers soared from 13M in 2019 to 20M last year. The city of 50K residents recently intro'd a Disneyland-style entrance fee for daytrippers. Greece had 33M visitors last year, and arrivals into Athens topped prepandemic levels. The country's looking to limit cruise-ship passengers, and Athens capped Acropolis on-lookers at 20K/day. THE TAKEAWAY It's a tricky balancing act… Most spots that struggle with overtourism also rely heavily on tourism spending, which creates jobs. Tourism made up 12% of Spain's GDP in 2022, and over 10% of Italy's last year. Now officials must juggle between preserving residents' quality of life and keeping tourists' $$ flowing. Read this online Sponsored by Boxabl Housing needs a factory reset  The production obstruction… Tesla and Ford produce a car every minute. The US has long struggled to meet the demand for homes… So why haven't we tried building houses as efficiently as cars? New build: That's the question BOXABL was built upon. With their patented technology, they hope to lead the way in mass produced housing — and it starts with BOXABL's flagship Casita that can be stacked and unpacked to make affordable homes. Here's how BOXABL is scaling up: 🏡 600+ Casitas built and 190,000+ reservations.* 🏗️  3 factory buildings with state-of-the-art equipment currently being installed. 🛒 Casitas selling across 12 states, with 80+ BOXABL dealers signed… and counting!  BOXABL have opened their investment round to all investors, with shares starting at $0.80.** Discover more about becoming a BOXABL shareholder here. Sponsored by Boxabl Housing needs a factory reset  The production obstruction… Tesla and Ford produce a car every minute. The US has long struggled to meet the demand for homes… So why haven't we tried building houses as efficiently as cars? New build: That's the question BOXABL was built upon. With their patented technology, they hope to lead the way in mass produced housing — and it starts with BOXABL's flagship Casita that can be stacked and unpacked to make affordable homes. Here's how BOXABL is scaling up: 🏡 600+ Casitas built and 190,000+ reservations.* 🏗️  3 factory buildings with state-of-the-art equipment currently being installed. 🛒 Casitas selling across 12 states, with 80+ BOXABL dealers signed… and counting!  BOXABL have opened their investment round to all investors, with shares starting at $0.80.** Discover more about becoming a BOXABL shareholder here. PATCHED Etsy tries to protect its handcrafted charm against mass-production marketplaces Hand-crocheted cat beanie… Etsy is the go-to online marketplace for handmade and curated goods. Yesterday it updated its policies to clarify its focus on unique items in an era of mega-marketplaces like Amazon. Sellers' wares now have to fit into one of four categories: "made by" for handcrafted items; "designed by" for digital art; "handpicked by" for vintage goods; and "sourced by" for materials like beads and clay. A new ad promoting the policy shows ceramicists and other artisans doin' their thing, followed by a robotic arm getting crushed (point taken). Unravel: Etsy's biz boomed during the pandemic, fueled by mask sales and home decor, but last quarter merch sales fell 4% from a year ago. The crafty co's stock is down nearly 30% this year, and in December it laid off 11% of its staff. "Amazonification" problem… Etsy's struggled to keep mass-produced (and, more recently, AI-designed) knickknacks off its platform. When it started allowing sellers to outsource some of their work in 2013 (like: send a custom shirt design to a factory for production), it opened the door to "drop shippers": people who upsell items from suppliers like AliExpress without ever touching the product. It's long been Etsy's policy that humans need to have a (literal) hand in making the products they list, but thousands of Etsy sellers who went on strike in 2022 said mass-produced items have been crowding out artisan goods. THE TAKEAWAY Be yourself. Amazon's already taken… Not every retailer can (or should) be the "Everything Store" (aka Amazon). CEO Josh Silverman said Etsy's competitive difference is its "human touch," because as folks hit up Amazon for an $18 six-pack of plain shirts, they'll head to Etsy for custom "Emily's Bachelorette" tees. While Etsy's under investor pressure to grow, Silverman said the solution to competing with mass marketplaces is "not to try to play that game." Read this online What else we're Snackin' Q&A: In an unprecedented move, the FTC banned social-media app NGL from hosting minors. The regulator said NGL (which lets users post anonymous questions) was marketing to kids while exposing them to cyberbullying. Fast: Shein said it would invest $270M over the next five years largely on clothes-recycling tech as it preps for a potential London IPO. Fast fashion contributes to 92M tons of textile waste a year. Samstrike: The union representing 31K Samsung Electronics workers announced an indefinite strike. The world's biggest memory-chip maker and its workers are fighting over pay and policies. Closed: Apple and Microsoft have reportedly walked back planned board roles at OpenAI. Regulators have voiced concerns that Microsoft has too much control over the genAI giant (Microsoft's invested billions in it). Levels: Microsoft's raising prices for some Xbox Game Pass subscribers and launching a cheaper standard tier. The hike comes as Microsoft plans to add "Call of Duty: Black Ops 6" to Game Pass. Snack Fact of the Day The median homebuyer age is 49, 10 years higher than two decades ago Thursday US consumer-price index for June Earnings expected from PepsiCo, Delta, and Conagra Authors of this Snacks own shares of: Amazon, Apple, Delta, Microsoft, and Nvidia Advertiser's disclosures: * Reservations do not require purchase of a Casita and there is no assurance of how many will result in actual purchases. ** Minimum investment in BOXABL is $1000. This is a paid advertisement for the Boxabl Inc. Regulation A offering. Please read the offering circular and related risks at www.boxabl.com/invest#circular. Start-up investments are speculative and involve a high degree of risk. Those investors who cannot afford to lose their entire investment should not invest in start-ups. Companies seeking startup investment tend to be in earlier stages of development and their business model, products and services may not yet be fully developed, operational or tested in the public marketplace. 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