Lately

Lately, we aren’t all getting the same price for the same product. Is the rise of data-driven “personalized pricing” corporate innovation or just next-gen gouging? Our guest, Lindsay Owens, is an economic sociologist and former policy advisor to U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren. She’s the co-author of “The Age of Recoupment” in The American Prospect’s issue on How Pricing Really Works, and the executive director of Groundwork Collaborative.Owens discusses how major retailers are using digital surveillance to set individual prices for individual customers. She talks about the evolution of pricing, from the bazaar to the department store to the Taco Bell app, and why AI software may be enabling price-fixing schemes in real estate that are driving up rents across North America.Also Vass and Katrina compete for hotel deals.Subscribe to the Lately newsletter, where the Globe’s online culture reporter Samantha Edwards unpacks more of the latest in business and technology.Find the transcript of today’s episode here.We’d love to hear from you. Send your comments, questions or ideas to [email protected].

Lately, we’ve been getting the news from The Decibel, the Globe and Mail’s daily news podcast. In this bonus episode, Lately’s sister pod reveals what it took for Rogers to outmaneuver the competition and buy up some of the biggest sports teams in Canada. A colossal business deal recently took place when a set of rivals came to an unexpected agreement. Rogers Communications Inc. bought BCE Inc.’s 37.5-per-cent stake in Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment for $4.7-billion. The transaction makes Rogers the majority owner of all of Toronto’s major professional sports teams.Andrew Willis, a columnist and reporter for The Globe and Mail’s Report on Business, explains to Decibel host Menaka Ramn-Wilms how Rogers has the money to do this, why Bell agreed to sell to a major competitor and how investors may be able to buy their own stake in their favourite sports team one day.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email [email protected]

Professor Timothy Caulfield researches health misinformation, especially when it intersects with celebrity culture. In the new CBC documentary Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger, Caulfield takes a trip to the “manosphere” and meets the men who buy and sell the promise of masculinity in this growing segment of the $5-trillion wellness market. Caulfield talks to Lately about debunking the pseudoscience of drinking urine, how traditional masculine values can actually harm men’s health, and how the manosphere might have propelled Donald Trump to victory. Plus, Vass finds out what lightly grilled bull testicle tastes like.Subscribe to the Lately newsletter, where the Globe’s online culture reporter Samantha Edwards unpacks more of the latest in business and technology.Find the transcript of today’s episode here.We’d love to hear from you. Send your comments, questions or ideas to [email protected].

Lately, LinkedIn has become  cringe... or cool, or more important than ever, depending on who you ask. So, is LinkedIn working well for us, or has it devolved into yet another shouty social media site?Tim Kiladze is a Globe and Mail business reporter, Bay Street veteran and LinkedIn connoisseur. He wrote a compelling report on the evolution of LinkedIn: The tone has shifted to more performative “thought leadership,” the line between personal and professional has blurred – and now Bay Street executives are peacocking their post stats over lunch. But if you stay away from LinkedIn, are you sabotaging your career? Vass Bednar would like to connect. Accept/Reject?Subscribe to the Lately newsletter, where the Globe’s online culture reporter Samantha Edwards unpacks more of the latest in business and technology.Find the transcript of today’s episode here.We’d love to hear from you. Send your comments, questions or ideas to [email protected].