Welcome to the Tech Mem Ride Home for Friday, April 22,

I'm Brian McCullough today.

CNN Plus only made it what, one-eighth of a quibby? There's blood on the

streaming wars dance floor. A16Z's new crypto research lab makes me feel like I

have to start covering them like a startup or a conglomerate. More bad news for Meta. They're way behind in the

payments race in India and of course the weekend long read suggestions. Here's

what you miss today in the world of Tech.

Well yes there is a of Tech.

Well, yes, there is a huge carcass on the streaming wars battlefield, as we feared. Warner Brothers Discovery announced yesterday, without emotion really that it will shut down

CNN Plus on April 30th. CNN Plus only debuted on March 29th and sources say it had only around 150,000 subscribers

quoting the New York Times. The shutdown is an ignominious end to an operation

into which CNN sank tens of millions of dollars.

From a nationwide marketing campaign to hundreds of newly hired employees

to big contracts for big name anchors, including the former Fox News Sunday host

Chris Wallace and the former NPR co-host

Audie Cornish. It collapsed just two days after Netflix reported a quarterly

decline in subscriptions for the first time in a decade, a potential warning sign

for major media companies joining the increasingly crowded field

of streaming services.

The abrupt demise of CNN Plus, as well as Netflix's projection that it will lose 2 million

more subscribers over the next three months has raised questions about how many people are willing to pay for numerous streaming services as well as how profitable these businesses can become in the next few years.

CNN's former corporate parent, Warner Media,

...