From the outside, modelling looks like a talent business. People are discovered, signed, styled, and paid for their appearance. From the inside, it operates more like a high-volume funnel where aspiration is the raw material and only a small fraction of participants ever earn sustainably. The key to understanding the modelling industry is oversupply. Agencies sign far more models than the market can absorb. This isn’t inefficiency. It’s structural. A large pool of hopefuls gi

Most people don’t realise they’re entering a car dealership when they walk into a kitchen showroom. They think they’re buying furniture. What they’re actually stepping into is a pricing system built on negotiation, anchoring, finance, and commission. That’s why two kitchens that look almost identical can be quoted at £6,000 in one place and £18,000 in another — and why both sellers can insist they’re giving you a “special deal.” (Taking the UK as an example) The fitted kitche

For most people, the moment of shock at the cinema doesn’t come when buying the ticket. It comes at the kiosk. A family ticket deal might look reasonable, but a popcorn-and-drinks order can easily exceed the cost of the film itself. It feels irrational. It isn’t. The reason popcorn is expensive is simple: for most cinemas, the movie ticket is not the main product. When you buy a ticket, a large portion of that money never stays with the cinema. In the opening weeks of a major

At first glance, eSIMs look like a classic disruption story. Travellers land, switch on their phones, and connect instantly without queues, paperwork, or local SIM cards. Roaming fees disappear. Convenience wins. Local telecoms look obsolete. But look closer and a different picture emerges. eSIMs haven’t replaced telecom networks. They sit on top of them. And rather than dismantling the system, they may be quietly extracting its most profitable layer. Before eSIMs, internatio

When offices emptied in 2020, the story sounded simple. Work moved home. Offices became redundant. Cities would hollow out. Productivity would collapse or soar, depending on who you asked. None of that fully happened. What actually broke wasn’t work. It was a set of assumptions that had quietly shaped business for decades. Before COVID, offices served multiple roles at once. They were places where work happened, but also where control was exercised, culture was signalled, car

For a brief moment, weight-loss drugs looked like the perfect innovation story. A genuine medical breakthrough. Massive demand. Life-changing results for patients struggling with obesity and diabetes. And blockbuster profits for pharmaceutical companies that cracked the science. Then the business reality caught up. In early 2026, shares of Novo Nordisk plunged after the company warned of heavy price pressure hitting its obesity drug sales. The medicines were still working. De

For years the global energy transition has been framed as a clean switch: fossil fuels out, renewables in. But what’s happening on the ground looks far messier. Across the world, governments are rapidly expanding wind, solar, and battery infrastructure while simultaneously reinforcing coal, gas, and nuclear systems. This isn’t contradiction for its own sake. It’s the result of a structural tension between climate ambition and energy security. Take Germany. After aggressively

At first glance, life in Seychelles looks idyllic. Turquoise waters, white beaches, and a tourism industry that brings in steady foreign income. But behind the postcard image sits one of the most expensive everyday economies in Africa. Not because of luxury lifestyles, but because of the systems that quietly shape how goods, food, and services reach the islands. Seychelles consistently ranks as the continent’s most expensive place to live in cost-of-living indices. What drive