The psychological effect behind “Line Culture”
Welcome to Wednesday futurists.
Before you queue for your next coffee or bagel, you might want to check if you’re a “completionist.” There’s a hidden psychological reason why we’re all waiting to get into the “hottest” new places.
Speaking of queue, Alon Turchin of Particle did no such thing when he went from sending 1M emails per month to 10M emails per month with this week’s sponsor, Klaviyo.
He did it all with their newest product release, Composer, which found tons of opportunity for the breakout DTC brand to build flows and segments they were otherwise failing to recognize.
See how AI helped drive millions in revenue for their brand in our latest podcast over on our YouTube channel.
— Phillip
“That’s when I carried you.”
Target’s Roundel RMN business is having a “one set of footprints in the sand” moment for their parent company.
Advertising revenue climbed to $246 million from $163 million; overall non-merchandise revenue grew nearly 25%, and gross margin expanded 80 basis points to 29%, earning Roundel its own mention in the earnings call as a “margin driver.”
Target’s not alone.
Walmart Connect posted 37% global ad revenue growth (44% in the US, excluding VIZIO), and just folded Sam's Club's ad business into the same umbrella under Chief Growth Officer Seth Dallaire while acquiring the CTV platform Vibe.co.
Kroger Precision Marketing profit grew more than 20% in the same quarter, and Kroger's eCom business, including media, turned profitable for the first time.
Our Take: The word at Cannes Lions was that we will see many new Commerce Media Networks before year’s end, including an effort to form an industry-wide consortium across ad networks to self-regulate before regulators, ahem, *mount up.*
Let Freedom Ring (through to voicemail for 250 years).
“America's Time Capsule” was buried at Philadelphia's Independence National Historical Park on July 4. The 900-pound stainless steel cylinder was sealed in early June and sunk just ten feet below ground under a law Congress passed back in 2016.
It won't be opened again until 2276.
Built by the NIST's fabrication technology office (an agency of the Department of Commerce, mind you), the capsule holds contributions from all 50 states, five territories, DC, and all three branches of government.
But what’s inside? Commercial goods, of course, that reflect the state of our culture; alongside civic contributions from the fifty United States.
Alongside a pocket Constitution signed by sitting Supreme Court Justices and a molecular DNA storage device from the Library of Congress, America250 packed an iPhone 17 Pro Max and a Coca-Cola bottle preserving sheet music for the Coca-Cola jingle “I'd Like to Buy America a Coke.”
Time capsules are a snapshot of our culture; Phillip's own capsule rabbit hole eventually became a VISIONS keynote arguing brands might outlast the languages that named them.
Let’s just hope that the battery in the iPhone doesn’t blow up before the unearthing.
“Keep your gates high and your lines short.”
Line Culture is under attack (again). “What’s the best coffee/bagel/pizza in NYC? The best bagel in New York is the one that is closest to your front door,” argues a subway passenger in a recently recirculated Subway Takes interview with Kareem Rahma.
As we wrote in The Senses last week, utility objects become desirable when we introduce performative friction. But there’s an additional dimension that social media adds beyond the awareness or presence of a place or a line: it’s the formation of a list.
Circulating lists that have the “best” of anything consumable triggers the Zeigarnik effect, the compulsion for human need to complete things. It’s the reason why to-do lists and closing rings on your Apple Watch work so well; but it might also be why Line Culture is thriving.
“Lists shouldn’t exist,” the interviewee goes on. Kill the list, and you might just kill the line.
Which makes us wonder—if listicles, and, ultimately, BuzzFeed—are to blame for the present state of the world.
China’s the new AI agent rulemaker.
Beijing's State Administration for Market Regulation and Ministry of Commerce (that really rolls off the tongue) released a 20-provision draft amendment to its 2019 E-Commerce Law, now open for comment through August 4th.
The major change? A sweeping addendum to give it greater control beyond platforms and merchants, to now oversee payments, logistics, and, most notably, AI shopping assistants.
Our Take: FC Contributor Mike Mallazzo has argued in the past that the real fight with China was never about tariffs, but rather about who owns the customer relationship. Beijing is now drafting the rulebook for the agentic layer while US regulators are still arguing about what an agent even is.
We’re seeing this elsewhere in patchwork regulatory action and in working group leadership; from Montana’s ‘Right to Compute Act’ to NY State’s RAISE Act, which creates new regulatory oversight for “foundation models” over $500M in revenue. So much so that President Trump signed an Executive Order in December of 2025 to consolidate AI regulation at the Federal level under the U.S. Department of Commerce’s BEAD Program.
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