The Swedish Furniture Horror Novel

The Right to Repair. Friday we mentioned that New York is officially the first state to pass a law concerning customers’ right to repair electronics. Called “The Fair Repair Act,” this law puts power in the hands of consumers as well as independent repair shops, and also could be a step in the right direction towards reducing the environmental footprint we leave from our electronics. It also establishes another lowest-common-denominator territorial regulation that will become defacto standard for businesses who want to engage consumers in the State of New York will need to adapt to.

The Wikipedia-editor-to-crypto-watchdog Pipeline. Wikipedia editor and arbitration committee member, Molly White, is now serving as a watchdog for crypto projects with questionable practices. What started as a Wikipedia article (she has over 100,000 edits to her name) is now a full-fledged effort to document and uncover the potential grey-hat techniques and predatory projects that seem to be pervasive in the space. 

‍Editor’s note: Meanwhile, Salesforce today launched an NFT Cloud, which will give further credibility to the space and no-doubt lure in more CMO and CDO buzz. A rise in legitimate projects in the space would be welcome, but the stain from the past year of “grifter” and “get rich quick” schemes will leave an undesired aftertaste left to linger for quite a while.

The Barbie “Dreama-verse”? Forever 21 and Mattel are collabing on a limited-edition collection of Barbie fashion products for Roblox. The collection will also be available at Forever 21 locations in real life.

Tops or Bottoms? We recently shared a list of businesses to legitimately support Pride month, rather than the businesses just trying to cash in on it. This is not that. Maybe. Depends on who you ask. The Austrian Whopper Pride campaign by Burger King is awash with buzz. Some really like it, though, if only ironically. As one Twitter user said “[I] wasnt on board until a friend called them the topper and whottom…”

Coffee on the Rocks. Starbucks is looking for a new CEO and has decided to pursue only candidates outside the company citing the need for a broader set of expertise. Meanwhile, the company also closed a location in Ithaca, New York, giving workers a week’s notice. Union organizers are calling it illegal, as it was one of the stores who voted to unionize. Starbucks says the closure was unrelated to the unionization.

Oh, the Horror. Check out HORRORSTÖR, a horror fiction novel that takes place in a ripoff IKEA called ORSK. The book itself is formatted like an IKEA catalog complete with leaflets and a tear-out order form. Each chapter is a product name, with plenty of Swedish named in-jokes to be found. This is a deeply inspirational project to Future Commerce co-founder Brian: “should we launch a fictional universe for FC?” ABSÖLUTËN.