Mark Zuckerberg hasn’t just made gold chains fashionable, he’s trendified lobbying too.

Data on political lobbying collected by nonprofit OpenSecrets shows that while the usual suspects are steadily spending more money on lobbying, specific and quite new industries are diving in headfirst.

Let’s All Go to the Lobby

Lobbying overall in the US has been making a comeback over the past six years, Dan Auble, a senior researcher at OpenSecrets, told The Daily Upside, adding that usually companies ramp up spending in the face of specific policy issues. “For instance, social media regulation is not something that a lot [of policymaking] has actually happened around. But as soon as people start talking about that issue, those companies start spending more money,” he said. According to OpenSecrets’ data the top individual company by lobbying spending so far this year is Meta.

But while large Big Tech companies like Meta have a pretty established presence on Capitol Hill, other tech or tech-adjacent sectors are starting to kick their lobbying efforts into fifth gear: 

• A number of fintech companies including PayPal, Block Inc (the company behind Cash App) and Early Warning Services (the company behind Zelle) spent record amounts on lobbying in the first half of this year, according to OpenSecrets. Auble said five years ago, some fintech companies didn’t lobby at all, so it’s a big shift in behavior.
• The vacation rental sector is also stepping up its lobbying spend, probably in response to crackdowns on short-term rentals in cities like New York. In H2 of this year vacation rental companies overall spent 13% more than in the same period last year, but for some the rise was more dramatic: Expedia spent 58% more than in the same period last year, and Booking Holdings spent 61% more. 

The one outlier in the vacation rental space is Airbnb, the poster child for problematic rentals, whose spending was down 29% compared to last year.

A Window into History: Auble said that the lobbying playbook provided by Big Tech firms means nascent industries are getting into lobbying much quicker. “Some of these newer industries are jumping in in a big way much earlier,” he said. “Internet and social media companies came out of nowhere and started spending a lot on lobbying, maybe learning lessons from what Microsoft did or did not do back in the ‘80s and ‘90s,” he said, adding that Microsoft took a hands off approach which came back in the form of antitrust issues. Auble added that really big lobbying spends tend to come after elections, rather than before, once companies know which administration they’re dealing with. So if sectors are setting records this year, who knows how much they’ll shell out come January…

Few things transcend partisan boundaries in America’s heated politics, but here’s one: political conventions’ economic impact on host cities not being quite as advertised.

The Democratic National Convention kicks off tonight in Chicago and tourism officials are touting all kinds of economic boosts, just as officials did for the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last month. The economic data of past Democrat and Republican conventions suggest skepticism is warranted.

Bipartisan Disappointment

Milwaukee’s tourism bureau said the RNC, which drew 50,000 visitors to Wisconsin’s largest city last month, would make a $200 million impact on the local economy, but early estimates suggest business activity was lower than expected. Some attendees stayed in surrounding cities, while many of the profits accrued by national hotel chains won’t even stay in Wisconsin. Chicago’s tourism officials are estimating a $150 million economic impact for this week’s DNC.

But economists at the College of the Holy Cross and Berry College who crunched the numbers on the 2008 and 2012 DNCs and RNCs found that hotel revenues in host cities increased by $20 million on average, which they said “suggests that host cities’ claims of economic impacts of $150 million or more may be implausible.” That’s because the average convention-goer would have to spend seven times what they spent on hotels to meet the $150 million threshold. The last round of pre-pandemic conventions in 2016 also fell short of their greatest expectations:

• The 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia resulted in $120 million less economic activity than the $350 million promised by the DNC, according to the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau.
• That same year, the Republican National Convention leadership and local officials said their weeklong gathering in Cleveland would lead to $200 million in economic activity. A study by Cleveland State University academics found the real economic impact was $142.2 million.

Vacancy: Like last month’s RNC, the DNC is expected to draw 50,000 people to its host city. One CEO, however, said hotel bookings lagged behind expectations. “There was a big disparity between the number of attendees they were going to host and the number of rooms they had blocked,” Bob Habeeb, who heads up Maverick Hotels & Restaurants, told CBS Chicago.

Hold my beer.

Health oriented consumers are driving demand for a burgeoning category of drinks called “functional beverages” — drinks that producers tout as having health benefits because they have been infused with herbs, amino acids, CBD, and other bioactive compounds.

On the Wagon. Or is it Off the Wagon?

In addition to the Bud Light boycott last year, consumers — especially younger ones — have been cutting back on beer in general, and overall US beer production and imports dropped 5% in 2023, according to the Brewers Association. Consumers’ alcohol curtailing goes beyond brewskies as more than 40% of Americans said they’re trying to drink less this year, up from 34% in 2023, according to NCSolutions. For Gen Z and Millenials, those figures are higher at 61% and 49%, respectively.

This trend has given rise not only to non-alcoholic drinks that are getting better at mimicking their boozy counterparts, but drinks that are allegedly good for your body:

• Functional beverages include names like Wildwonder, Vita Coco, Odyssey, and more. The brands behind these products say their drinks can provide all sorts of support for a healthy body and mind. Whether that’s true remains to be seen, but consumers are sure spending like it’s true. 
• The global functional beverage market reached a value of roughly $155 billion last year and is expected to grow to $278 billion by 2033, according to Research and Markets. Functional beverage sales in the US topped $9 billion in the 52 weeks ending March 30, almost 10% of total beverage sales, CNBC reported. 

Americans sound like they are trying to be more health conscious, but 82% of people who buy non-alcoholic drinks and functional beverages still buy booze and beer. 

Are They Good for You? Though a brand like Poppi claims its soda is good for digestion, the jury is still out on whether it and other functional beverages actually provide much in the way of health benefits. Poppi is currently facing a lawsuit for false advertising regarding its gut health marketing. We could be on the verge of another scenario similar to how Red Bull’s slogan had to be changed slightly because it does not in fact give you wings. For now, we’ll be like a shy customer talking to a server: Fine with just water.