Techscape: The biggest tech stories of 2023 – from cyber warfare to AI’s ‘existential risk’
TechScape newsletter
TechScape: Has online shopping left us in a desperate race to the bottom?
TikTok staff told to avoid flagging problems with Amazon accounts
Five years and 2m copies later, self-published author lands UK book deal
Etsy lays off 225 workers after ‘essentially flat’ sales, says CEO
Looking for an online bargain? Beware of exploding batteries, dangerous toys, even socks that can burn you …
November 2023
Online marketplaces report surge in sales of secondhand goods
TechScape newsletter
TechScape: Why billions in sanctions can’t bring down Binance
UK shoppers expected to buy fewer Black Friday goods amid cost of living crisis
Changpeng Zhao: another crypto king is dethroned by America’s courts
Ex-owners of sex work site Backpage convicted of prostitution scheme
Weapons banned in UK apparently found on shopping app Temu
Amazon shows ‘contempt’ for UK law over parcel thefts
The networker
How did Sam Bankman-Fried attract investors? Well, Fomo probably helped
John Naughton
Ex-minister Gavin Williamson warned as he takes job at payment card provider
Shop like a billionaire? I bought six items from Temu – the app that’s sweeping the world
The problem with Sam Bankman-Fried? We wanted to believe in him
Josie Cox
October 2023
Observer business profile
Fridge magnate: John Roberts, the man who founded AO World ‘for a bet’
The boss who sells us appliances by the thousand is chilled about Mike Ashley’s stake in the company, but hot on recycling and the need for the rich to give back
TechScape newsletter
TechScape: Crypto in the dock, Musk in the frame and fiendish puzzles – three chilling tales for Halloween
Gather round and hear three of the latest scary stories from Silicon Valley and beyond that will frighten you long after the candy is eaten
The big idea
The big idea: has the digital economy killed capitalism?
Rather than turbo-charging the free market, Amazon et al have brought back a kind of feudalism