Hipstamatic is back

Hey y’all, it’s Austin Carr in Boston. As ChatGPT keeps evolving, I find myself craving dumber apps. But first…Today’s must-reads:• US ventu [View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( Hey y’all, it’s Austin Carr in Boston. As ChatGPT keeps evolving, I find myself craving dumber apps. But first… Today’s must-reads: • US venture capital [investment plunged 55%]( • Europe is [making it hard for Google and Amazon]( to do layoffs • An Indian billionaire’s [chipmaking project is in jeopardy]( Going retro Lately, I’ve been checking in a lot on Swarm, the location-based social network. You might remember the app from its [heyday about a decade ago]( when it was called Foursquare. The 14-year-old startup never [really lived up to its initial hype](, but it’s still around, albeit not at TikTok scale. I have exactly one active friend on Swarm, which we both use to share our check-ins during random visits to Taco Bell, stores of no particular significance and train stations. I suppose we’re being ironic, but I’m really not sure what the joke is. To wit: I’m one check-in away from becoming “mayor”— the trivial title granted to the most frequent visitor — of a Hertz car rental lot. It’s pretty pointless, yet somehow glorious. In recent months, we’ve all been subjected to unprecedented advancements in the field of artificial intelligence. The pace of [transformation is panic-inducing]( and surreal. But occasionally, it’s a relief to play with products that don’t have the [potential to wipe out humanity](. Perhaps that’s why Swarm hits the spot, primarily because it doesn’t do a whole lot. I mainly use it to keep in touch with an old college buddy who now lives in Philadelphia. A check-in at Tampa International Airport tells me he’s in Florida for a bit; my update at TD Garden arena signals I’m attending a Bruins hockey game. That’s it. We don’t share photos or comments and rarely exchange likes. I’m sure there’s some machine learning under the hood to generate venue recommendations, but we could care less. Of course, there are way more full-featured and trendy digital services out there, but most of them come with a [ton of baggage](, [questionable management and policies]( or vows of rapid [AI integrations](. A lot of my mobile communication has reverted to old-school text messaging. Not long ago, I even attempted to retry Yo, the [short-lived app phenomenon]( whose only function was to send the word “yo” to friends. (Although the app has remained on my phone for years, I was unable to log in.) Nostalgia in the internet age can take various forms. The ubiquity of evermore powerful iPhones and Android devices led to a trend of so-called [dumb phones](, stripped-down hardware designed to limit screen time. New-age video game consoles and lifelike metaverse worlds have [resulted in a yearning]( for [our 8-bit]( and [polygonal past](. Now it’s all about the retro app. Last month, the long-defunct Foursquare competitor Gowalla was [relaunched at the South by Southwest festival](. Hipstamatic, once a popular photography app, was [resurrected a few weeks later](. These aren’t “dumb apps” in the pejorative sense, but they do represent a throwback to the days when Silicon Valley was roundly criticized for mostly inventing superficial social media diversions in lieu of the world-changing ideas entrepreneurs had promised. Now that we have AI that critics say poses “[profound risks to society](,” perhaps check-in apps and photo filters don’t seem like such terrible ideas after all. —[Austin Carr](mailto:acarr54@bloomberg.net) The big story Chatbots are the latest threat facing traditional media. News publishers are [discussing potential changes to their websites’ code]( that would block AI crawlers, and executives say copyright law is outdated. Get fully charged Four Asian countries emerged as early winners in the [global effort to diversify semiconductor manufacturing]( beyond traditional hubs. Watch: The head of global private equity investments at Fidelity [gave her outlook on IPOs and the VC market]( and the CEO of Substack [answered questions about his crowdfunding initiative]( in TV interviews on Bloomberg Technology. Vietnam said TikTok isn’t doing enough to remove toxic and false content and [warned of possible restrictions]( in the future. Amazon Prime Video will premiere its first African original title, [a crime thriller called Gangs of Lagos](. More from Bloomberg Live event: Join us in New York on April 26 at the 3rd annual Bloomberg Green Summit, where we’ll gather climate champions at the crossroads of sustainability, science and culture. [Register here](. 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