#Quality Control Market size

[marketwire]

Quality Control Market - Forecast(2024 - 2030)

Quality Control Market Overview:

According to the National Sanitation Foundation (NSF) International, approximately global food industry suffers the burden of $49 billion owing to food fraud which is a serious issue all over the world. Encountering major problems related to quality analysis of the industrial food hinders brand image and loss of reliable customers consequently slowing the pace of economic build up. Quality control facilitates standard measures for product inspection, which thereby lowers the production cost, builds a healthy owner-consumer relationship, ensures safe brand identity, and increases sales and overall product price. Not only this process gauges quality management and problem identification for food and beverage industry, it also identifies any unsatisfactory product feature both in the government and private industrial firms, organizations, medical facilities, project management, and many others. It is essential for every manufacturing company to maintain customers’ trust and uniform commodity quality for established business and long-term survival in the current competitive landscape gradually increasing the global quality control market demand which is evaluated to grow at a CAGR of 6.18% through to 2025. This continuously amplifies the global quality control market size owing to which it leveraged a huge profit of $36.89 billion as of 2018.

Annually food and beverage industry contributes around $31.1 billion to the UK economy along with a total of $23 billion exported food and drink services. This exponential data reflects the expanding opportunity for quality control system in this region extracting huge revenue income through it. Europe contributed a regional share of 31.18% to the global quality control market in the year 2018 attributing to the rising supply-demand chain. Automotive and public infrastructure are the two most macroeconomic industries which constantly require effective quality analysis and management procedures to persist in the ever-changing business market. Resultantly, this key segment will exert huge demand for quality control services which is projected to increase at a noticeable CAGR of 7.47% during the forecast period 2019-2025.

To View scope of the report  

Quality Control Market Growth Drivers:

· Growing industrialization and colossal investment on quality analysis of consumer products due to stringent government rules will significantly propel the global quality control market growth.

· Increasing instances of food adulteration, adverse drug reaction, and counterfeit products will enable frequent quality checks thereby ballooning the quality control market demand and revenue income.

Purchase report

Quality Control Market Key Players:

The key leaders in the quality control market includes Formel D (Deutsche Beteiligungs AG), SGS Group, Trigo, Eurofins, TUV SUD, DNV GL Group, TUV Nord Group, Dekera SE, Exact Systems, Bureau Veritas SA, and many others.

SGS Group is one of the leading companies which provides expert inspection, verification, testing services to its customers for boosting the efficiency of any business activities.

Quality Control Market Trends:

· The invasion of cloud computing technologies has etched a mark in the quality control and management market with multiple boons such as cost-effectiveness, chat bots facilities which facilitates detailed customer feedbacks, and connected mobile device support. This helps the business owners to effectively produce quality products as well as reaches the peak of customer expectations.

· In collaboration with the hybrid and agile methodologies of project management in an industrial firm, quality control process is implemented with ease due to proper plans, guidance, and project tracking methods.

Inquiry before buying 

Quality Control Market Research Scope:

The base year of the study is 2018, with forecast done up to 2025. The study presents a thorough analysis of the competitive landscape, taking into account the market shares of the leading companies. It also provides information on unit shipments. These provide the key market participants with the necessary business intelligence and help them understand the future of the Quality Control market. The assessment includes the forecast, an overview of the competitive structure, the market shares of the competitors, as well as the market trends, market demands, market drivers, market challenges, and product analysis. The market drivers and restraints have been assessed to fathom their impact over the forecast period. This report further identifies the key opportunities for growth while also detailing the key challenges and possible threats. The key areas of focus include the types of Quality Control in Quality Control market, and their specific applications in different areas.

Quality Control Market: Industry Coverage:

Global quality control market is classified into different segments such as type, procedure, services offered, and industry vertical. On the basis of type the segmentation includes in-house and outsourced. Based on procedure categorization includes inspection and audit. By services offered the quality control market can be bifurcated into preventive QC, corrective QC, laboratory, and others. Sub segments under industry vertical includes automotive, consumer goods and retail, aerospace, and many others.

The Quality Control market also analyzes the major geographic regions for the market as well as the major countries for the market in these regions. The regions and countries covered in the study include:     

•           North America: The U.S., Canada, Mexico

•           South America: Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, Costa Rica

•           Europe: The U.K., Germany, Italy, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Denmark

•           APAC: China, Japan, Australia, South Korea, India, Taiwan, Malaysia, Hong Kong

•           Middle East and Africa: Israel, South Africa, Saudi Arabia

 For more Automation and Instrumentation related reports, please click here

[soumyafwr]

https://social.studentb.eu/read-blog/168130_molecular-quality-controls-market-overview-competitive-analysis-and-forecast-203.html

Molecular Quality Controls Market Overview, Competitive Analysis and Forecast 2031

[tbrcresearchreport]

The Business Research Company offers in vitro diagnostics ivd quality control market research report 2023 with industry size, share, segments and market growth

[qyresearchmedica]

The global in vitro diagnostics quality control market size was USD 84.7 Billion in 2020 and is expected to register a CAGR of 19.30% during the forecast period.

[marketresearchreports1]

Global pharmaceutical quality control market is growing at a rapid pace. The market growth attributes to the rising awareness for quality control of pharmaceutical products. Besides, the increasing developments of comprehensive analytical tests drive the market growth. Moreover, augmenting demand for integrated analytical services spanning all stages of drug discovery, development, and manufacturing escalates the market growth to furthered height.

[marketreports-blog]

The global Molecular Quality Controls market size is expected to be worth around US$ 472.64 million by 2030, according to a new report by Nova one advisor.

The global Molecular Quality Controls market size was valued at US$ 184.62 million in 2021and is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of 12.4% during forecast period 2022 to 2030.

[zvaigzdelasas]

You can’t buy the Seagull in the US. But I bet you wish you could.

A small hatchback around the size of a Mini Cooper, the Seagull is a fast-charging electric car and claims a range of up to 250 miles [...] BYD, its Chinese manufacturer, claims it can go from 30 percent to 80 percent charged in a half-hour using a DC plug. It’s hardly a luxury car but it’s well-equipped, with a power driver’s seat and cruise control. “If I were looking for an inexpensive commuter car … this would be perfect,” veteran car journalist John McElroy said after taking a drive.

The best part? Its base model costs about $10,700 in China.

That’s about a third of the cost of the cheapest EV you can buy in the US. In South America, it’s a little pricier, but still fairly affordable, at under $24,000 for a top-trim version. Even in Europe, you can get an entry-level BYD for under €30,000. These are absolutely screaming deals — exactly the kind of products that could turbocharge our transition away from gas and toward electric vehicles.[...]

The problem for Americans? The Biden administration is hell-bent on preventing you from buying BYD’s product, and if Donald Trump returns to office, he is likely to fight it as well.

That’s because the BYD cars are made in China, and both Biden and Trump are committed to an ultranationalist trade policy meant to keep BYD’s products out. [...] Shipments to Europe have increased astronomically; Chinese companies sold 0.5 percent of EVs in Europe in 2019 but they’re already over 9 percent as of last year. Companies like BYD make cheap, reasonably good-quality cars people are eager to buy.

In 2018, Trump imposed, and Biden has since continued, a special 25 percent tax on Chinese-made autos, on top of the ordinary 2.5 percent tax on foreign-made cars.

That has so far prevented BYD and its Chinese peers from trying to enter the US market. US customer tastes are different enough that Chinese manufacturers would probably prefer to make cars tailored to them — but US policy has been so hostile toward cheap Chinese EVs that so far, the companies haven’t wanted to bother.

So, the result is that we’re left out of the bounty of cheap EV options created by BYD and others. “If you’re a consumer right now, the best place to be right now is China, because you have the best choice of EVs,” Ilaria Mazzocco, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and an expert on Chinese EVs, says.[...]

Still, China’s price advantage is big enough that even the extreme Trump-Biden import tax might not be enough to deter companies like BYD from entering the US market. Even with the tariffs, Chinese cars might be cheaper than their rivals. “​​Subsidies most likely won’t be enough; Mr. Biden will need to impose [more] trade restrictions,” climate journalist Robinson Meyer predicted recently. The Biden administration is already making noise about imposing even more draconian taxes or trade restrictions against these vehicles. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo has described Chinese-made cars as a national security threat, and recently announced an investigation into the vehicles’ data collection abilities and the possibility they could send movement data to Beijing.

On the one hand, Biden is offering Americans up to $7,500 per vehicle to buy EVs (provided they meet certain made-in-North America rules). On the other hand, he’s imposing massive taxes to keep Americans from buying EVs. It’s a bizarre policy that makes no sense from a climate perspective.[...]

[The Biden Administration] has proven shockingly willing to sabotage its own climate policy if it gets to stick it to the Chinese in the process.

“There’s almost an across-the-board apprehension about Chinese EVs, even though they would make an important contribution to [lower] CO2 emissions,” Gary Clyde Hufbauer, a veteran trade expert at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, says.[...]

Realistically, Helveston argues, BYD might not sell something like the Seagull in the US because it’s smaller than most cars Americans buy. They’d probably build plants in the US instead, or its free-trade zone partners Canada and Mexico, to build vehicles tailored for Americans. “If you’re going to really enter a market, you have to make it locally,” Helveston explains. “US automakers like GM sell and make millions of cars in China to sell in China.” BYD would do the same. Indeed, it’s already reportedly scouting sites for factories in Mexico.

If they ever were to set up shop in North America, BYD and other Chinese car companies would still have a major price advantage versus American EVs. They have years more experience and a much more successful track record of building batteries and EVs at low cost.

“Part of why they’re so successful is they’ve been thinking outside the box on cost reduction for a long time,” Mazzocco says. They took the “opposite of the Tesla approach”: starting not with luxury vehicles but ultra-cheap cars fit for taxi fleets and not much else, and constantly improving their early inexpensive prototypes. The result is that Chinese firms have gotten extremely good at making inexpensive EVs, at a time when Ford, by contrast, lost $28,000 for every EV it sold in 2023.[...]

“If you have more affordable EVs in the United States, no matter where you come from,” Gopal says, “that’s better for the climate.”

Still, the Biden administration reportedly wants to restrict Chinese car companies’ access to the US even if they do set up shop in North America. Bloomberg reported earlier this month that the Biden administration is formulating rules that would limit US sales of Chinese-made parts, even if they’re in vehicles ultimately assembled in the US or Mexico.[...]

But the Biden administration’s objections to Chinese EVs are also ideological. The Biden administration represents the victory of a protectionist, trade-skeptical wing of the Democratic party that was relegated to the sidelines during the Clinton and Obama years.[...]

[O]ver 90 percent of American households have a car, and surging car prices were a huge contributor to the 2021–2023 rise in inflation.

Barriers to importing cheap cars make inflation worse and reduce the real incomes of the middle class.

Not only are the administration and other left-leaning institutions opposed to Chinese EVs, but hardline conservatives at places like the Heritage Foundation are calling for outright bans on Chinese EVs as well. Their rationale is security, another theme the Biden administration evokes often. On Thursday, the Commerce Department announced it was beginning a process to “investigate the national security risks of … PRC-manufactured technology in [internet-connected] vehicles.”

6 Mar 24

[apas-95]

Is there a story behind China's one child policy that makes it not as horrifying as western media claims?

The defining feature of China's development for the past 70 years has been the urban-rural divide. In order to develop a semi-feudal country with a very low industrial level into an industrialised, socialist nation, it was necessary to develop industrial centres. To 'organically' develop industrial centres would have taken many decades, if not centuries of continued impoverishment and starvation, so programs were put in place to accelerate the development of industry by preferentially supporting cities.

Programs like the 'urban-rural price scissors' placed price controls on agricultural products, which made food affordable for city-dwellers, at the direct expense of reducing the income of rural, agricultural areas. This hits on the heart of the issue - to preferentially develop industrial centres in order to support the rest of the country, the rest of the country must first take up the burden of supporting those centres. Either some get out of poverty *first*, or nobody gets out of poverty at all. The result being: a divide between urban and rural areas in their quality of life and prospects. In order to keep this system from falling apart, several other policies were needed to support it, such as the Hukou system, which controlled immigration within the country. The Hukou system differentiated between rural and urban residents, and restricted immigration to urban areas - because, given the urban-rural divide, everyone would rather just try to move to the cities, leaving the agricultural industry to collapse. The Hukou system (alongside being a piece in many other problems, like the 'one country two systems', etc) prevented this, and prevented the entire thing from collapsing. The 'one child policy' was another system supporting this mode of development. It applied principally to city-dwellers, to prevent the populations of cities expanding beyond the limited size the agricultural regions could support, and generally had no 'punishments' greater than a lack of government child-support, or even a fine, for those who still wanted additional children. Ethnic minorities, and rural residents, were granted additional children, with rural ethnic minorities getting double. It wasn't something anyone would love, but it served an important purpose.

I use the past-tense, here, because these systems have either already been phased out or are in the process of being phased out. The method of urban-rural price scissors as a method of development ran its course, and, ultimately, was exhausted - the negative aspects, of its underdevelopment of rural regions, began to overwhelm its positive aspects. So, it was replaced with the paradigm of 'Reform and Opening Up' around the 1980s. Urban-rural price scissors were removed (leading to protests by urban workers and intellectuals in the late '80s), and the Hukou system, along with the 'one child policy', were and are being slowly eased out as lessening inequality between the urban and rural areas make them unnecessary. Under the new system, the driver of development was no longer at the expense of rural regions, but was carried out through the internal market and external capital. The development paradigm of Reform and Opening Up worked to resolved some contradictions, in the form of the urban-rural divide, and created some of its own, in the form of internal wealth divisions within the cities. Through it, over 800 million people were lifted out of extreme poverty - almost all of them being in rural areas - and extreme poverty was completely abolished within China. 'Extreme poverty' can be a difficult thing for westerners to grasp, wherein poverty means not paying rent on time, but to illustrate - many of the last holdout regions of extreme poverty were originally guerrilla base areas, impassable regions of mountainside which were long hikes away from schools or hospitals, wherein entire villages were living in conditions not dissimilar to their feudal state a century before. These villages were, when possible, given infrastructure and a meaningful local industry accounting their environment and tradition (like growing a certain type of mountainous fruit), or entirely relocated to free government-built housing lower down the mountain that was theirs to own. These were the people the 'one child policy' was aiding, by reducing the urban population they had to support. Again, there were exemptions for rural and ethnic minority populations to the policy.

Even now, Reform and Opening Up is running its course. Its own negative aspects, such as urban wealth inequality, are beginning to overcome its positive aspects. So, the new paradigm is 'Common Prosperity', which will work to resolve the past system's contradictions, and surely introduce its own contradictions in the form of chafing against the national bourgeoisie, as it increases state control and ownership of industry, and furthers a reintroduced collectivisation. Organising a nation of well over a billion people is not simple. It is not done based on soundbytes and on picking apart policies in the abstract for how 'dystopian' they sound. It is an exceedingly complex and interconnected process based on a dialectical, material analysis of things; not a utopian, idealist one. What matters is this: those 800,000,000 people now freed from absolute poverty. The things necessary to achieve that were, unquestionably, good things - because they achieved that. They had their negative aspects, as does everything that exists, but they were unquestionably correct and progressive things.

[robertreich]

How Amazon Is Ripping You Off

Shopping on Amazon? Stop! Watch this first.

Amazon is the world’s biggest online retailer. This one single juggernaut of a company is responsible for nearly 40% of all online sales in America. In an FTC lawsuit, they’re accused of using their mammoth size, and consumers’ dependence on them, to artificially jack up prices as high as possible, while prohibiting sellers on Amazon from charging lower prices anywhere else.

They’re accused of using a secret algorithm, codenamed "Project Nessie," to charge customers an estimated extra $1 billion dollars,

If this isn’t an abuse of power that hurts consumers, what is? So much for all of those “prime” deals you thought you were getting.

Project Nessie isn’t the only trick Amazon has been accused of using to exert its hulking dominance over the online retail industry — leading to higher prices for you.

Much of the FTC’s antitrust lawsuit centers around the treatment of independent merchants who sell items on Amazon’s online superstore — accounting for 60 percent of Amazon's sales.

Amazon allegedly uses strongarm tactics that force these sellers to keep their prices higher than they need to be. Like barring them from selling products for significantly less at other stores — or else risk being hidden in Amazon’s search results or having their sales stopped entirely.

And Amazon is accused of engaging in pay-to-play schemes and charging merchants excessive fees that end up costing you even more.

Independent sellers are effectively forced to pay Amazon to advertise their products prominently in search results. If they don’t fork over cash, then their products get buried underneath products of companies who do. This hurts sellers but also harms shoppers who have to parse through less relevant products that may be more expensive or lower quality.

And to be eligible for the coveted “Prime” badge on their items — which is considered crucial for competing on the platform — independent sellers are pushed into paying Amazon for additional services like warehousing and shipping, even if they could get those services cheaper elsewhere. If sellers forgo trying to qualify for Prime, their goods apparently become harder for customers to find.

When all of these extra fees are added up, Amazon takes around a 50 percent cut of each sale made by a third party. It’s projected that Amazon will earn around $125 billion from collecting fees in the U.S. in 2023, most of which get passed on to you.

By charging all of these extra fees and stifling independent companies from selling their products for less elsewhere, Amazon is using its dominance to essentially set prices for all consumers across the internet.

And when you combine Amazon’s control of ecommerce with all of the other industries it has entered by gobbling up companies — such as Whole Foods, One Medical, and MGM — you’re left with a behemoth that simply has too much power.

This is all part of a much larger problem of growing corporate dominance in America. In over 75% of U.S. industries, fewer companies now control more of their markets than they did twenty years ago.

The lack of competition and consumer choice has resulted in all of us paying more for goods because corporations like Amazon can raise their prices with impunity. By one estimate, corporate concentration has cost the typical American household $5,000 a year more than they would have spent if markets were truly competitive.

This power isn’t just being used to siphon more money from you. A giant corporation has the power to bust unions, keep workers’ wages low, and funnel money into our political system.

It’s a vicious cycle, making giant corporations more and more powerful.

But under the Biden administration, the government is making a strong effort to revive antitrust law and use its power to reign in big corporations that have grown too powerful.

We must stop the monopolization of America. This FTC lawsuit against Amazon is a great start.

[lunastrophe]

Drow Fashion 🕷️✨ About Spider Silk - Part 1

Everything you may want - or may not want - to know about spider silk in (mostly Lolth-sworn) drow culture and fashion. In this part you will find information about:

sources of spider silk,

basic uses and meaning of spider silk in drow culture.

🕷️ Various Types Of Silk – among surfacers, silk spun by spiders is generally not widely used, but in the Underdark, spider silk is not excessively hard to obtain. It is extremely light, very elastic, durable and often has many other extraordinary properties, especially after being imbued with magic. In consequence, the Underdark silk market is probably vast.

Raw spider silk can vary in quality, depending mainly on the spider species it comes from – also, most spiders are naturally able to produce several types of silk that vary in thickness and adhesiveness. Some threads are suitable for producing delicate, transparent or semi-transparent materials. Some are useful for weaving thicker fabrics, carpets and tapiseries. Silk waste, after being properly processed, is also useful – for example, for making silken threads and fabrics of lesser quality.

🕷️ Silk Farming? – silk can be obtained from webbings, cocoons or egg sacks of wild spiders, or it can be extracted directly from caught or freshly killed specimens of various sizes. Such methods are generally time-consuming, though, and often dangerous.

Silk farming is probably quite popular in the Underdark, allowing to produce silk on a larger scale while maintaining better control over its quantity, quality and properties. Silk farms can contain thousands of more or less domesticated spiders that can belong to species best suited for producing silk.

Headcanon warning - silk farming is not mentioned in drow lore sources, I borrowed this idea from historical attempts to produce spider silk on a larger scale. So far, we humans are bad at this, mainly because we cannot figure out how to domesticate spiders (they like to kill each other, so it is hard to keep them together) and how to make them produce the kind of silk we want them to produce (every spider produces several types of silk and only some are suitable for making threads and textiles)... but I bet that drow would figure out how to make this work.

(If anyone is curious about this topic, I was inspired mainly by this article).

🕷️ Free-Range And Cruelty-Free* – silk can be obtained without harming the spiders and in case of more intelligent species, even with their explicit permission. Such things are probably especially important to Lolth-sworn drow who are forbidden to cage, mistreat or kill arachnids, or even to disturb inhabited spiderwebs.

*Only in relation to spiders, though. Underdark drow are probably not overly concerned with well-being of slaves and serfs tasked with gathering and processing silk...

Silk of spiders that live in temples and other places sacred to the Spider Queen, as well as silk of abyssal arachnids that live in Lolth’s domain, is most likely highly valued among worshippers of Lolth – especially among her priestesses.

🕷️ Uses Of Spider Silk – drow use silk to make armour, weapons, clothing, domestic and ceremonial textiles, high-quality strings, lines, nets and tents, and various works of craft and art. Spider webs, often calcified with magic, are used in creation of architecture ornaments or sometimes even whole structures like bridges, passages or buildings.

Among Lolth-sworn drow, spider silk is closely connected to worship of Lolth and is widely present in Lolthite temples and shrines – just like living spiders. It is said that Lolth herself favours silk and that when she takes the guise of a drow, she appears as a lithe drow woman dressed in a gossamer gown woven from spider silk.

Spider silk is also useful as a spell component and it can be used to craft magical items. For example, silk of phase spider and strands of ether are needed to create a portable hole – wondrous item that looks like a circle of black cloth.

For more of my drow lore ramblings, feel free to check my pinned post 🕷️

[soumyafwr]

https://adbellmedia.com/posts/molecular-quality-controls-market-overview-competitive-analysis-and-f

Molecular Quality Controls Market Overview, Competitive Analysis and Forecast 2031

[seat-safety-switch]

Everyone is afraid of China. And why shouldn’t they be? They have a large industrial base, paid for by American industrialists. They have a lot of money, given to them by American industrialists. And they have tiny, quirky cars, which I desire more than my next breath. It’s an unbeatable combo, and the only way to compete is to play a different game.

We are going to build mid-sized, boring sedans, and then sell them into the Chinese market in exchange for tiny quirky cars and exotic sports electrics. For our prototype, we have chosen to clone the Plymouth Volare. Panel gap is actually better than the original car by far, because we’ve used CNC machining (an old 3D printer we found in the dumpster, with a plasma cutter duct-taped to the end of it) to produce immaculate replicas of the original panel. And our welder is only high on modern synthetic drugs, not the impure and unpredictable strains of the 1960s. That means consistency, and a return on your investment.

Do we think that the Chinese market will buy these cars? There’s a pretty good chance. They sport a lot of features that every market wants. Four wheels. A steering wheel. A trunk. And if the doors are closed and the windows are rolled up, you probably won’t get wet in the rain.

Powertrain is a problem, we agree. It’s a lot of startup cost to open a factory that is capable of manufacturing to the precision tolerances required to produce an internal combustion engine. That’s why we picked the Volare. Those cars came with an un-killable slant-six engine. They’re so unkillable, actually, that we didn’t have to build new ones, just pull ‘em of the junkyard and spray-paint ‘em: they’re good to a few million kilometers, so there’s no need to actually do a rebuild. That’s recycling, which is environmentally friendly (if you don’t think too hard about what’s in the spray cans we’re using.)

Last, investors shouldn’t fret about trade secrets. While these cars haven’t been made for a half-century, there’s not enough of them left in existence to use as a reference to copy from. Any imitators will have to buy at least one of our cars, and maybe two or three, if our quality control doesn’t get better. That’s called guaranteed sales.

There’s been a lot of fear about American workers leaking secrets to China, as opposed to the more traditional format where American managers sell them in large chunks to China instead. Here at Switch Industries, we guarantee our investors that none of us know how to dial long distance. Half of our employees are too young to even have seen a phone, and they definitely don’t use email. Maybe a few of them might know how to switch to Pinyin on their computer keyboards, so we’ve pried the control key off of every keyboard in the office.

[pastelhousewithlegs]

Aright then.

A lot of the backlash I see right now is the anger at them (allegedly) intending to remove their old content and make it available ONLY on their service. They have made several statements (noted, only after the initial announcement vent live) clarifying everything already on YouTube will stay on YouTube.

Problem is it’s, at best optimism, hazy if that was always the plan. The variety article they pointed towards now has an edit that implies they were pulling everything. The language of their announcement was vague enough to backpedal if it got backlash. It’s unclear if this was just a horrible marketing misunderstanding or damage control.

I see a lot of people saying they wish they could support and subscribe but they don’t have the cash available for it. Especially not for what they’re getting out of it. I can’t speak to that. However, as someone who could afford to make it work and very much WANTS to support the team; my personal concerns lie more in their current model.

I don’t see it being sustainable. They have a decently sized team, 25 people in their employ, but how many of them are faces we know? How many of them could step into the shoes of host if needed. Ryan, Shane, and Steven (and they’re hoping Steven’s old Worth it gang) are the main faces of Watcher. What happens if one of em gets sick and can’t film? What happens if one of em burns out? What happens if they’re just not feeling it creatively anymore and want to pivot to something else?

I also see a lot of people saying they don’t mind “lower costing” videos, many citing Too Many Spirits as a popular and lower budget production of theirs. A lot of us liked Are You Scared, Top 5, and their gaming series.

The problem is, historically, those haven’t been the biggest pulls. For Shane and Ryan they’re known as the “Goul Boys” and their ghost hunting requires going to haunted places, as they mentioned in the announcement video. It also takes a lot of time, effort, and talent. For Steven, he’s most known from Worth it, they brought back the old team because they know this and are trying to recreate it. I’m sure that was very expensive to make and I’m sure their spinoff of it will be too. Puppet history is crushing it so it makes sense they’ll throw money into that too.

The problem with their move is that it’s too drastic of a change, too quickly, and with not enough infrastructure or research to support it long term.

I want to believe they’ll pull it off. I want them to be able to stay independent, I want more interesting and quality content from the guys and their network, I want them to grow into something that can be sustainable longer term so Shane, Ryan, and Steven don’t hold the entire company on their faces.

I wish everyone the very best.

[lullabyes22-blog]

Snippet - Old Bonds - Forward, but Never Forget/XOXO

Vi remembers a different time...

Forward, but Never Forget/XOXO

Snippet:

"Flex your fingers," Sevika orders. Vi curls her hands into fists. "Good. Gloves on."

The gloves are ten-ouncers. Well-worn, but good quality. Vi butts her fists together, and frowns. "These fit me."

"You thought they wouldn't?" Sevika says. "I remember your size."

It's wrong to feel the sick tremor of nostalgia. But Vi does. The first time she'd sparred with Sevika was during the Equinox Bazaar, after all. She remembers because they'd gone afterwards to the market for Vekauran-style lentil stew with mango pickles.

Sevika explained that an old boyfriend from the Pump Station used to like it that way. Vi figured he must be dead, because Sevika's eyes would hold a gloss nearly like sadness whenever she mentioned him. Other times, her lip would unconsciously curl into a sexy little smile.  Whoever the guy was, he'd apparently eaten pussy like a pro, given the details Sevika would drop sometimes about his technique, details Vi could barely take in over her own flushed waves of embarrassment.

Even then, she'd been a little bit jealous, a lot aroused, and a whole lot confused.

Afterward, Sevika had stripped off her heavy-duty gloves to show Vi the calluses on her hands: six Hex-sized patches so tough they put pressure on the nerves.

"Rather have real Hexes in my hands," Sevika had griped.

Sometimes, she'd give Vi tips on dirty footwork and sneak-jabs. Vi was a firecracker of raw potential, but Sevika had a decade of experience at laying the nastiest opponents flat with a well-timed blow. She'd show Vi how to deliver a sidewinder by turning her hips the barest fraction. How to move her hands and feet in unison, like a pair of dancers. How to talk trash and stay patient until it was time to go for the knockout.

"You need to get that temper under control," Sevika had warned her once, after a particularly punishing match. "It's gonna get you killed."

Vi scoffed. "Temper's my specialty."

"It'll be the end of you."

"Well, it hasn't been."

"Yet." Sevika shrugged, wiping her brow with a towel. "Then again, I'm not the one you're always trying to impress."

Vi's eyes snapped to hers. The words had a bite, but Sevika's look was knowing.

Vi dropped her gaze.

She'd never told Sevika about her need to prove herself to Vander. Prove that her parents hadn't died for nothing. Prove that she could be strong enough, brave enough, to keep the Lanes safe.

Prove that she could protect Powder.

Now, looking at the familiar glide of Sevika's fingers, her easy competence with the laces, Vi finds the same emotions bubbling up. Dread that she'd never live up to Vander's legacy. The gut-deep longing to prove her worth. Prove she was a force nobody would mess with, because that was the only way to keep everyone safe.

Sevika had that in common with Vi. They'd both lost their families. Both found meaning only in their fists.

But Sevika wanted more than strength. Her bottom line was rooted in one principle: brute will. Her gang always ran the loosest, fastest, riskiest jobs in the Lanes. They played dirty, had little qualms with cutting corners, and none with breaking necks.

Sevika was a hardheaded bitch. If the Undercity was a battlefield, she was always gunning for top-dog. 

Vi remembers one night at the Drop. A fight had broken out over a poker game. The Sledgerunners had been caught cheating. The Dead Enders had taken offense. Violating the Drop’s rules of neutral territory, they’d savaged each other like dogs.

By the time Vi and Sevika arrived, the Sledgerunner's leader, a beefy bastard named Chud, had pulled a blade. His victim lay on floorboards gone glittering-red with broken glass and blood. Mylo and Claggor had helped Vi make a tourniquet out of old belts while Powder ran to fetch a medick. Sevika had flattened Chud with three precise blows and held the rest of his gang at knifepoint until Vander returned.

Sevika proposed taking an ear from both the Sledgerunners and Dead Enders as compensation for the broken peace. Vi suggested letting them off with a warning. Vander had listened patiently to both. Afterward, he'd sent both the Sledgerunners and the Dead Enders back to their territories.

Then he'd taken Vi and Sevika aside and made his thoughts plain.

"We're not judges, and this isn't the gallows," he'd told them. "We're here to keep the Lanes stable. Not make a name for ourselves."

Sevika had looked pissed. "So you'll let them disrespect your turf?"

Vander's eyes had grown dark. "It's not my turf. It's everyone's. I'm here to help keep the peace, not enforce a regime."

Vi's own frustration had bubbled over. "What's the difference?"

"The difference is whether you wanna be a part of the solution. Or the problem. Because that's what it comes down to." Vander sighed. "Sevika, I'm grateful you stepped in. But the Drop's not a chopping block. You don't get to decide who leaves with what body parts."

"Unless you keep your house in order, they'll do this again," Sevika shot back. "They're already running roughshod over half of Entresol."

"I'm not startin’ a gang war."

"You've got the numbers. They'd be too scared to try again."

"We're not soldiers. This isn't a battleground."

"He'd say otherwise."

Vander's features went rigid. "That time's passed. For all of us."

Sevika stared at him for a long moment. Then she'd stalked out. Vi had been ready to go after her. Vander laid a heavy hand on her shoulder. "Let her be."

"But—"

"I'm not asking, kiddo."

Vi's belly churned: anger, confusion. She'd only been fifteen. But she'd sensed she was on the verge of forbidden territory. Things unsaid between Vander and Sevika. Memories—names—better off forgotten.

"What happened?" she asked at length. "Who's 'he'?"

"The past." Vander eyes were distant. "We all have one."

"She's not wrong, you know. We gotta keep a tighter fist on things."

"Not the way she wants to."

"But what if the gangs get stronger? What if they push into the Lanes?"

Vander looked at her with something like reproach. "That's not why we do this." He took a breath. "When the world tells you no, what do you do?"

"Say yes back. Show 'em they're wrong."

"Right. You do that by being better than them. You do it with decency. Not hate."

Vi shook her head. "What if it's not enough?"

"It's not." Vander smiled ruefully. "Which is why we gotta keep at it."

"But—"

"Vi." Gently, he gripped her chin. "The world will tell you no. Over and over. It'll try to break you. Make you hard and cruel. But the best thing you can do is find a reason to keep saying yes. Even when things look hopeless. There's more strength in that than you know."

Vi’s eyes refocus.

Her gloved hands are securely fastened. The laces are wound tight.  So is the grief.

She seethes, "How could you do it?"

Sevika quirks a brow.

"How could you turn on Vander? Leave the Lanes to that monster?"

Sevika's face hardens with restrained impatience. "We've been over this already. Vander betrayed the Lanes too many ways. He was weak. We were all weak under him. What use is loyalty without power?"

Vi seizes Sevika's mechanical hand. "This is power?"

Sevika jerks Vi's hand off. "This is the cost for a bigger reward. Our freedom."

"Yeah?" Vi takes in the suffocating dimensions of the prep room. "Is that why you're down here instead of at Silco's party tonight? Enjoying your freedom?"

Sevika shakes her head. "I'd take the filth down here to what's at that party any day."