In this week’s newsletter, we talk about Coldplay’s tickets, big tech, a chat with our CEO and more.
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Quote of the day 
“Expect the best. Prepare for the worst. Capitalize on what comes.” — Zig Ziglar
The Coldplay and BookMyShow Ticketing Frenzy!
You’re out for brunch on a peaceful Sunday, when suddenly, you notice people seated around, all doing the same thing — heads down, fingers racing across their phones. You wonder what’s going on, until someone excitedly shouts, “I got them!”
That’s when it hits you. It’s Coldplay ticket booking day, and it’s 12 noon — the exact moment tickets for their concert went live on BookMyShow (BMS).
By 12:15 p.m., social media was ablaze with stories of waiting lists, app crashes and disappointed fans lamenting their missed chance at the concert of the decade.
For the uninitiated, Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres World Tour has been a phenomenon, grossing over $1 billion, becoming the first tour to hit that milestone. Naturally, the excitement was palpable, especially for those who’ve grown up with their music. But with great excitement comes even greater chaos. And the BMS app didn’t stand a chance. It crashed almost immediately. And if you were one of the lucky few who managed to stay logged in, the tickets vanished faster than you could say “Viva La Vida”.
But let’s be honest. The odds were never in our favour.
Just think about it. The D Y Patil Stadium, where Coldplay will perform in January 2025, can accommodate around 50,000 people. Add another 10,000 for standing room, and that’s 1.8 lakh tickets across three shows. But with 1.3 crore people vying for those tickets, each of us had just a measly 1.3% chance of snagging one. It’s no wonder that Instagram was flooded with waitlist screenshots stretching into the lakhs.
And when demand skyrockets like this, a black market is almost inevitable.
Tickets originally priced between ₹3,500 and ₹35,000 were soon popping up on resale platforms like Viagogo, with some going for as much as ₹10 lakhs. This trick, called scalping, is the digital age’s version of those touts outside theatres selling ‘black’ tickets at sky-high prices.
But, why is this happening?
You see, India’s concert scene is booming, especially post-pandemic. For context, just last year, the organised live events sector grew by 20%, generating a whopping ₹8,800 crores in revenue, even surpassing pre-pandemic numbers. And it’s only getting bigger! An EY report says that the number of concerts with over 5,000 attendees each, is expected to hit 300 by 2025. That’s 50% more than in 2018! Besides, concert revenues are expected to jump to ₹1,000 crore, up 25% from where we are now.
And if you look at Coldplay, the three shows alone are set to bring in over ₹100 crores in ticket sales. Throw in the surge in hotel bookings, flights and dining expenses, and the economic impact skyrockets. Nearby hotels are already quoting ₹5 lakhs for a three-night stay, with most rooms booked solid. It’s classic supply and demand.
Clearly, the industry is maturing, and the appetite for live events has never been stronger. But with this surge in enthusiasm, the flaws in our ticketing systems have become glaringly obvious.
So, how do we put an end to this frenzy, you ask?
One possible solution is to adopt a model like airports use — requiring tickets to be linked to barcodes and verified with Aadhaar. But checking Aadhaar cards for 1.5 lakh people would be a logistical and privacy nightmare, right?
Another approach could be inspired by Zomato’s ‘book now, sell anytime’ feature, which allows users to resell their tickets through the platform. You list your ticket at a fixed price, pay a small fee, and when it sells, you get your money back. But this system isn’t foolproof either, as scalpers could still take advantage of this, buying tickets only to flip them for profit.
This leaves us with a potential fix that everyone’s buzzing about — NFTs or non-fungible tokens.
Imagine you draw a picture and give it to your friend. It’s one of a kind, and no one else can claim ownership. That’s essentially what an NFT is, except it’s digital. It represents ownership of a unique item. So, if Coldplay tickets were NFTs, each ticket would have a unique identity, like a fingerprint. This would make it much harder for scalpers to resell tickets at inflated prices, as event organisers would know exactly who owns each ticket and who’s trying to sell it.
And there’s already proof that NFTs can work for ticketing.
You could look at Thailand’s Wonderfruit festival. They switched to NFT ticketing and managed to reward concertgoers. Or even Coachella, one of the biggest music festivals in the US. It adopted NFT tickets to protect fans from the inflated resale market as well as pass on numerous benefits.
Plus, NFT tickets could offer extra perks — exclusive merchandise, backstage passes or even lifetime event access. Few of Coachella’s NFT ticket holders were granted lifetime festival access, benefiting both the festival and original buyers as prices soared.
So, exploring NFTs to solve India’s ticketing troubles is definitely worth a shot.
It could make scalping a thing of the past, give event organisers more control and ensure tickets go to genuine fans instead of opportunistic resellers.
After all, with India’s concert economy growing so rapidly, the ticketing system needs to evolve to keep pace. And NFTs might be a way to address this challenge, alongside other innovations in this developing market. As the music and ticketing market in India continues to expand too, we could see new solutions emerge. And who knows, maybe even virtual events on the horizon.
For now, many of us will have to settle for watching Chris Martin from our living rooms. But with better technology and fairer practices, perhaps next time we’ll have a better chance at being there?
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Is Big Tech really carbon neutral?
Companies, big and small, are proudly announcing their carbon-neutral status, and it’s all the rage these days.
But what does it actually mean when a company claims to be carbon-neutral?
Think of it as an exercise to erase all the environmental harm they’ve caused—their carbon footprint. This includes the total greenhouse gases they emit. So, being carbon neutral is a mix of cutting emissions and investing in projects that absorb CO2. The goal is to leave no net impact on the environment. Sounds great, right?
Now, it all sounds good in theory. But are these companies really doing what they claim? Well, a recent report from the Guardian put some big tech giants under the microscope.1
And here’s what it found. Companies like Google, Microsoft, Meta, Apple, and Amazon have been boasting about their carbon neutrality or reducing emissions for years. But from 2020 to 2022, these big U.S. internet companies’ real emissions were about 7.6 times higher than what they officially claimed. For a bit of perspective, since 2019, the emissions from these companies have been greater than the total emissions from all Bitcoin mining since its inception in 2009.2
And, the culprit behind this is their data centres. These massive facilities are the lifeblood of big tech operations, but they’re churning out more carbon dioxide than reported.
Think of these data centres as the beating heart of the internet. Inside, they store and process all the data for websites, cloud storage, streaming services, and even Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools like ChatGPT.
Every time you send an email, stream a video or open a cloud file, your request passes through a data centre somewhere. They’re essential to keeping the online world running smoothly, but they are also incredibly power-hungry. In fact, the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimated that in 2022, data centres were responsible for 1% to 1.5% of global electricity consumption.
And that was before the AI boom took off.
And now, tech giants are pouring billions into AI development, which means even more energy consumption. Sundar Pichai has even called Google an “AI-first” company. Meta is adding chatbots, and Apple is partnering with OpenAI to develop Siri’s future. It’s a full-blown AI race, and data centres are working overtime to keep up.3
In fact, a single ChatGPT query uses ten times more energy than a regular Google search. To put it another way, the energy used for one ChatGPT query could power a light bulb for 20 minutes. Now imagine that multiplied by millions of queries every day!
And as we move towards more advanced AI solutions, this energy demand will only continue to skyrocket. A Goldman Sachs report predicts that by 2030, energy consumption from data centres could grow by 160%, contributing to even more carbon emissions. And in countries like the U.S., much of this energy still comes from burning fossil fuels like coal and gas.
Morgan Stanley has also chimed in, estimating that data centres could emit 2.5 billion metric tons of CO2 by 2030. That’s massive!
But how are these tech giants reporting lower emissions than reality in the first place?
It comes down to some clever accounting tricks.
You see, most of these companies rely on ‘renewable energy certificates’ (RECs) to meet their green energy targets. These certificates let them buy credits from renewable projects, like wind or solar farms, allowing them to claim a share of the environmental benefits without generating the energy themselves.
But here’s the catch. The renewable energy doesn’t have to power their operations directly. So, a data centre might still run on coal-powered electricity, but by purchasing RECs, it can technically say it’s using renewable energy on paper.
This lets companies claim carbon neutrality without really changing the way they operate.4
For instance, an estimate suggests that 78% of Amazon’s US energy comes from non-renewable sources. The company’s creative carbon accounting techniques (RECs) allow it to sidestep environmental responsibility on paper, giving the impression that it is doing a great job. The same is true for other tech giants.
And even if we strip away the RECs and focus on the actual energy consumed, the picture changes dramatically. If Big Tech were a country, their combined emissions in 2022 would make them the 33rd largest emitter globally, between the Philippines and Algeria.
But again, the discrepancies between what’s reported and what’s real are massive here.
Take Meta. While they reported 273 metric tons of CO2 from their data centres in 2022, the real number, accounting for location-based emissions, was over 3.8 million metric tons. That’s a 14,000-fold difference. Microsoft had a similar story, with a 21-fold gap between reported and actual emissions.
Now, if you’re wondering what location-based emissions are, they simply measure the actual carbon footprint based on where the electricity is generated. Say a data centre is running in region ‘A’ that uses coal or gas to generate electricity; the emissions will be much higher than in region ‘B’ that is powered by clean energy like wind or solar. So, while this looks good on paper, it doesn’t change the fact that they’re still relying on fossil fuels.
And here’s another layer to the problem: many tech companies lease capacity from third-party data centres. These are called “scope 3” emissions and are notoriously difficult to track. Whether these emissions are fully accounted for in their reports is still a big question mark.
So, how do we solve this, you ask?
Well, by holding tech giants accountable and pushing them to address the damage. Fortunately, it seems like they’re starting to take notice, at least for now.
Google, for example, has pledged to run its data centres on renewable energy 24/7 by 2030, eliminating the need for RECs entirely. Microsoft is setting a similar goal, aiming to use 100% carbon-free energy 100% of the time by that same year.
But again, not all companies are on board with this level of commitment.
So, while Big Tech’s promises of carbon neutrality sound great on paper, the reality is a bit more complex.
If the industry truly wants to reduce its carbon footprint, it’ll need more transparent reporting and serious investments in renewable energy infrastructure. Switching to location-based accounting would give us a more accurate picture of their emissions.
Ultimately, Big Tech’s lofty climate goals will only be credible if they reflect what’s happening on the ground. And right now, there’s a disconnect.
Money Myth Debunked 
Fact:
You see, different types of debt serve various purposes and can have distinct impacts on your financial health. Debt could be considered good if it helps you increase your assets and build credit responsibly.
The key to leveraging debt efficiently is to ensure that it is used strategically and managed responsibly, foreseeing long term benefits rather than immediate gratification.
Here’s a breakdown of why some debt can be considered good:
1/ Good Debt Builds Wealth: Debt used to acquire appreciating assets like real estate can help build long-term wealth. Student loans can be a form of good debt if they lead to better job prospects and higher earnings.
2/ Improves Credit Score: Taking on manageable debt and paying it off responsibly improves your credit score. A good credit score opens doors to better loan terms.
3/ Provides Tax Benefits: Some debts, like mortgage interest, are tax-deductible, lowering the effective cost of borrowing.
4/ Business Debt: Borrowing to expand a business or invest in new opportunities can lead to increased revenue and profits. This kind of debt can be a growth tool if the returns exceed the cost of borrowing.
Be careful to not take debt to invest in uncertain opportunities like the stock market. Bad debt usually comes from purchases that do not increase in value, drain your resources and limit financial growth.
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And that’s all for today folks!
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