Skip to main content

The context you need, when you need it

When news breaks, you need to understand what actually matters — and what to do about it. At Vox, our mission to help you make sense of the world has never been more vital. But we can’t do it on our own.

We rely on readers like you to fund our journalism. Will you support our work and become a Vox Member today?

Join now

Recode Daily: Has Snapchat peaked? And understanding Alex Jones’s platform bans.

Plus, Facebook wants your bank to hand over your financial data; Spotify CEO Daniel Ek’s playlist for global music domination; it’s okay to talk about Dwight Club.

Two men take a selfie
Two men take a selfie
Dan Istitene / Getty

Has Snapchat already stopped growing? When Snap reports its second-quarter results today after the market close, the consensus from analysts is that its audience will have grown by just one million daily active users. At least one analyst, RBC’s Mark Mahaney, thinks it won’t grow at all. That’s not what you want to hear if you’re a Snapchat investor, especially just six quarters into life as a public company. [Kurt Wagner / Recode]

[Want to get the Recode Daily in your inbox? Subscribe here.]

YouTube removed Infowars host Alex Jones’s page yesterday, which had 2.4 million followers, after earlier bans from Facebook, Spotify and Apple. For now, the Infowars app is still available in Apple’s U.S. iPhone App Store. And the infowars.com site is still live — it would be nearly impossible to silence him on the open web. But the bans will hurt. In media, distribution is king. And Jones, whose Infowars spreads conspiracy theories and misinformation, is no longer welcome on many of the world’s largest video and spoken-audio distribution platforms. [Dan Frommer / Recode]

The New York City Council is preparing to approve a one-year cap on new licenses for ride-sharing firms — including Uber — as part of a series of regulations designed to decrease traffic and stop drivers’ compensation from declining. The regulations are set for a Wednesday vote; if approved, New York would be the first U.S. city to impose a bottom limit on drivers’ compensation. [Henry Goldman / Bloomberg]

Here’s Spotify’s playlist for global domination — an inside look at how central CEO Daniel Ek’s own character is to his plans to beat Apple, Amazon and Google at the streaming music game. Let’s start with Ek’s personal competition to lose body fat, his introverted, attention-deflecting style and Spotify’s unconventional April IPO. [Robert Safian / Fast Company]

Joanna Coles resigned from her position as chief content officer at Hearst Magazines following the appointment of Troy Young as the company’s new president. The selection of Young signaled the company’s intention to move more deeply into digital media, but it apparently alienated its other star executive. Here’s Kara Swisher’s Recode Decode interview with Coles from this past April. [Jaclyn Peiser / The New York Times]

Now that Apple has exceeded $1 trillion in market capitalization, is the company the future of capitalism? Without investing significantly in hard assets, Apple spins cash and returns it to shareholders at a stunning rate. It’s difficult not to admire. But the model that has been perfected at Apple is risky and imitated poorly by many American corporations. The next decade will reveal whether these imitations were a series of brilliant moves or large-scale financial engineering. [Mihir A. Desai / The New York Times]

This is cool

It’s okay to talk about Dwight Club.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

See More:

More in Technology

Podcasts
Are humanoid robots all hype?Are humanoid robots all hype?
Podcast
Podcasts

AI is making them better — but they’re not going to be doing your chores anytime soon.

By Avishay Artsy and Sean Rameswaram
Future Perfect
The old tech that could help stop the next airborne pandemicThe old tech that could help stop the next airborne pandemic
Future Perfect

Glycol vapors, explained.

By Shayna Korol
Future Perfect
Elon Musk could lose his case against OpenAI — and still get what he wantsElon Musk could lose his case against OpenAI — and still get what he wants
Future Perfect

It’s not about who wins. It’s about the dirty laundry you air along the way.

By Sara Herschander
Life
Why banning kids from AI isn’t the answerWhy banning kids from AI isn’t the answer
Life

What kids really need in the age of artificial intelligence.

By Anna North
Culture
Anthropic owes authors $1.5B for pirating work — but the claims process is a Kafkaesque messAnthropic owes authors $1.5B for pirating work — but the claims process is a Kafkaesque mess
Culture

“Your AI monster ate all our work. Now you’re trying to pay us off with this piece of garbage that doesn’t work.”

By Constance Grady
Future Perfect
Some deaf children are hearing again because of a new gene therapySome deaf children are hearing again because of a new gene therapy
Future Perfect

A medical field that almost died is quietly fixing one disease at a time.

By Bryan Walsh