Lexi Blakes – Vanderbilt Business Review

Sep

13

2022

Netflix raised prices and customers are upset

All Posts, Industries

By Lexi Blakes Mid-January, Netflix announced it would be raising prices on subscriptions in the U.S and Canada. Netflix offers 3 different plans that can accommodate a variety of television viewers, and all plans have become more expensive in recent months. Currently, the standard subscription price rose to $15.50 per month from $14, the 4K plan rose to $20 per month from $18, and the basic plan (without HD) rose to $10 from $9. Needless to say, customers are upset. Netflix promised to roll out the new subscription prices gradually for customers who were subscribers prior to the announcement, but…

Sep

12

2022

By Lexi Blakes

FirstBank and Vanderbilt: Partners into the Future

All Posts, Opinion

By Lexi Blakes If you have been tuning into campus events since the start of the semester, you probably heard of this historic partnership between Vanderbilt University and FirstBank. As of August 29th, 2022, the Vanderbilt Stadium has been renamed “FirstBank Stadium”. This partnership comes with naming rights and a campus collaboration agreement, serving as the first step of the “Vandy United Initiative”. This initiative promises a complete renovation of athletic facilities with renderings of the new tennis center, which will be renamed “Lummis Family Tennis Center”, already available as of September 8, 2022. There has always been money to…

Mar

27

2022

By Lexi Blakes

Sanctions Trigger Market Volatility Amid Russia-Ukraine Crisis

All Posts, Economy and Government

By: Lexi Blakes Thursday, Feb. 24, U.S. President Joe Biden announced additional sanctions on Russian banks in light of the recent escalation of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The crisis has been mounting since tensions developed in 2014, when protesters in Ukraine overthrew President Viktor Yanukovych, who was partisan to Russia’s interests. That same year, Russia invaded and annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea. In the years following, the Minsk Accords were signed by Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany, but it did little to protect Ukraine from Putin’s ambitions. Now, in 2022, Putin has ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Citing pro-Western…

Dec

26

2021

By Lexi Blakes

Pulling the Rug on Squid Game

All Posts, Industries

By: Lexi Blakes This past September, Netflix’s hit series Squid Game debuted at No. 1 with over 3 billion minutes viewed in its first week of streaming, easily gaining the title of “most popular show in 2021”. Squid Game is a Korean television series that acts as an allegory to greed, capitalism, and the prison of debt. The show explores the extent to which money has power in our lives and how shamelessly society’s wealthiest exploit others. Viewed in more than 142 million households globally, its viewership made it 7-times more popular than the most-watched episode of “Game of Thrones”,…

Oct

24

2021

By Lexi Blakes

The Reboot of Nintendo

All Posts, Industries

By: Lexi Blakes If you were on TikTok during the first month of quarantine, then you were probably an onlooker to the peak of the Nintendo Switch craze. Although the console was released 3 years ago in 2017, quarantine proved to be advantageous for Nintendo, as the $300 devices were sold out for weeks at the peak of demand. Families were Target hopping in hopes of scoring one as stores sold out all over the country. As of May 6th, 2021, Nintendo had sold a total of 84.59 million switches, alongside an additional 587.12 million software sales, outselling both the…