There’s a term doing the rounds right now: surveillance pricing. The short version is that a company uses data it has collected about you, your location, your browsing habits, your income bracket, your postcode, to decide what price to show you for a product. Not a universal price. Your price. The one an algorithm has decided you’re likely to pay.

The Washington Post is now facing a class action over exactly this. The allegation is that subscription prices were personalised based on collected user data. Different people, different prices, same product.

Fifteen thousand tickets. That’s the number being thrown around in connection with the cancelled Candace Owens tour, and I’ll be honest, it took me a moment to process that.

I don’t know if it’s accurate. The figure apparently comes from a Turning Point Australia spokesperson who has every incentive to inflate it, and the Guardian doesn’t seem to have verified it independently. Could be fifteen thousand. Could be four thousand. Could be a lot of corporate freebies handed to people who wouldn’t have paid their own money. The number matters less than the shape of the story, which is: people paid for something, the company liquidated, and now the money is probably gone.

So I’ve been down a rabbit hole this week, sparked by a thread I stumbled across where someone had one of those “wait, how much am I actually spending on subscriptions?” moments. You know the feeling — you sit down, add it all up, and suddenly you’re staring at a number that makes you question your life choices. Netflix, Disney+, Prime, Spotify, maybe a Binge or Paramount+ thrown in for good measure… it adds up faster than you’d think.

An Italian court just ruled that Netflix unlawfully increased its prices, and consumers could be looking at refunds of up to 500 euros. Netflix, predictably, said they’ll appeal. And somewhere in a boardroom, I imagine a very expensive suit nodded slowly and said “of course we will.”

The online discussion this sparked has been fascinating — and honestly, a bit cathartic. Because a lot of us have been quietly stewing about this for years.

Right, so I’ve been down a bit of a rabbit hole this week, and honestly I’m still not entirely sure how to process what I’ve seen.

Chinese state media has released a second episode of their AI-generated animated series about the Iran conflict. Yes, you read that correctly. State-produced. AI-generated. Animated. War coverage. It’s a sentence I genuinely never expected to type, and yet here we are in 2025 where apparently this is just… a thing that exists now.

The recent by-election results have sparked an interesting phenomenon where satirical news outlets are delivering more accurate reporting than certain mainstream media channels. Sitting here in my home office, watching the aftermath unfold on various platforms, it’s both amusing and concerning to see how far some news outlets have drifted from reality.

Remember when news was about reporting facts rather than manufacturing outrage? These days, certain media outlets seem more interested in importing American culture wars than discussing actual Australian issues. They’re busy stoking fears about phantom threats while real concerns like housing affordability and climate change affect our daily lives.

Tonight marked the end of an era in Australian democracy. Watching Antony Green’s final election coverage brought a lump to my throat, especially seeing him awkwardly clutching those flowers and admitting he didn’t own a vase. It was a perfect encapsulation of the man who has been the steady hand guiding us through election nights for over three decades.

Most viewers only see the polished presenter explaining complex electoral data with his trademark touchscreen and calm demeanor. But behind that familiar face lies an extraordinary legacy of innovation and dedication. When Green started in 1989, election counting involved rooms full of people manually tallying votes via telephone. He revolutionized the process by developing software systems that transformed Australian electoral coverage into the efficient, transparent process we know today.