If it feels like your iPhone is glitchier than ever before, you’re not alone.

Angry Apple fans have flooded social media to complain that their expensive smartphones are plagued with tech issues.

As frustrations grow with the tech giant, some fans have even sworn that they have been driven to ditch Apple products altogether.

One infuriated commenter even took to X to vent: ‘I will never be an Apple customer again after dealing with this POS [piece of s***]!!!!’

Over the last year, iPhones have battled a surge of glitches, from failed alarms to the appearance of a ‘black dot of death’.

Likewise, many die–hard Apple fans are beginning to feel disappointed by the lack of innovation or new features in each year’s iteration of the flagship phone.

While industry analysts don’t think the iPhone will go the way of Blackberry any time soon, this could be the beginning of a bigger decline.

Mark Patrick, Director of Technical Content at Mouser Electronics, told Daily Mail: ‘Growing frustration among tech enthusiasts over bugs and glitches could dent its status as the ‘go–to’ device.’

As concerns over glitches and poor battery life mount, Apple fans are pledging to ditch the iPhone. But is this really the end for the flagship smartphone?

This year, iPhone users have reported a growing number of issues. Now, many have taken to social media to vent their frustrations 

Many former Apple fans are so frustrated that they now believe Android phones offer a better experience 

Since the release of iOS 18 and iOS 24, iPhone users have been increasingly frustrated by the number of glitches their phones experience.

Even Celebrity Traitors star Cat Burns took to social media to complain about her iPhone’s software.

The glitch, which appears to affect iPhones installed with iOS 26, turns alarms into a ‘whisper’, making users late for work and even miss their flights.

The British singer–songwriter shared her frustrations in a now–viral TikTok video where she urged Apple to ‘sort it OUT’. 

Earlier this year, another mysterious glitch baffled iPhone users as a strange black dot appeared on their screens.

While the reason for the error is unknown, owners reported needing to pay for screen replacements to resolve the issue.

Meanwhile, another particularly embarrassing glitch affecting phones on iOS 18 began dredging up users’ browsing history, including searches they would rather keep private. 

Apple users discovered that their devices displayed old adult content at unwanted moments, despite their best efforts to clear their browser history, tabs and cookies, even after making sure to view risqué content in ‘incognito mode’ only.

On TikTok, Celebrity Traitors star Cat Burns complained about an iPhone glitch which caused her alarms to ‘whisper’

Recent iPhone glitches reported by users

• Alarms triggering as a ‘whisper’
• The ‘black circle of death’
• Old browsing history resurfacing 
• Unlocking requires multiple attempts
• Music apps such as Spotify freezing 
• Random apps downloading 
• Photos appear with blacked–out portions
• Wi–Fi cutting out and then reconnecting after being unlocked 
• App icons appearing blank
• Unable to connect to mobile data 

One mortified iPhone owner even added that the glitch had accidentally revealed their private browsing habits to their mother. 

Now, Apple fans’ irritation appears to have reached boiling point, as customers take their concerns to social media.

One commenter on X wrote: ‘I can’t be more disappointed in this iPhone. I’ve had multiple glitches, and it locked up so I had to reboot it. For $1100, Apple needs to do better.’

Another added: ‘Nothing but glitches since updating. So frustrating – even unlocking the phone takes three or four attempts.’

While one furious iPhone user chimed in: ‘This current iteration of iOS is dreadful. The clunkiest, sloppiest, back dated looking pile of hot garbage, perhaps in the history of your software.’

Amidst these concerns, some users have even vowed to switch out their iPhones for Android devices.

One commenter wrote on X: ‘After my iPhone ***** out I’m getting an android. I’m tired of all the lagging and glitches and ppls voice cutting out because they’re using their iphone to call me.’

Another added: ‘I have had glitches and bugs so regularly now my Android has become my more reliable phone.’

On TikTok, many more Apple fans have complained about their iPhone’s software. One (left) said that iOS 26 caused apps to crash and their screen to go black, while another (right) said that their iPhone glitches ‘a million times a day’

Many of the issues have been reported since the release of iOS 26. This update added the new Liquid Glass display to replace Apple’s standard blocky, flat icons 

While one former Apple fan complained: ‘Dog, I don’t know what’s up with my phone lately, late text and a bunch of bs glitches. Honestly I think Android better than iPhone bro.’ 

Analysts suggest that users have been so put off by these issues because Apple previously had such an excellent reputation for reliability.

Rebecca Crook, UK CEO of IT consulting firm MSQ DX, told Daily Mail: ‘There is a current mismatch between user expectations and the product.

‘Apple has historically excelled at customer satisfaction, but the technical issues we’re seeing, from iOS 18 glitches to battery problems to touchscreen responsiveness, represent a breakdown in that core promise. 

‘The real risk isn’t extinction; it’s erosion of trust. When people are paying on average over £1,000 for a device, they expect it to work flawlessly.’

Likewise, many fans have expressed frustration that each successive generation of iPhones is more or less the same as the last.

For example, one commenter complained on X: ‘iPhone 17 is barely better than my 11 Pro Max – glitches, flickers, & poor performance. Instead of real innovation, Apple wastes time on childish gimmicks like Genmoji and Image Playground.’

Jan Stryjak, head of European research at Counterpoint Research, told Daily Mail: ‘The frustration may stem from the apparent leaps that other manufacturers, for example HONOR, vivo, OPPO and even Huawei, are making with their latest devices, particularly from a camera and battery perspective. 

On X, one former Apple fan said that they would never use products from the company again after dealing with the glitches on the iPhone 16

Analysts say that Apple fans are frustrated by the low pace of innovation in newer iPhones and the lack of improvements to battery and charging 

How to update your iPhone to iOS 26.2

To download the update on your iPhone, simply head to your iPhone Settings and scroll down to General.

Tap Software Update and you’ll see the option to install iOS 26.2 now.

The download should only take a few minutes to install.

Alternatively, select ‘Update Tonight’ to install the update when your phone is placed on charge overnight.

You can also select ‘Automatic Updates’ and set the toggles to on to ensure you always get the latest software as soon as possible.

‘The battery and charging technology are areas in which Apple and Samsung are falling significantly behind.’

However, the big question is whether these complaints will translate into a decline in sales or changes in strategy from Apple.

Ms Crook predicts that Apple may have to change their approach to meet customers’ expectations.

She says: ‘I predict that Apple may move away from rigid annual releases toward a more flexible product cadence – similar to what they’ve done with iPad.

‘We may see Apple transition to releasing new iPhones when they have something meaningful to say, rather than releasing them because the calendar says it’s September.’

Ms Crooks used the iPhone Air as an example of the innovation that Apple is capable of when given more than a year to develop a product.

However, Mr Stryjak is less convinced that Apple needs to change its current approach.

He says: ‘The iPhone is still the preferred device for most youth segments around the world, and Apple has arguably the most loyal fanbase of any smartphone manufacturer all tied into a very tight–knit ecosystem. 

Despite user frustrations, industry data suggests that the iPhone is selling better than ever. This means Apple is unlikely to change its strategy anytime soon. Pictured: Apple CEO Tim Cook 

‘Exiting that ecosystem is not straightforward, so we don’t expect a major exodus any time soon.’

In fact, Counterpoint Research’s data suggests that Apple is actually on course for its best year of sales in a very long time. 

The iPhone 16 was the best–selling smartphone globally between July and September, accounting for four per cent of all smartphone sales.

By next year, Counterpoint Research expects Apple to dethrone Samsung as the world’s biggest smartphone maker for the first time in over a decade. 

Driven by continued sales of the iPhone 17 as customers rush to upgrade their old devices, Apple is expected to have delivered almost 20 per cent of all smartphone sales this year and could continue to grow. 

So, despite massive disappointment over the flop of Apple Intelligence and increased user frustration, Apple is unlikely to turn its back on the iPhone any time soon. 

Apple did not respond to a request for comment.  

THE TRILLION DOLLAR RISE OF APPLE

1976: Founders Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne created the company on April 1 1976 as they set about selling computer kits to hobbyists, each of which was built by Wozniak.

The first product was the Apple I. 

1977: Apple released the Apple II in June, which was the first PC made for the mass market. 

Steve Jobs unveils Apple Computer Corporation’s new Macintosh February 6, 1984 in California.

1981: Jobs became chairman.  

1984: The Macintosh was introduced during an ad break for the Super Bowl and later officially unveiled during a launch event. It was discontinued a year later and Jobs left the firm.

1987: Apple released the Macintosh II, the first colour Mac.

1997: Apple announces it will acquire NeXT software in a $400 million deal that involves Jobs returning to Apple as interim CEO. He officially took the role in 2000.  

The then Chief Executive Officer of Apple, Steve Jobs, with the iPhone

2001: Apple introduced iTunes, OS X and the first-generation iPod.

The first iPod MP3 music player was released on October 23, 2001, at an event in Cupertino and was able to hold up to 1,000 songs.

2007: Apple unveils the iPhone. 

2010: The first iPad was unveiled.

2011: Jobs resigned in 2011 due to illness, handing the CEO title to Tim Cook. Jobs died in October from pancreatic cancer.

2014: Apple unveiled the Apple Watch. It also unveiled its first larger iPhones – the 6 and 6 Plus. 

2015: After purchasing Beats from Dr Dre, Apple launched Apple Music to compete with Spotify and other music streaming services. 

2016: Apple returned to its roots and announced the 4-inch iPhone SE. Meanwhile, the firm is embroiled in a legal battle with the FBI, involving the agency demanding access to the locked phone used by Syed Farook, who died in a shootout after carrying out a deadly December attack in San Bernardino, California with his wife. The court order was dropped on March 28 after the FBI said a third party was able to unlock the device.  

2017: Apple introduces the iPhone X, which removes the home button to make way for a futuristic edge-to-edge screen design and a new FaceID system that uses advanced sensors and lasers to unlock phones with just the owner’s face.    

Apple CEO Steve Jobs speaks at an Apple event at Apple headquarters in Cupertino, Calif.

2018: In a first for the company, Apple introduces new features in its latest operating system, iOS 12, that encourage users to manage and spend less time on their devices. The move was spawned by a strongly worded letter from shareholders that urged the firm to address the growing problem of smartphone addiction among kids and teenagers. 

2019: In January, Apple reports its first decline in revenues and profits in a decade. CEO Tim Cook partly blamed steep declines in revenue from China.

2020: In March, Apple closes all its bricks and mortar retail stores outside of China in response to coronavirus. 

2021: In an online virtual event in April CEO Tim Cook declared Apple’s goal of becoming carbon neutral for Earth Day. Later in the year the iPhone 13 was announced. 

2022: In September the iPhone 14 was announced. One of the new features included a new sensor to detect if a user had been in a car crash as well as an improved camera system. 

2023: Apple brought back its ‘Home Pod’ after the first generation was discontinued. The ‘Home Pod’ can be seen as an alternative to Amazon’s Alexa or Google Home as it is powered by voice commands. 

2024: Apple makes its first steps into artificial intelligence with the release of Apple Intelligence. The features are not all released at once with many delayed until the following year. 

SOURCE PAGE

First published 21 Dec, 2025

Thanks for reading The Next Wave this year.

Your engagement hasn’t just been a metric because it has shaped these conversations every Sunday. I want to specifically thank my co-writers Adonijah Ndege, Frank Eleanya and Muktar Oladunmade. They are the intellectual muscle behind these stories and the ones who help me find the signal in the noise.

As we look toward 2026, the tech ecosystem on the continent is finally shedding its skin. We are moving past the era of easy capital and vanity metrics into a period of hard institutionalisation. 2026 will be the year when regulators stop observing and start actively rewiring the digital economy.

And while most analysts predict a simple funding recovery, here is what we think people are missing.

First, the standalone fintech app is becoming a relic, so success in 2026 will belong to the invisible companies building the plumbing for non-tech sectors like agriculture and logistics.

We also expect the hype around AI to hit a wall. Without massive local investment in power and data centres, Africa risks becoming a mere consumer of foreign tools rather than a creator.

Finally, the big exit might be a myth because we expect to see more local consolidation where African giants acquire each other to survive because the global buyers are looking elsewhere.

Next Wave continues after this ad.

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The year in review: Your top five

This final edition looks back at our top five pieces that resonated most with you.

1. The telecom that built a bank by accident

This piece traced Safaricom’s evolution from a telecom operator to the backbone of Kenya’s financial system. M-PESA is so large now that the company handles anti-money laundering and fraud detection like a traditional bank even though that was never the original plan.

2. A founder’s personal assets as collateral for failure

We looked at the startup ecosystem in China and how redemption rights can leave founders personally liable for failed ventures. When homes and savings can be seized, the stakes of entrepreneurship change completely. This serves as a sobering warning for the African venture landscape.

Next Wave continues after this ad.

Africa’s Business Heroes celebrates the bold innovators shaping the continent’s future. Join us in Kigali on 12-13 December for the 7th ABH Summit & Grand Final where Africa’s Top10 entrepreneurs take the stage with game changing solutions. Don’t miss the insights, connections, and inspiration.

Register now!

3. Digitising Danfo payments could unlock a 375 million dollar opportunity

This essay focused on Nigeria’s informal transport sector. Moving fare payments from cash to digital platforms could bring transparency to millions of journeys and create a massive new market for payment providers.

4. Kenyan government services turning into pay-to-access schemes

We examined concerns around Kenya’s eCitizen platform. The core argument was that charging premium fees for faster public services risks creating a tiered system where essential rights are locked behind a paywall.

5. Realising regional expansion for African startups

This edition explained why moving across borders is the hardest task for any founder. Using Twiga Foods as an example, we explored why scaling requires a deep and often painful understanding of local regulations and customer habits.

Next Wave continues after this ad.

The Future of Commerce Report: Beyond the First wave is TechCabal Insights’ annual report, launched at Moonshot by TechCabal in October 2025.

Africa’s next wave of innovation isn’t in payments or marketplaces—it’s in the “X Areas”: the overlooked, unglamorous back-office challenges holding millions of businesses back.

This report reveals where investment and innovation are heading next and what it means for founders, investors, and policymakers shaping Africa’s trade backbone.

Downloand the report here!

Thank you for reading, replying and sharing this year. We will be back on 10 January 2026.

Happy holidays!

Kenn Abuya

Senior Reporter, TechCabal

Thank you for reading this far. Feel free to email kenn[at]bigcabal.com, with your thoughts about this edition of NextWave. Or just click reply to share your thoughts and feedback.

We’d love to hear from you

Psst! Down here!

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As always feel free to email a reply or response to this essay. I enjoy reading those emails a lot.

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Photo by Viktor Mindt / Unsplash

Remember when engagement rings meant eating ramen for six months? Yeah, me too.

But last week, something crazy happened. My buddy Jake walks into this jewelry store ready to blow his entire savings. He points at this gorgeous 2-carat ring. The salesperson goes, “That’ll be $3,500.”

Jake thought she missed a zero. Nope. Lab-grown diamond.

His fiancée, Sarah? She’s showing that ring off to EVERYONE. And guess what – nobody can tell it’s not a “regular” diamond. Because… well… it IS a regular diamond. Just made in a lab instead of dug up from the ground.

Wild, right?

I spent three weeks digging into this whole lab-grown diamond jewelry thing. Talked to scientists who actually make these things. Visited labs. Compared prices until my eyes hurt. Even brought my jeweler uncle into it (he was NOT happy about the price differences).

Brands like Icecartel figured this out already. They’re selling lab diamonds and moissanite pieces that look identical to the stuff rappers wear. Except that normal humans can afford them.

Here’s everything I learned…

Lab Diamonds Are Real Diamonds (Yes, Really)

People keep asking me if lab diamonds are “fake.”

Uh, no. They’re diamonds. Period.

The Government Actually Changed the Rules

Get this – in 2019, the Federal Trade Commission literally rewrote what counts as a diamond. They deleted “natural” from the definition completely. Why? Because there’s zero difference between lab and mined diamonds. The same carbon atoms are arranged the same way.

It’s like asking if ice from your freezer is “fake” compared to ice from a glacier. It’s all frozen water, dude.

How Do They Even Make These Things?

Alright, so imagine you’re baking cookies, but instead of flour and sugar, you’re using carbon. And instead of an oven, you’re using temperatures hot enough to melt steel.

Scientists start with a baby diamond (literally smaller than a grain of salt). They put it in this sci-fi-looking machine. Crank up the heat to about 2,000°F. Add pressure that would flatten a car into a pancake. Wait eight weeks.

BOOM. Diamond.

I watched them do this in person. Still can’t believe it works.

Nobody Can Tell the Difference (Seriously)

My uncle’s been a jeweler for 32 years. Gave him two diamonds – one lab, one mined. He studied them for twenty minutes with his fancy equipment.

Picked wrong.

The ONLY way to tell? Labs have to spend $50,000 on special machines that detect nitrogen. Mined diamonds have tiny amounts. Lab ones don’t. That’s literally the only difference. And you need a machine that costs more than a Tesla to spot it.

Environmental Reality Check

Not trying to get all Captain Planet on you, but these numbers are nuts.

Mining Damage You Can See From Space

Ever seen the Diavik mine in Canada? It’s visible from the International Space Station. Not joking.

For every engagement ring, miners move 250 TONS of dirt. That’s about 100 pickup trucks worth. For one tiny rock.

Water usage? 126 gallons per carat for mining. Lab diamonds use 18 gallons.

Oh, and those holes they leave behind? They’re basically permanent. The Kimberley mine in South Africa is so deep, they had to stop digging because it was messing with the air pressure. Now it’s just… there. Forever.

Labs Aren’t Perfect Either, Though

Let’s be real – labs suck up electricity like crazy. Making one carat uses about as much power as your house uses in a month.

BUT (big but) – lots of labs run on renewable energy now. There’s one in Oregon powered entirely by wind. Another in Nevada uses solar. Way better than diesel-powered mining equipment.

Shopping Like You Know What You’re Doing

After all my research, here’s how to not get ripped off.

Engagement Ring Strategy

First rule: Go bigger. Whatever size you planned for a natural diamond, add half a carat with a lab-grown diamond. Same price, way more impressive.

Setting matters more than you think:

• Solitaire: Shows off the diamond, classic choice
• Halo: Ring of tiny diamonds around the main stone (makes it look HUGE)
• Three-stone: Past, present, future thing. Girls love the meaning

Building a Collection Without Going Broke

This is where lab-grown diamond jewelry really makes sense.

Diamond studs for everyday? Get ’em. Tennis bracelet for special occasions? Why not. That pendant you’ve been eyeing? Do it.

I know someone who bought an entire jewelry collection (earrings, necklace, bracelet, ring) for less than what ONE natural diamond ring would’ve cost.

Size Guidelines That Actually Help

Earrings:

• Daily wear: Half carat total (quarter each ear)
• Office appropriate: 1 carat total
• Going out: 2+ carats total

Necklaces:

• Subtle pendant: 0.3-0.5 carats
• Noticeable: 0.75-1 carat
• Statement piece: 1.5+ carats

The Smart Approach to Affordable Luxury Jewelry

Remember, I mentioned Icecartel? Here’s their deal.

They figured out most people want nice jewelry but can’t drop $10K on a chain. So they use lab diamonds and moissanite (which is basically a diamond’s cousin – almost as hard, just as sparkly).

Smart move: They put 14K gold over sterling silver. Sounds cheap? It’s not. The silver makes it strong, the gold makes it look expensive. Their special coating process means it won’t turn your neck green like that $50 chain from the mall.

They’re huge in hip-hop jewelry, but honestly? Anyone who wants to look good without selling their car should check them out. Best part – their stuff passes diamond testers. Your jeweler friend won’t even know.

Bottom Line After All This Research

Look, here’s the deal with lab-grown diamond jewelry. Both are real diamonds. One took 3 billion years, one took 2 months. Both will outlive you, your kids, and probably humanity.

Just pick whatever makes you (or your partner happy. Life’s too short to stress about rocks.

What do you think? Would you go lab or a natural? Let me know in the comments. Especially if you’ve bought either recently – curious what your experience was like!

SOURCE PAGE

The fintech founder had practised the pitch fifty times. Three minutes to explain why her lending platform was different. Why would it work where others failed? Why investors should care.

She delivered it perfectly at the demo day in November. The applause was polite. The questions were pointed. “How is this different from the forty other lending fintech companies?” She stumbled. Because it wasn’t, not really. Just another app promising financial inclusion without proving it could deliver.

She was competing with 499 other Nigerian fintech companies for attention from investors who had grown tired of similar promises. Only 27 would break through.

Nigerian fintech raised $230 million in 2025. On paper, that’s a 44% drop from the $410 million raised in 2024. But the real story isn’t about the money that disappeared. It’s about the question that emerged in its place.

“Smart capital is now asking whether fintechs are solving real problems that expand the economy or simply extracting rent from existing fragility,” says Kristin H. Wilson, Managing Partner at Innovate Africa Fund. It’s a brutal assessment, but one that explains why only 27 out of over 500 Nigerian fintech companies managed to raise funding of $100,000 or more this year.

The math is stark. In a country where more than 40% of tech startups are now fintech entities, only 5% could convince investors that their vision was worth backing.

Something fundamental shifted in 2025, and it wasn’t just the numbers.

When the music stopped

The party really ended when the mega deals dried up. In 2024, players like Moniepoint and Moove raised massive rounds that artificially inflated the sector’s total funding. Those outsized cheques masked an uncomfortable truth.

Very little capital was actually reaching new or experimental models that might genuinely expand economic opportunity for everyday Nigerians.

Read also: PayPal accepts defeat: now the fintech giant finally wants to play in Africa

By 2025, reality surfaced. Moniepoint raised another $90 million in October, nearly 40% of the entire year’s fintech funding. LemFi secured $53 million in January. Kredete closed $22 million. Raenest got $11 million.

Then came the smaller rounds like Carrot Credit’s $4.2 million, PaidHR’s $1.8 million, and Accrue’s $1.58 million. These deals represented the survivors. Everyone else got nothing.

Austin Okpagu, Nigeria Country Director at Verto, sees this as a correction rather than a collapse.

Austin Okpagu, Country Manager at Verto

“I believe the 2025 funding dip is much more about market correction rather than a definitive decline for Nigerian fintech,” he explains. “While 2024’s funding was heavily concentrated in mega deals like Moniepoint’s $110 million Series C, the current environment is forcing over 430 active fintech companies to pivot from burning cash, which used to be the norm, to generating revenue, back to basics, which is the core focus for investors nowadays.”

Read also: These 5 Nigerian fintechs achieved significant milestones in 2025

The shift from vanity metrics to profitability wasn’t optional. It was survival.

Multiple forces squeezed the sector simultaneously. The Central Bank of Nigeria imposed onboarding bans, stricter KYC enforcement, and heavy monetary penalties. Inflation hit 34.8% by December 2024.

Foreign exchange volatility made returns nearly impossible to model in naira, and capital harder to repatriate. Generalist venture capitalists either paused or significantly narrowed their exposure to Nigerian risk.

“We saw stricter CBN and FCCPC regulations serving as a filter, favouring institutional-grade startups over the high volume of smaller, non-compliant entrants,” Okpagu notes. “This appears to be the hallmark of 2025. Fewer African companies were accepted into Y Combinator when compared to previous years.”

The regulatory squeeze worked exactly as designed. It separated companies with real infrastructure from those running on borrowed time and borrowed capital. But it also raised an existential question about what Nigerian fintech had actually built.

The question nobody wanted to ask

Wilson goes further than most are willing to.

Nigerian fintech funding in 2025 likely contracted because capital finally began pricing in concentration risk, regulatory uncertainty, and a fundamental question: Are we building solutions that expand opportunity, or simply repackaging the same digital wallets?

She’s pointing at something uncomfortable. Nigeria now hosts more than 500 fintech companies, yet most are building variations of the same products. Digital wallets. Payment apps. Lending platforms that target the same thin slice of bankable consumers.

Meanwhile, productive credit for manufacturers remains scarce. Cash flow solutions for agricultural value chains are underfunded. Infrastructure that genuinely reduces the cost of doing business often goes unnoticed.

“The critical question has shifted from ‘Can we digitise existing behaviour?’ to ‘Are we creating new economic capacity?’” Wilson argues. “There were more apps, but not demonstrably more genuine financial resilience for households, productive capacity for SMEs, or expansion of economic opportunity.”

It’s harsh, but the funding numbers suggest investors agree.

Read also: New game: How CBN’s policies reshaped the Nigerian fintech landscape in 2025

Nikolai Barnwell, founder and CEO of pawaPay, has seen this movie before. “We’ve seen several bubbles and busts over the years since the birth of the mobile internet in Africa in the early 2010s. People get excited about Africa, but their attention span is short. So when there’s no immediate gratification for investors, they disappear again.”

Nikolai Barnwell, founder and CEO of pawaPay

He’s describing a pattern that repeats every few years. A new batch of funds discovers Africa, sells the dream, raises money on the promise of the continent, and starts spraying capital everywhere. Then reality sets in. Returns take longer than expected. The next cohort of investors arrives with fresh enthusiasm and short memories.

“The key is that the future potential of the continent is immense, but we’re still in the very early days,” Barnwell says. “We often compare it to the internet in the US in the mid-1990s. Most of all, the upside is still far in the future, and it requires patience and stamina to hang on long enough to reap the benefits.”

This tells us that African fintech is still being written, not finished.

What comes next

Tomi Davies, CiC at TVCLabs, refuses to see 2025 as a failure.

What we’re seeing in 2025 is not an innovation vacuum. It’s a discipline phase. The concentration of capital in players like Moniepoint reflects maturity, not stagnation. Markets that are still forming reward experimentation. Markets that are growing up reward execution.

He believes 2026 will bring what he calls “recomposition” rather than simple consolidation. “Yes, M&A will increase, particularly mid-market acquisitions that won’t make global headlines but will matter locally. At the same time, we’ll see more layered capital stacks. Local angels, diaspora syndicates, DFIs, venture debt, and revenue-based instruments working together.”

Tomi Davies, CiC at TVCLabs

The ecosystem that emerges, Davies argues, won’t depend on single large cheques from foreign VCs. It will blend multiple funding sources and require startups to prove value at every stage. “The ecosystems that thrive will be the ones that learn how to finance growth with multiple tools, not just one cheque size.”

Okpagu agrees the market is evolving, not dying. “The fintech sector is currently being sustained by M&A-led consolidation, as seen with Paystack’s acquisition of Brass, which allows the ecosystem to recycle talent and assets into more efficient models.“

Read also: Nigeria’s fintech regulation: Why the Senate is rewriting rules just 5 years after BOFIA 2020

The real test for Nigeria’s fintech

Nigerian fintech’s $230 million story in 2025 isn’t really about the funding gap. It’s about an industry being forced to answer harder questions about genuine value creation. The 27 companies that raised money this year presumably have answers. The other 473 are still searching.

Wilson’s question hangs in the air. Are Nigerian fintech entities expanding economic opportunity or extracting rent from existing fragility? The companies that figure out the right answer won’t just survive 2026. They’ll define what African fintech becomes for the next decade.

The future potential remains immense, as Barnwell insists. But patience and stamina aren’t enough anymore. Investors want proof that digital wallets can become economic engines. That’s the real test Nigerian fintech faces now. Not whether it can raise money, but whether it deserves to.

SOURCE PAGE

The market seems to be content, for now at least, to keep betting big on AI.

While the value of some companies integral to the AI boom like Nvidia, Oracle and Coreweave have seen their value fall since the highs of the mid-2025, the US stockmarket remains dominated by investment in AI.

Of the S&P500 index of leading companies 75% of returns are thanks to 41 AI stocks. The “magnificent seven” of big tech companies, Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Meta, Apple and Tesla, account for 37% of the S&P’s performance.

Such dominance, based almost exclusively on building one kind of AI – Large Language Models is sustaining fears of an AI bubble.

Nonsense, according to the AI titans.

“We are long, long away from that,” Jensen Huang, CEO of AI chip-maker Nvidia and the world’s first $5trn company, told Sky News last month.

Image:
Huang speaking to Sky News last month

Not everyone shares that confidence.

More on Artificial Intelligence

Too much confidence in one way of making AI, which so far hasn’t delivered profits anywhere close to the level of spending, must be testing the nerve of investors wondering where their returns will be.

The consequences of the bubble bursting, could be dire.

“If a few venture capitalists get wiped out, nobody’s gonna be really that sad,” said Gary Marcus, AI scientist and emeritus professor at New York University.

But with a large part of US economic growth this year down to investment in AI, the “blast radius”, could be much greater, said Marcus.

“In the worst case, what happens is the whole economy falls apart, basically. Banks aren’t liquid, we have bailouts, and taxpayers have to pay for it.”

Image:
Gary Marcus

Could that happen?

Well there are some ominous signs.

By one estimate Microsoft, Amazon, Google Meta and Oracle are expected to spend around $1trn on AI by 2026.

Open AI, maker of the first breakthrough Large Language Model ChatGPT, is committing to spend $1.4trn over the coming three years.

But what are investors in those companies getting in return for their investment? So far, not very much.

Take OpenAI, it’s expected to make little more than $20bn in profit in 2025. A lot of money, but nothing like enough to sustain spending of $1.4trn.

The size of the AI boom – or bubble depending on your view – comes down to the way it’s being built.

Computer cities

The AI revolution came in early 2023 when OpenAI released ChatGPT4.

The AI represented a mind-blowing improvement in natural language, computer coding and image generation ability that grew almost entirely out of one advance: Scale

GPT-4 required 3,000 to 10,000 times more computer power – or compute – than its predecessor GPT-2.

To make it smarter, it was trained on far more data. GPT-2 was trained on 1.5 billion “parameters” compared perhaps 1.8 trillion for GPT-4 – essentially all the text, image and video data on the internet.

Image:
An Amazon Web Services AI data centre in the US. Credit: Noah Berger/AWS

The leap in performance was so great, “Artificial General Intelligence” or AGI that rivals humans on most tasks, would come from simply repeating that trick.

And that’s what’s been happening. Demand for frontline GPU chips to train AI soared – and hence the share price of Nvidia which makes them doing the same.

The bulldozers then moved in to build the next generation of mega-data centres to run the chips and make the next generations of AI.

And they moved fast.

Stargate, announced in January by Donald Trump, Open AI’s Sam Altman and other partners, already has two vast data centre buildings in operation.

By mid-2026 the complex in central Texas is expected to cover an area the size of Manhattan’s Central Park.

And already, it’s beginning to look like small fry.

Meta’s $27bn Hyperion data centre being built in Louisiana is closer to the size of Manhattan itself.

The data centre is expected to consume twice as much power as the nearby city of New Orleans.

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The rampant increase in power demand is putting a major squeeze on America’s power grid with some data centres having to wait years for grid connections.

A problem for some, but not, say optimists, firms like Microsoft, Meta and Google, with such deep pockets they can build their own power stations.

Once these vast AI brains are built and switched on however, will they print money?

Stale Chips

Unlike other expensive infrastructure like roads, rail or power networks, AI data centres are expected to need constant upgrades.

Investors have good estimates for “depreciation curves” of various types of infrastructure asset. But not so for cutting-edge purpose-built AI data centres which barely existed five years ago.

Image:
Credit: NVIDIA

Nvidia, the leading maker of AI chips, has been releasing new, more powerful processors every year or so. It claims their latest chips will run for three to six years.

But there are doubts.

Image:
Bale playing Burry in The Big Short. Credit: Jaap Buiten/THA/Shutterstock

Fund manager Michael Burry, immortalised in the movie The Big Short, for predicting America’s sub-prime crash, recently announced he was betting against AI stocks.

His reasoning, that AI chips will need replacing every three years and given competition with rivals for the latest chips, perhaps faster than that.

Cooling, switching and wiring systems of data centres also wears down over time and is likely to need replacing within 10 years.

A few months ago, the Economist magazine estimated that if AI chips alone lose their edge every three years, it would reduce the combined value of the 5 big tech companies by $780bn.

If depreciation rates were two years, that number goes up to $1.6trn.

Factor in that depreciation and it further widens the already colossal gap between their AI spending and likely revenues.

By one estimate, the big tech will need to see $2trn in profit by 2030 to justify their AI costs.

Are people buying it?

And then there’s the question of where the profits are to justify the massive AI investments.

AI adoption is undoubtedly on the rise.

You only have to skim your social media to witness the rise of AI-generated text, images and videos.

Read more from Sky News:
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Kids are using it for homework, their parents for research, or help composing letters and reports.

But beyond casual use and fantastical cat videos, are people actually profiting from it – and therefore likely to pay enough for it to satisfy trillion-dollar investments?

There’s early signs current AI could revolutionise some markets, like software and drug development, creative industries and online shopping,

And by some measures, the future looks promising, OpenAI claims to have 800 million “weekly active users” across its products, double what it was in February.

However, only 5% of those are paying subscribers.

And when you look at adoption by businesses – where the real money is for Big Tech – things don’t look much better.

According to the US census bureau at the start of 2025, 8-12% of companies said they are starting to use AI to produce goods and services.

For larger companies – with more money to spend on AI perhaps – adoption grew to 14% in June but has fallen to 12% in recent months.

According to analysis by McKinsey the vast majority of companies are still in the pilot stage of AI rollout or looking at how to scale their use.

In a way, this makes total sense. Generative AI is a new technology, with even the companies building still trying to figure out what it’s best for.

But how long will shareholders be prepared to wait before profits come even close to paying off the investments they’ve made?

Especially, when confidence in the idea that current AI models will only get better is beginning to falter.

Is scaling failing?

Large Language Models are undoubtedly improving.

According to industry “benchmarks”, technical tests that evaluate AI’s ability to perform complex maths, coding or research tasks show performance is tracking the scale of computing power being added. Currently doubling every six months or so.

But on real-world tasks, the evidence is less strong.

LLMs work by making statistical predictions of what answers should be based on their training data, without actually understanding what that data actually “means.”

They struggle with tasks that involve understanding how the world works and learning from it.

Their architecture doesn’t have any kind of long-term memory allowing them to learn what types of data is important and what’s not. Something that human brains do without having to be told.

For that reason, while they make huge improvements on certain tasks, they consistently make the same kind of mistakes, and fail at the same kind of tasks.

“Is the belief that if you just 100x the scale, everything would be transformed? I don’t think that’s true,” Ilya Sutskever, the co-founder of OpenAI told the Dwarkesh Podcast last month.

The AI scientist who helped pioneer ChatGPT, before leaving OpenAI predicted, “it’s back to the age of research again, just with big computers”.

Will those who’ve taken big bets with AI be satisfied with modest future improvements, while they wait for potential customers to figure out how to make AI work for them?

“It’s really just a scaling hypothesis, a guess that this might work. It’s not really working,” said Prof Marcus,

“So you’re spending trillions of dollars, profits are negligible and depreciation is high. It does not make sense. And so then it’s a question of when the market realises that.”

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At this time of year we’re all trying to avoid falling sick – but are you able to detect the subtle signs that someone is ill?

While coughing, sneezing and nose-blowing are obvious clues, there are faint signals that can also indicate a person is worth avoiding.

Researchers carried out a study asking participants to analyse pictures to see how well they could detect lassitude – the facial signs someone is unwell.

They were shown different images of 12 individuals, who had a photo taken when they were healthy and another taken when they had Covid, a cold or the flu.

Overall, they found that women were more accurate than men at distinguishing between a person who was sick or unwell.

This could be because women, who have historically been the primary caregiver for infants, have undergone evolutionary pressure to recognise sickness early.

‘When feeling sick, people reliably exhibit observable signs in their faces. People are, overall, sensitive to the lassitude expression in naturally sick faces,’ the team, from the University of Miami, said.

So, can you tell which of these images were taken when the individual was ill?

At this time of year we’re all trying to avoid falling sick – but can you tell which image shows an ill person? Left is picture A, right is picture B

Of these two images, which do you think shows the person when they are sick? Experts say women are better at detecting small clues. Left is picture C, right is picture D

Participants were also shown images of this individual – which do you think she looks the most ill in? Left is picture E, right is picture F

The researchers revealed some telltale clues that indicate someone is unwell.

These include red or sleepy/relaxed eyes, drooping eyelids, pale and slightly parted lips and drooping corners of the mouth.

Other indications can be clammy or puffy skin, or a red face.

From the images above, pictures A, D and F are of individuals who are sick.

Upon closer inspection, picture A shows the person appearing slightly more shiny – or clammy – than picture B, when they are healthy.

In picture D, taken when the person was unwell, the eyelids droop more and the lips appear paler than in picture C.

They also seem to have more of a reddish glow – another signal that can indicate illness.

While pictures E and F are a bit trickier, you would be correct if you said the individual is sick in picture F.

Now you know what to look for, can you tell which of these pictures shows the woman when she is sick?

The researchers found that women were able to perceive subtle signs of illness better than the men involved in the study

Subtle signs of illness

• Red or sleepy/relaxed eyes
• Drooping eyelids
• Pale/slightly-parted lips
• Drooping corners of the mouth
• Clammy or puffy skin
• A red face 

In these two pictures, it is slightly easier to work out which one was taken when this woman was ill.

In the second image, she has a turned-down mouth and obviously drooping eyelids, indicating she is unwell.

She also appears paler and slightly clammy.

Writing in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior, the team said: ‘Overall, the current study found that females are better than males at recognizing facial sickness based on ratings of people’s faces.

‘This finding indicates that females may be more attuned to natural facial cues of sickness.’

The researchers said future studies will be necessary to disentangle what mechanisms may have shaped these sex differences.

‘Nonetheless, our findings suggest individual differences in the ability to perceive facial signs of lassitude, with some individuals—particularly males—potentially benefiting from support in developing this skill,’ they concluded.

This could help contribute to reducing the transmission of disease.

The UKHSA has recently shared advice on symptoms to help people determine whether they have cold, the flu or Covid.

A cold is usually characterised by a blocked or runny nose, sneezing and a sore throat, and symptoms occur gradually.

Flu signs and symptoms, meanwhile, develop very rapidly and extreme tiredness is common. Other symptoms include a fever and body aches.

While Covid symptoms have changed over time, some of the most prevalent include a change in sense of taste or smell and a particularly painful sore throat.

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In just about a week, iRobot, Luminar, and Rad Power Bikes all filed for bankruptcy.

They’re very different companies — selling Roombas, lidar, and e-bikes, respectively — but as Sean O’Kane, Rebecca Bellan, and I discussed on the episode of the Equity podcast, they faced some similar challenges, including tariff pressures, major deals that fell through, and a failure to establish themselves beyond the products that first made them successful.

You can read an edited preview of our conversation below, with Sean providing an overview of each filing, Rebecca weighing in on whether she has a Roomba, and me speculating about what the popular narratives about these bankruptcies leave out.

Sean: Rad Power is big for an e-bike company, but small, I think, in most people’s minds, since that’s still a bit of a niche. They were founded a long time ago and became popular even before the pandemic, and really were thought of as an industry leader, as far as quality of the bikes that they’re making, pretty good branding and marketing and trying to connect with with customers — which is really hard to find in the world of e-bikes, where most of them are just like alphabet soup companies on Amazon. 

They rode that wave in the pandemic up high as micromobility really took off, and people were really rethinking how they were getting around, they weren’t commuting into the office as much. And we get glimpses of that in the bankruptcy filings. It only shows revenue back three years, but they were pulling in well over $100 million in revenue in 2023 — like $123 million, I think that fell to about $100 [million] last year, and through the bankruptcy this year, they were only at about $63 million, so they were clearly coming down off a pretty big high. They have a pretty diverse product lineup, but they just never really found a way to establish a foothold there.

And I think you could say similar things about these other two companies. Luminar is another company that was founded in the early 2010s, came out of stealth in 2017, and its mission was essentially to take lidar sensors, which at the time were really expensive and big and really only used in, like, defense applications and aerospace. 2017 was sort of the first big hype cycle of autonomous vehicles. They wanted to apply those sensors, make them more affordable for that use case. That helped them get some deals, most notably with Volvo, and then some other deals with Mercedes Benz, and a couple other players. But they were just heavily concentrated in that, and that was one of the reasons they wound up filing this week, too.

And then iRobot [was] the most well known of these three companies — a lot of people listening probably even have a Roomba at home or something very like it. It’s just another one of these situations where iRobot became synonymous with a certain thing, and then the advances in the technology that build that product move so quickly that they wound up in a situation where they were looking for a way out. And we all saw this, they were trying to get acquired by Amazon, and that deal got blocked by the FTC and so here we are. 

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They’re very different companies, but they all ran into similar problems. Do either of you guys have a Roomba?

Rebecca: No, I don’t have a Roomba. Those freak me out, but I bought my mom a Rad Power bike years ago, and she loves it. But now, you know, they had not only this bankruptcy issue, but they also had the issue with the batteries — they weren’t able to do their recalls because they were, like, “If we have to recall these bikes, we’re going to go bankrupt.” But they’re going bankrupt anyway! 

I’m curious about the tariff thing, and how much this affected everyone’s bottom lines. You hear a lot on social media, people who are pro merger, how certain FTC blockings of [mergers] leads to the companies going bankrupt, or getting acquired by a Chinese firm rather than an American firm. 

Sean: iRobot represents, to me, the sort of macro global trade problem of, could you have ever built this company here in the United States with a localized supply chain over the last 15 years? Probably not. And so it makes sense that they became so heavily reliant on China — which, let’s be real, probably led to the ability for these other companies to pop up and essentially copy what they did. 

That reminds me of in Trump 1, when he flipped on tariffs for Chinese imports, and we saw a bunch of startups like Boosted Boards and other ones in the micromobility space get hit. So they’re contributing factors, for sure. The battery recall with Rad Power absolutely was, I think, a bigger dagger at the end, but the tariff stuff put them on uneven footing that made it harder for them to respond to stuff like that.

Anthony: A lot of times when a company fails, there [are] larger structural issues, and then there’s maybe a more immediate proximate issue. And particularly in the case of iRobot, I think that a lot of former executives and even outside commentators are pointing to this Amazon deal that was reached a few years ago — it kind of looked like the EU was not going to allow it to go through, and there is this sense of, “Okay, well, by blocking this deal, you’ve essentially put the dagger in their heart that eventually killed the company.”

That narrative also maybe ignores the fact that there were other things that caused them to want to get acquired in the first place.

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The murdered professor from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was on the brink of revolutionizing the energy sector and upending fossil fuel use as we know it. 

Nuno Loureiro, 47, was gunned down at his home in the Boston suburb of Brookline on Monday.

Authorities believe that the same alleged gunman, Claudio Neves Valente, who carried out the mass shooting at Brown University, may have assassinated Loureiro, but the investigation is still ongoing.

Before his death, Loureiro was leading MIT’s efforts to revolutionize energy production by making a game-changing clean power source that needs just a fraction of the fossil fuels current machines and vehicles use today.

His team’s research at MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) centered on plasma physics, the study of super-hot, ionized gases, and how to apply them to fusion energy, a promising clean power source.

Fusion provides what scientists call ‘baseload electricity,’ a steady supply of power 24/7, using tiny amounts of fuel with no air pollution or climate-warming emissions, unlike carbon dioxide-producing fossil fuels.

A breakthrough in this field could disrupt the trillion-dollar fuel industry by reducing demand for oil, gas, and coal, especially for generating power and transportation. High-demand users like data centers could also switch to fusion for reliable, green energy.

‘This is a very advanced technology, and whatever nation masters it first is going to have an incredible advantage,’ Loureiro said on December 8.

Nuno Loureiro (Pictured) was shot to death at his home in Massachusetts on Monday. Investigators suspect the gunman may have been the same shooter that attacked Brown University

Pictured: Investigators at the crime scene in Boston where Nuno Loureiro was fatally shot

Authorities tied Neves Valente, the suspect in the Brown University shooting that killed two students and wounded nine on December 13, to the murder of Loureiro after matching surveillance footage from both crime scenes showing the alleged gunman in the same clothing. 

The connection was further solidified by license plate reader data and video from a car rental agency tracking Valente’s gray Nissan Sentra with Florida plates, which he allegedly used to travel between both crime scenes. 

Loureiro was already a respected physicist from Portugal when he joined MIT in 2016 as a professor and quickly rose to become a full-time professor by 2021.

Last year, he became the director of the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center, one of the university’s largest laboratories with more than 250 full-time researchers.

Loureiro specialized in theoretical physics, meaning he used math and computer simulations to figure out how plasma behaves under extreme conditions.

Plasma is the fourth state of matter, different from solids, liquids, and gases, where heat is so intense that atoms lose their electrons and create a mix of positively charged ions and free electrons – a critical component of fusion technology.

The clean energy source essentially mimics the sun’s power on Earth, smashing lighter atoms such as hydrogen together to ‘fuse’ and form heavier atoms like helium in a process that unleashes massive amounts of energy.

Until his death, Loureiro and the PSFC team were working with the company Commonwealth Fusion Systems to build SPARC, a compact fusion reactor in Massachusetts designed to produce energy from fusing atoms, with operations expected to start in 2026.

Nuno Loureiro (Pictured) was leading efforts to create fusion energy, a form of clean energy that could upend the multi-trillion-dollar fossil fuel energy

Scientists at MIT had been working under Loureiro’s leadership to build clean, fusion reactor technology (Stock Image)

They were also overseeing new projects like launching a special laboratory at PSFC to quickly test and develop tough materials that can handle the extreme heat and radiation inside future fusion reactors, helping make clean fusion power practical and safe. 

Dennis Whyte, MIT’s Hitachi America Professor of Engineering, said: ‘His loss is immeasurable to our community at the PSFC, NSE [Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering] and MIT, and around the entire fusion and plasma research world.’

MIT has previously noted that more than $8billion has already been invested in the development of commercial fusion reactors, which could one day challenge the fossil fuel industry for dominance.

‘If you walked into a room of fusion scientists in 2018 or 2019 and said there were going to be fusion startups, and venture capital funding to the tune of $9 billion, you would have been laughed out of the room,’ Loureiro said in a statement two weeks ago.

Neves Valente and Loureiro previously attended the same academic program at a university in Portugal between 1995 and 2000.

Loureiro graduated from the physics program at Instituto Superior Técnico, Portugal’s premier engineering school, in 2000, according to his MIT faculty page. 

That same year, Neves Valente was let go from a position at the Lisbon University, according to an archive of a termination notice from the school’s then-president in February 2000.

Neves Valente went to Brown on a student visa and eventually obtained legal permanent residence in the US in September 2017.

It was not immediately clear where he was between taking a leave of absence from the school in 2001 and getting the visa in 2017. His last known residence was in Miami.

After officials revealed the suspect’s identity, President Trump suspended the green card lottery program that allowed Neves Valente to stay in the US.

Authorities said that the suspected gunman’s original target was Loureiro, but it was unclear what his alleged motive was or what his relationship with Loureiro had been.

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Alcoholism is the most severe form of alcohol abuse and involves the inability to manage drinking habits.

It is organized into three categories: mild, moderate and severe. Each category has various symptoms and can cause harmful side effects.

If left untreated, any type of alcohol abuse can spiral out of control. 

Individuals struggling with alcoholism often feel as though they cannot function normally without alcohol.

This can lead to a wide range of issues and impact professional goals, personal matters, relationships and overall health.

Sometimes the warning signs of alcohol abuse are very noticeable. Other times, they can take longer to surface. 

When alcohol addiction is discovered in its early stages, the chance for a successful recovery increases significantly.

Common signs of alcoholism include:

• Being unable to control alcohol consumption
• Craving alcohol when you’re not drinking
• Putting alcohol above personal responsibilities
• Feeling the need to keep drinking more
• Spending a substantial amount of money on alcohol
• Behaving differently after drinking

Short-term effects of alcohol abuse can be just as dangerous as long-term effects. 

For instance, drinking can impact your reaction time, causing you to have slow reflexes and coordination.

That’s why drinking and driving is extremely dangerous. Getting behind the wheel of a car can alter your perception of speed and distance, putting yourself and others at risk.

Several short-term effects of alcohol abuse may produce:

• Slow reaction time
• Poor reflexes
• Reduce brain activity
• Lowered inhibitions
• Blurry vision
• Difficulty breathing
• Restlessness

Additionally, consuming too much alcohol can affect your long-term health. Some side effects may lay dormant for years before they surface.

Because of this, professional medical care is required for proper diagnosis and treatment.

Long-term health conditions caused by alcohol:

• Brain defects 
• Liver disease
• Diabetes complications
• Heart problems
• Increased risk of cancer
• Vision damage
• Bone loss 

Treatment for Alcoholism 

There are different forms of treatment available based on frequency and severity of alcohol abuse. 

Recovering from alcohol addiction is a process that continues long after rehab. 

It takes commitment to practice and apply the techniques you learn in rehab, counseling, support groups and other types of therapy.

Although every individual will have their own recovery plan that’s tailored to their specific needs, treatment generally follows a structure.

Alcohol treatment is broken into three sections, consisting of:

Detoxification

The first stage in alcohol addiction recovery is detoxification. This phase should be completed with the help of medical professionals due to the potential for serious, uncomfortable withdrawal symptoms. Many times, individuals are given a medication to help alleviate the painful side effects of a withdrawal.

Rehabilitation

There are two types of rehabilitation that help treat alcoholism: inpatient rehab and outpatient rehab. Inpatient rehabs are intensive treatment programs that require you to check into a facility for a certain period of time, usually 30, 60 or 90 days. Outpatient rehab allows individuals to participate in a recovery program while continuing with their daily life. Talk with your doctor about treatment options to determine which form of recovery will best fit your needs.

Maintenance

The recovery process doesn’t end with the completion of rehab. Long-term sobriety requires ongoing therapy and may entail support groups, counseling and other recovery resources. These will make sure you maintain sobriety and continue on a happy, healthy path for months and years to come.

Source: Alcohol Rehab Guide

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Waymo suspended its robotaxi service in San Francisco on Saturday evening after a massive blackout appeared to leave many of its vehicles stalled on city streets.

Numerous photos and videos posted to social media captured Waymo robotaxis stalled at roads and intersections as human drivers either passed them by or were stuck behind them.

Waymo said on Saturday that it had temporarily suspended service in the city due to the blackout. Spokesperson Suzanne Philion provided a similar statement to TechCrunch on Sunday morning.

“We have temporarily suspended our ride-hailing services in the San Francisco Bay Area due to the widespread power outage,” Philion said. “Our teams are working diligently and in close coordination with city officials to monitor infrastructure stability, and we are hopeful to bring our services back online soon. We appreciate your patience and will provide further updates as soon as they are available.”

The company did not provide an explanation for why the blackout had such a dramatic effect on its vehicles. One possible culprit: The blackout took down many of the city’s traffic lights. (In fact, with the blackout affecting both lights and Muni mass transit, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie warned residents to stay off the roads unless they needed to travel.)

Others theorized that Waymo might have been affected by an interruption in cell service or traffic data.

The blackout appears to have been caused by a fire at a Pacific Gas & Electric substation in the city. SFGate reports that around 120,000 PG&E customers were affected by the blackout, and while the majority of them had power restored by late Saturday, 35,000 customers were still without power on Sunday morning. PG&E’s website also showed thousands of San Francisco customers still affected at that time.

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A letter from Tiger Global Management leaked earlier this month said that Waymo is now providing 450,000 robotaxi rides per week, nearly double the amount that the Alphabet-owned company disclosed in the spring.

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