Are we really about to ban TikTok? | The Vergecast - video Dailymotion

The Verge

The Verge 's Nilay Patel, David Pierce, and Alex Cranz discuss the US House of Representatives passing a bill that could ban TikTok, the streaming news of the week, a Dyson robot, and more.

Transcript

00:00:00Hello and welcome to RichCast, a flagship podcast of algorithmic warfare.

00:00:07That's good.

00:00:08That's a good phrase.

00:00:09That's a good band name.

00:00:11Yeah.

00:00:12Like, if you were in high school, you would for sure play bass in a band called Algorithmic

00:00:16Warfare right now.

00:00:17Neely.

00:00:18Neely would for sure, 100%.

00:00:21Cadillac this week, this is a true story, Cadillac this week teased a new concept called

00:00:26Opulent Velocity.

00:00:27Oh, yeah.

00:00:29Which is really good, like really good.

00:00:31But it sounds like the name of one of those clubs or restaurants in New York.

00:00:35It's always empty, but always open.

00:00:37Yeah.

00:00:38And it does bottle service.

00:00:39But no one's ever in there.

00:00:40No one.

00:00:41Fully staffed, no visitors, Opulent Velocity.

00:00:44I love that.

00:00:45I would stand in line for that.

00:00:47Algorithmic Warfare is playing at Opulent Velocity.

00:00:51Tickets are $8,000.

00:00:54To no one.

00:00:55Right.

00:00:56Yeah.

00:00:57And this is like a hard thing to convey.

00:01:02Our city has corruption in it.

00:01:05And sometimes the people have to launder the money.

00:01:08So every now and again, you'll be in a neighborhood where there's just a fully staffed, empty

00:01:14restaurant.

00:01:15There used to be one right by our office in Midtown.

00:01:16It was deeply confusing.

00:01:18No, I bet it would be like, great.

00:01:20How are the deals?

00:01:21How is the food?

00:01:22No, you'd go in there and you'd be first like, I should leave.

00:01:25Yeah.

00:01:26And the vibes were immediately hostile.

00:01:28Yeah.

00:01:29You're not ordering.

00:01:30And then you would order food and they'd be like, what?

00:01:34We don't know.

00:01:35We have to go to the grocery store and get you some chicken tenders.

00:01:38We'll be back.

00:01:39Opulent Velocity.

00:01:40All right.

00:01:41There's a lot happening this week.

00:01:43I'm your friend, Neely Alex Kranz is here in studio.

00:01:45Yeah.

00:01:46We're back.

00:01:47I was going to say it's been a minute, but we were just together in Texas, all three

00:01:51of us.

00:01:52But it's been a minute since you and I were together in this studio.

00:01:53That's true.

00:01:54It's nice.

00:01:55Yeah.

00:01:56It's been fun.

00:01:57And then David Pierce has vanished to his basement once again.

00:01:58Yeah.

00:01:59Cool.

00:02:00Thanks.

00:02:01It's really nice to see you guys.

00:02:02Feeling great.

00:02:03How is it?

00:02:04I mean, it's a basement.

00:02:05I did nap over there earlier.

00:02:06So I'm feeling great.

00:02:07Everything's going well today.

00:02:08Hell yes.

00:02:09My understanding is that we are soon to give you some sort of green screen experience where

00:02:13you can be anywhere.

00:02:15Liam is threatening to give me a background, but every time he threatens the background,

00:02:19there's one more box involved.

00:02:22And so I think we're now at either two or three boxes plus a six foot long green screen

00:02:28that lives under my couch.

00:02:29So it's either going to happen and really change my life in a big way, or I'm just going

00:02:35to refuse to engage in this process any longer.

00:02:38We'll see.

00:02:39Look, I know Verge Cast listeners have a relationship with our producer, Liam, mostly because he's

00:02:44the person who makes us be on time, which we have defeated Liam.

00:02:47I just want to be clear that listeners plus hosts have defeated Liam.

00:02:51But the way you know he's the right producer for the show is that when he's allowed to

00:02:55spend money on gadgets and gadget related ideas, it's just out of control.

00:03:00Like the studio that is being built at my house, fully out of control.

00:03:04It's sick.

00:03:06It's great.

00:03:07And one day we'll make Liam do the video where he's like, here's all the stuff I bought.

00:03:11Studio tour.

00:03:12That's going to happen.

00:03:13It's going to be great.

00:03:14It's a lot of stuff.

00:03:15And then I have ideas.

00:03:17It's not, it's not great.

00:03:20I would not say it's a cost effective studio.

00:03:23It's just a lot of stuff.

00:03:24It's great.

00:03:25I like to imagine you just never get out of your chair and you just sort of wheel from

00:03:29set to set all day, depending on what you're doing.

00:03:32You just kind of like bomb across the room.

00:03:33Liam has threatened to automate the studio, so you just push one button and like the shades

00:03:36go down and the lights turn on.

00:03:38I don't know that we can get there.

00:03:39You totally can.

00:03:41Home assistant, right, Liam?

00:03:42It's going to be home assistant.

00:03:44It's going to be sick.

00:03:45I like how you just like try to get Liam to jump in.

00:03:47Come on, Liam.

00:03:48Hop in.

00:03:49He's not doing it.

00:03:50He's like, no.

00:03:51He's hiding under the table.

00:03:52No, he's got ideas.

00:03:53Yeah, he's not.

00:03:56We were waiting.

00:03:57He just didn't show up.

00:03:59He will not be baited.

00:04:00He's very upset with us right now.

00:04:02I'm sorry.

00:04:03We love you, Liam.

00:04:04Liam is incredible.

00:04:05Everyone tweet at Liam.

00:04:06Okay.

00:04:07Good things only.

00:04:08Now that we're on the high vibes.

00:04:09Yeah.

00:04:10There's a lot to talk about this week.

00:04:11There's a TikTok ban, which we got to talk about a lot.

00:04:15There's a bunch of streaming wars news.

00:04:17There's Twitter now X pivoting to video.

00:04:21It's a real 2012 idea.

00:04:24There's a new YouTube app and then we got a lightning round.

00:04:26There's all kinds of stuff going on.

00:04:27Starship had its third launch, which appears to be totally successful.

00:04:30That happened only minutes before we started recording.

00:04:32So I'm saying that and we'll see if it landed by the time we get to talking about it.

00:04:39It's going to be great.

00:04:40We should start with TikTok, which is undoubtedly the news of the week.

00:04:45It is very confusing, very stressful, and I have promised to have the hottest take of

00:04:49all.

00:04:50But first, David, you want to tell us what's going on on TikTok?

00:04:53Sure.

00:04:54So the very short version of what has now become a very long story is that after in

00:04:582021 deciding not to ban TikTok, Congress has decided once again that it would very

00:05:04much like to ban TikTok.

00:05:05So there is this bill called the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled

00:05:10Applications Act, which just really rolls off the tongue.

00:05:13And what it essentially does is block app stores from hosting TikTok and it blocks internet

00:05:22hosting providers from hosting TikTok.

00:05:24And there are a million complications and nuances in that that we should talk about.

00:05:28But the idea is essentially to either ban TikTok outright or force it to be sold to

00:05:35an American company or a company at least not owned by a foreign adversary, which is

00:05:39a technical term that only a few countries qualify under.

00:05:43So it went through committee.

00:05:45I believe it passed in a House committee 50 to 0.

00:05:4750 to 0.

00:05:48Yeah. And then it went to the broader House where it passed with like 80 percent yes,

00:05:52which was a huge, ridiculous victory in a time where nothing passes with numbers like

00:05:57that. So now this bill is sitting in front of the Senate.

00:06:00President Biden has said that if it is passed to him, he will sign it into law.

00:06:05There is essentially now one step remaining between us and a TikTok ban.

00:06:11And it's a big step. And there are lots of good reasons to believe it will never surmount

00:06:15that step. Yeah, because it's it's Rand Paul, right?

00:06:17Like the step is Rand Paul.

00:06:19Senator. The Senate.

00:06:21Yeah, it's Rand Paul and it's Chuck Schumer.

00:06:23And there are there are a lot of people in the Senate who have reasons not to make this

00:06:27happen. Right. But it is we are much closer to a TikTok ban than we have ever been before

00:06:32to the point where a lot of people inside TikTok and outside TikTok think it's going to

00:06:38happen. All right.

00:06:39So can I quibble with you on one thing, please?

00:06:41And it is just the most pedantic thing.

00:06:43But why? Why else?

00:06:44We're here. Yeah. The idea that it's a ban on TikTok specifically, like conflates too

00:06:50many ideas. Can I read you the first sentence of the bill?

00:06:52Yeah. To protect the national security of the United States from the threat posed by

00:06:56foreign adversary controlled applications such as TikTok, it's the only app they name

00:07:03in the bill. This is a TikTok ban.

00:07:05Sure. And it's the only app specified later in the bill.

00:07:08Right. But it but the mechanism by which it is accomplishing that goal is not actually

00:07:14by banning TikTok.

00:07:15And I think that's that's important.

00:07:18If you want to understand the dynamics of this bill and the people arrayed for and against

00:07:23it, what might actually happen with TikTok?

00:07:26It's a bill that regulates app stores and Internet service providers.

00:07:30It does not regulate TikTok at all.

00:07:32Like nothing in this bill requires TikTok to do anything.

00:07:38It requires a bunch of other companies to do stuff that will make it impossible for

00:07:42TikTok to do business here.

00:07:44And I think when we have all these conversations about the hundred and seventy million

00:07:48Americans who use TikTok and free speech and all these businesses, it's all as though

00:07:53the government is regulating TikTok.

00:07:56But it is. But very specifically and very mechanically in this bill, it is not doing

00:08:01that. It is making it impossible for TikTok to do business in the United States.

00:08:05And you might think that is the same thing.

00:08:06And you are. I'm sure people have a lot of, like, feelings about what I'm saying.

00:08:11But if you just read the language of the bill, the bill does not regulate.

00:08:16It says TikTok for political expediency.

00:08:20But it doesn't actually regulate TikTok directly.

00:08:23It just says these other companies cannot do business with TikTok.

00:08:27And I think that's actually really important.

00:08:29It's also the only way to do it.

00:08:31Like, you can't argue that TikTok is a company owned and run by China and then say the U.S.

00:08:36government can regulate it.

00:08:37Like, you just can't have it both ways.

00:08:39This is the only way to get to TikTok if you want to get to TikTok.

00:08:42No, there are other ways to do it.

00:08:45Some of those ways have succeeded in the courts and some of them have failed.

00:08:47Like, over time, we are capable of regulating how foreign companies do business in the

00:08:52United States. For example, foreign companies are not really allowed to own, like,

00:08:58broadcast licenses in the United States.

00:09:00So if you want to set up a CBS tower in New York City, you can't go get a bunch of

00:09:05Saudi money to do it. We seem to be fine with that.

00:09:08And I just want to put that out there.

00:09:09Like, there are some very direct regulations that we have over media ownership in this

00:09:14country. And then there's this bill, which is, like, Apple can't do business with

00:09:18TikTok. And it's actually different.

00:09:20And the reason I'm poking at that really hard is because I think the rhetoric on both

00:09:25sides of this has gotten one turn too simplistic.

00:09:30Right. On the we should ban it side, it's like, this is a danger to the United States.

00:09:35And you're like, so what are you going to do about it?

00:09:37Like, we're going to tell Apple what to do.

00:09:38Weird. Weird.

00:09:40Just, like, straightforwardly weird.

00:09:42And on the other side, it's like, you're infringing our free speech rights by banning

00:09:45TikTok. And then you look at the thing, it's like, oh, that is the third order outcome of

00:09:50this. But if what you're really doing is regulating Apple, there's actually all these

00:09:54other routes, including you could sell TikTok, which, as you pointed out, David, in

00:10:002021, like, boy, haven't we been through this before?

00:10:03Like, Microsoft was going to buy TikTok.

00:10:05Satya Nadella was like, this is the weirdest deal I've ever been a part of.

00:10:09Oracle has Project Texas and no one cares.

00:10:14Like, the least.

00:10:15Alex is from Texas. This is the least anything named Texas has ever talked about

00:10:18itself. Yeah, yeah, it's true.

00:10:21It's true. All the other Texans are really confused.

00:10:24It's happening. You like how I got to that?

00:10:26Yeah, I do not.

00:10:29Let me take that back. Yeah, I keep looking at this and it's it's fundamentally just

00:10:33like the next step in the in the Chinese-American trade war.

00:10:36Right. Like this is just saying we don't want apps created in China that are popular

00:10:43functioning in the United States.

00:10:45Full stop. And in a few other countries, but but specifically China.

00:10:49And and so this is just an extension of that trade war.

00:10:52And I'm a little like taken aback by it.

00:10:56It does feel like like the TikTok stuff in particular has always felt vaguely xenophobic.

00:11:01It's always felt a little like, oh, we can't we can't have the Chinese do things here

00:11:05because America. And and but we we do also at the same time have this this quickly

00:11:10accelerating trade war that that was that was like in the background.

00:11:14And then Trump was like, let me lob the the trade equivalent of a bomb into the mix.

00:11:19And and now this is it's not quite nuclear, but this is like a really significant moment

00:11:25in that trade war. And they're just.

00:11:28Everybody is so focused on TikTok and ignoring the fact that you are fundamentally

00:11:32changing how the Internet works in the United States.

00:11:35And saying, no, we are actually going to build a wall the way that China has a wall.

00:11:39The United States is going to have a wall.

00:11:41And some of the stuff we've already said about a lot of the technology that's coming out

00:11:44of China. And now they're going to say, yeah, and also these apps and.

00:11:50You know, it worked when it was Huawei and it was phones and they didn't have a huge

00:11:53market share in the United States, and so it's like, oh, no, we lost Huawei and like that

00:11:57sucks because they have really good technology in their devices.

00:12:00And now we're like, they're going after TikTok and that's in people suddenly care.

00:12:07All right. Here it is. You ready?

00:12:08I'm ready. I think it makes total sense for United States government to not want Chinese

00:12:11ownership of a major media platform in this country.

00:12:13Like, yeah, it is sensible on its face.

00:12:16It was sensible on its face for us to not want a bunch of Huawei technology in our

00:12:20communications networks.

00:12:23And I agree with you.

00:12:24I think most people didn't have like strand brand affinity for Huawei.

00:12:28So when we would have FCC commissioners on the show, Jeffrey Starks was on the show

00:12:32being like, we got to rip and replace all the Huawei gear.

00:12:35No creator said anything.

00:12:37Right. As far as I understand, like maybe there was a Huawei powered creator campaign

00:12:42to be like, save us as far as I can tell.

00:12:45I think some people may be around the phones.

00:12:47Yeah. I mean, they had the phones.

00:12:49They had like the Leica.

00:12:51Yeah. Yeah. So in order to make that statement, you have to believe one of the two

00:12:57arguments that everybody makes against TikTok, which is either it is this like

00:13:01crucially important vessel through which China is collecting data about Americans,

00:13:05or it is how China is disseminating propaganda and influencing U.S.

00:13:09elections and making our children idiots.

00:13:11Which of those do you believe?

00:13:13The second one.

00:13:14Do you? Do you really?

00:13:15Yeah. On what evidence?

00:13:17None.

00:13:19Just to be clear.

00:13:21Just just to be clear.

00:13:22This is going to be a great podcast.

00:13:24And I don't want to I don't want to say I have much evidence.

00:13:27I think actually one of the problems in this entire situation is that the House

00:13:33Select Committee went into a secure briefing.

00:13:37They saw whatever evidence there was.

00:13:40And they walked out of that briefing and went immediately to a vote and voted 50 to

00:13:44zero to pass this bill that would either get TikTok off the app stores or force them

00:13:50to sell. With no dissension, no controversy.

00:13:54I was at South by Southwest.

00:13:57The the vibe I heard coming out of the briefing was congresspeople saying, if you

00:14:03saw what we saw, you do it, too.

00:14:05What did they see?

00:14:08I think they should be made to present that evidence to the American people.

00:14:12And yet.

00:14:13And yet they have not. Right.

00:14:14And yet that evidence is also so persuasive that they voted 383 to whatever to pass

00:14:20the bill in the full house. And yet there's nothing.

00:14:22The evidence is so persuasive that Joe Biden's like, I'll sign it when it comes to

00:14:26my desk. And yet no one has made the case.

00:14:30The thing that I'm saying based on no evidence is you should not let.

00:14:36An adversary of United States even have this capability.

00:14:39We didn't know if Huawei was actually spying on our communications networks by

00:14:42embedding hardware directly into the cell system.

00:14:46No one wants to take the chance.

00:14:48Right. Like that seems silly.

00:14:50The problem the problem, I think, with with the argument of this is about protecting

00:14:57us from from from Chinese interests is that meta still exists.

00:15:03A ton of other algorithmically driven social media platforms that are extraordinarily

00:15:08susceptible to propaganda still exist in this country and function in this country.

00:15:13They're only going after a tick tock, which means like.

00:15:17Russia went and did a whole lot of stuff in 2016, and we have a whole lot of proof of

00:15:21that and not a lot's changed on that front.

00:15:24Instead, we were just like, well, we're going to get rid of Facebook's going to get

00:15:27rid of a news feed and we're all going to be fine.

00:15:29And meta still is allowed to exist in this country.

00:15:33So this is explicitly about China, but feels like so wrongheaded in actually solving the

00:15:40problem, because right now, OK, you say we kill tick tock in the United States.

00:15:45It goes away. China can just go to U.S.

00:15:48data brokers and get all that.

00:15:50That's the first thing that David is saying, the data brokers thing.

00:15:53So this is why I ask about the two things, because I agree that I specifically mean the

00:15:57second one. But I think if but on that second turn.

00:16:00Again, they can just go and send their their propaganda like right now.

00:16:04OK, it's cool. They maybe just have a button on the algorithm and they can they can

00:16:08control the algorithm in a very direct way.

00:16:10Instead, they can now just send all of their their people, their propaganda specialists

00:16:15and all of those folks on to meta, on to on to threads, on to Instagram, on to X for the

00:16:23four people still there.

00:16:24They can they can send them all to all those other places.

00:16:27And that doesn't solve the problem.

00:16:30It just like makes their lives just a little bit more difficult.

00:16:34And yeah, I just.

00:16:36But that way it makes our lives a lot more difficult, vastly more difficult.

00:16:41I do agree with that for all of their many, many, many faults.

00:16:47Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai and Elon Musk live in the United States.

00:16:51They operate United States companies.

00:16:53Right. Their kids live here.

00:16:56If the United States and China go to war, their kids will be at risk.

00:17:01The United States government has direct regulatory control over their companies, their

00:17:05companies. Again, you can argue about the merits of this as much as you want.

00:17:11Their companies comply with and often support the military activities of the United

00:17:15States. Right.

00:17:17I'm saying I have a problem with the idea that we are OK with algorithmically driven

00:17:24propaganda machines only when they're American.

00:17:27We are because of the fucking First Amendment.

00:17:30Right. Like our government would love to sit down and directly regulate the algorithms

00:17:36of Metta and YouTube.

00:17:38They would in a heartbeat.

00:17:39They would do it in one second if they could.

00:17:41And the First Amendment stands in their way.

00:17:43And that's for good reason.

00:17:46Right. You you tend to believe that Americans have the best interest of America at

00:17:50heart. And I even mean that in a directly patriotic way.

00:17:53I just mean like a do you want the place where you live to get bombed?

00:17:57Yeah. Very directly.

00:18:00Well, there's just a very individualistic impulse that is sort of at the heart of

00:18:04this. China is not that China is an adversary to this country.

00:18:10It would like to destabilize this country in some way if it could gain an advantage.

00:18:14It does it militarily.

00:18:16It does it economically.

00:18:17We do it to them.

00:18:18Straightforwardly.

00:18:20And I think TikTok users tend to believe that their individual experiences have no

00:18:27relation to that thing.

00:18:28Right. So I've watched a million TikTok videos from TikTokers who are outraged that

00:18:32they're making the argument you're making.

00:18:33Yeah. Why would you regulate us when YouTube still exists or Metta?

00:18:37I mean, I think they should all not exist.

00:18:39I think algorithm algorithmically driven social feeds are a pox on on our country and

00:18:45anybody who's heard me talk knows that I agree.

00:18:47Yeah. Yeah. And so that's where I'm at with it.

00:18:50I don't disagree.

00:18:51Yeah. Come directly to our website.

00:18:53It's the verse.com. You have a personal relationship with me on that website and then

00:18:58send us money. Sure.

00:19:00Why not? We make it very hard to send this money.

00:19:03We'll figure it out one day. Binmo Neely.

00:19:06Yeah. This is all just a pain to cash at me.

00:19:09I will make dance videos for you.

00:19:12Send use cash app.

00:19:13But what I'm getting at is just think about something as dumb as Stanley Cups.

00:19:18Stanley Cups are not a organic trend, right?

00:19:22The algorithmic fed a bunch of people, a bunch of Stanley Cup content, and then more

00:19:26people were inspired to make Stanley Cup content.

00:19:28And then the world around us generated an infinite supply of Stanley Cup explainers.

00:19:34So many. And then that trend just died.

00:19:36You sound like somebody who, like, watched The Great Hack last night and is like,

00:19:39there's somebody at a button saying it's Stanley Cup.

00:19:41That's not how it works. It's just not how it works.

00:19:44That's not how Stanley Cup works.

00:19:46But why would you give a foreign power that capability inside the United States to

00:19:52even dream of having that button?

00:19:54A TikTok would tell you that it absolutely has not given China that power inside of

00:20:00the United States. B, there's no evidence that it has.

00:20:03Well, look, I'm the one who said the government should show us that evidence.

00:20:06But just abstractly, why would you allow that to happen?

00:20:10I'm going to read to you the Communications Act of 1934.

00:20:14Foreign investors are limited to 20 percent direct ownership of companies holding a

00:20:18broadcasting license and 25 percent ownership of a holding company if you have

00:20:23multiple broadcast licenses.

00:20:25Why did we think it was important to limit the ownership of the airwaves in the United

00:20:29States in 1934?

00:20:31Because we did not want foreign companies controlling the airwaves.

00:20:35Because we did not want foreign companies controlling what was broadcast to the

00:20:37majority of Americans. The impulse is exactly the same.

00:20:42I get it. The United States should probably explain why it's terrified of TikTok.

00:20:47I really think this is a huge miss on a part of the government.

00:20:50And if they cannot, they should back the hell off.

00:20:53I agree. But I'm I'm looking at, OK, just on its face, is it a problem that so many

00:21:02Americans are buffeted by algorithms that we do not have any transparency into?

00:21:07And at least one of them, one very important one, potentially has an enemy of the

00:21:13United States, like controlling it.

00:21:15And all that stands in between that is like Tim Cook.

00:21:19Tim Cook is like, iPhones are really important.

00:21:21Everyone do not do that. Do not do a war.

00:21:23Right. And like, that's what got us through the Trump trade war in a real way.

00:21:28It's basically the idea of the modern global peace is that we all be so economically

00:21:33tied up with each other that war will be bad.

00:21:36I don't know if you've looked around recently, like kind of shaky, like more shaky

00:21:42than it's been in a long time.

00:21:44And I would just point out, like, on either side, none of these cases are proven.

00:21:49TikTok saying we don't do it.

00:21:51Great. You got to prove a negative.

00:21:53Very difficult.

00:21:53Huawei also said that a lot.

00:21:55Huawei said a lot. And, you know, most Western companies are like, we just don't want

00:21:59your hardware embedded in our networks.

00:22:01And that, to me, always felt like very obvious.

00:22:04Like, don't put their hardware in your networks.

00:22:07That's where you get O-RAN from, by the way.

00:22:08It's like a whole thing. And this is what led to Project Gen 5, sis.

00:22:14Look, I'm not saying you should ban it or you should keep the app stores from having

00:22:18it. I don't know.

00:22:19I'm sorry. I'm still thinking about how, like, Chinese trade war led to Project Gen 5.

00:22:24Straight line.

00:22:25Oh, it absolutely did.

00:22:26Yeah. I've seen the meme of the guy with like the logo.

00:22:29But I'm saying if you're a TikTok user and you're outraged because they're going to do

00:22:33this, it's like, think about your experience on TikTok.

00:22:36You are being shown things that you are not in control of their sequence of their

00:22:41content. Like, it just happens to you.

00:22:43And the number of TikTok trends that come and go because people on the app decide to

00:22:48participate in them.

00:22:49And then our understanding of the culture around us is absolutely, it absolutely has

00:22:56the potential to be controlled by a foreign party.

00:23:00Okay. That, I don't think that that is, I don't think the United States government has

00:23:05no business in paying attention to that.

00:23:07Should they lay out the evidence, the American people, that this is the only solution?

00:23:11They should. Is the evidence strong enough such that 50 Democrats and Republicans in a

00:23:16room saw it and walked out and voted unanimously?

00:23:20That's weird. That doesn't happen a lot anymore.

00:23:24Like, it's just weird.

00:23:25No, it doesn't. But it is also true that the only two things anyone agrees on in

00:23:29politics right now are China is bad and we must protect the children on the Internet.

00:23:34And if you want to gin up a 50 to 0 vote, you would pick one of those two things.

00:23:39That's just what you would do.

00:23:40And on anything, you're like, oh, we love kids, right?

00:23:43Like, 50 to 0 is pretty, it's not that hard to do on that front.

00:23:47Like, this is just what we're at.

00:23:48I challenge you to go do it.

00:23:50Even COSA, like COSA, the most we protect the kids, is not passing right now.

00:23:56The Kids Online Safety Act is not.

00:23:58Yeah, because that involves actually doing things.

00:24:00And Congress is not big on actually doing things.

00:24:03But wait, I'm still hung up on this thing where, like, okay, Tencent, a company that

00:24:09is also headquartered in China and has, I would say, much clearer ties to the

00:24:14Chinese Communist Party than maybe not ByteDance, but certainly TikTok.

00:24:19And I think the, like, is TikTok ByteDance and is ByteDance TikTok is a very

00:24:23interesting and still sort of unanswered question in a lot of ways that we should

00:24:26probably talk about. But Tencent owns, I think, if not all, almost all of Riot

00:24:32Games, which makes League of Legends, which is a very popular game, including in

00:24:35the United States. It owns a significant part of Epic, which makes Fortnite.

00:24:39Can you convincingly prove to me that there is a better chance of me seeing

00:24:44Chinese propaganda on TikTok than in Fortnite?

00:24:47Yes.

00:24:48How?

00:24:49Fortnite doesn't have any news in it.

00:24:51Fortnite is not the main news source for millions of young Americans in the middle

00:24:55of an election.

00:24:56I think, I mean, A, that assumes that millions of young Americans have a news

00:25:00source or give one solitary shit about the news.

00:25:03And I don't think that they do.

00:25:05And so, but like leaving that aside, there is potential.

00:25:08Sure. In the absolute worst case scenario that one can possibly imagine, bad

00:25:14things can happen on TikTok.

00:25:16Granted, in the absolute worst case scenario, China already owns Yahoo News,

00:25:21and we don't even know about it.

00:25:22Like we're, we're arguing about these like insane hypotheticals and we don't

00:25:26know anything.

00:25:28And we're just mad at China.

00:25:29Like, I don't know how to make it less simple than that.

00:25:32Right.

00:25:32But I'm saying a majority of the members of the House of Representatives took a

00:25:37bunch of phone calls from their constituents and still voted to pass this

00:25:42bill because of whatever they saw.

00:25:44No.

00:25:44Disagree.

00:25:45They took a bunch of calls from their constituents.

00:25:47And so as a result, voted.

00:25:49The, the overwhelming takeaway from members of Congress from this huge phone

00:25:54bank thing that TikTok has been encouraging users to do is see, this

00:25:57proves our point.

00:25:58TikTok can make young people do whatever they want.

00:26:00So we have to ban it.

00:26:02This thing has backfired so spectacularly on TikTok in the funniest possible way.

00:26:07It convinced young people to make phone calls and everybody was like, Oh my God,

00:26:10they can make young people make phone calls.

00:26:12They can do anything.

00:26:14Right.

00:26:14But that's the only evidence of propaganda that we actually have from TikTok is that

00:26:19they can make people make phone calls.

00:26:21I want to point out that is indeed very funny.

00:26:23Like it is very funny.

00:26:25Uh, I think mostly because TikTok didn't think anything would happen like this.

00:26:28And then they overplayed their hand.

00:26:30Yes.

00:26:31Weird.

00:26:32But the idea that you can get a bunch of young people to take political action in

00:26:37service of a company that is owned by the Chinese government should not feel like a

00:26:41backfire when people are like, well, that's bad.

00:26:44You can't just say a service run by the Chinese government.

00:26:46Like it's a thing that we know.

00:26:48You just, you just said that so nonchalantly.

00:26:51But by dancing to a Chinese company, it has Chinese government unsupported, right?

00:26:54Like it's just true.

00:26:54Like companies in China are structured differently than the companies here and

00:26:59the state interests are much stronger for those companies.

00:27:02And if they don't like you, they just make you go away, which is a thing that

00:27:06happens to Chinese companies.

00:27:07Poor Fan Bingbing.

00:27:08That's true.

00:27:08Yeah.

00:27:09Right.

00:27:09Like Jack Ma's like, where'd that guy go?

00:27:11He just disappeared.

00:27:13Like, that's weird.

00:27:14Like that is a different, like a crucial difference between United States

00:27:18government, Chinese government.

00:27:19Chinese government is a brutal dictatorship.

00:27:22Yeah.

00:27:22I mean, this is, this is the, this is the thing we saw with Huawei and we're seeing

00:27:26again in this case that I think isn't always entirely articulated because racism

00:27:31gets in the way and xenophobia gets in the way, which is that like this, the

00:27:36problem isn't that it's China and China bad because that that's just racism

00:27:39xenophobic.

00:27:40The problem is that the Chinese Communist Party, the CCP has a very capable way of

00:27:47making businesses that are in China do what they want and they can exert influence

00:27:52and they will exert influence and they have exerted influence.

00:27:55And in TikTok's case, TikTok has gone again and again and again and said, they do

00:27:59not do that.

00:28:00We are not based there.

00:28:01We, we, we, we work really, really hard to not have that relationship.

00:28:06And effectively the United States government has said, we don't believe you.

00:28:10Right.

00:28:10Cause you made up project Texas and then when the chips are down, no one is talking

00:28:16about project Texas.

00:28:18They, they made up this fake thing, which is like Oracle hosts the data and there's

00:28:23a, we wrote about it.

00:28:24Alex Heath wrote about it.

00:28:25He visited the Algorithmic Transparency Center, which is basically a children's

00:28:29museum for content moderation, where you stand in front of a giant TikTok screen

00:28:33and you're like, ban this and then behind that is like a wall with a data center

00:28:38behind it that you can gaze upon.

00:28:40And you're like, look at the data.

00:28:41It's here in the United States.

00:28:42And none of that has anything to do with anything as, as near as we can tell.

00:28:46Right.

00:28:47Yeah.

00:28:47I think, I think TikTok is always, it's always going to face this battle because

00:28:52unfortunately it is owned by a company that does, is based in China and therefore

00:28:58cannot fully say we are totally independent company.

00:29:01Like ByteDance can just not do that.

00:29:02It never can.

00:29:03It never will.

00:29:04As long as the CCP is staying in its current like regime.

00:29:07And, and so TikTok is always going to face that and they have, they've really

00:29:11struggled to, to convince the government.

00:29:16At every turn they've struggled.

00:29:17And part of that is definitely the xenophobia and, and, and, and the racism,

00:29:21which is just like completely out of pocket and horrible.

00:29:25Yes.

00:29:25Every single time.

00:29:26I fully agree there.

00:29:27Horrible.

00:29:28And I just, I don't know that TikTok can ever say anything that is

00:29:32going to make them believe them.

00:29:34Like, even if they, even if Project Texas wasn't so stupidly, transparently

00:29:40like TikTok propaganda to say like us, I don't know what they could do to make

00:29:45the United States government like them.

00:29:47Yeah.

00:29:48Can I say something vastly more esoteric and philosophical just

00:29:51to turn this somewhere else?

00:29:53Uh, as I've gotten older, I've realized the thing that the internet does is

00:29:58make everyone believe that collective action problems do not exist, which is

00:30:03if you, if you just take that idea and apply it to whatever your political

00:30:06leanings are, you will quickly realize like, this is your primary frustration

00:30:09with other people.

00:30:10It's like some problems are easier to solve if we all do them together, but

00:30:16getting everyone to do everything at the same time is like a political nightmare.

00:30:19Yeah.

00:30:19And that's just life.

00:30:20That's, that's the history of politics.

00:30:22Do collective action problems exist or not?

00:30:24Is it.

00:30:26If I'm like the market will provide fighter jets, it won't unless we all pay

00:30:30our taxes and the government buys fighter jets and we need it.

00:30:32We think we should have fighter jets for X, Y, and Z reason.

00:30:34And you personally might disagree with those reasons.

00:30:37And you personally might sue the government of the United States and say, I

00:30:41do not want my taxes to pay for fighter jets, which is a real thing that happens

00:30:44on the regular and the United States government says, no, you don't get a

00:30:47choice because of collective act.

00:30:49Like we have to do this thing together.

00:30:51And you might think to yourself, boy, I wish we would pull

00:30:54our taxes and pay for healthcare.

00:30:55I very strongly believe we should pull our taxes and pay for healthcare for

00:30:58people or better education or whatever it is that you think would be better.

00:31:02If we all paid a little bit and we all got a lot, right.

00:31:03This is like the main thing.

00:31:05And what is happening in this TikTok situation is TikTok

00:31:09is a collective action problem.

00:31:12Our government believes the security of the United States is threatened by the

00:31:16existence of TikTok in some way.

00:31:17Our government says that.

00:31:19It believes it.

00:31:20It's taking the votes that indicate its belief in that problem.

00:31:23Sure.

00:31:24I would remind you that you're the same Neelai Patel who believes most of the

00:31:28things that Congress does are like deeply disingenuous and not at all about the

00:31:31thing that they say that they're about.

00:31:32I cannot believe I'm the one making this case.

00:31:34I can't either.

00:31:35I'm just saying this to you.

00:31:36I'm losing my mind right now.

00:31:37I have never just the 50 to 0 vote.

00:31:40I think just really, there's something about that.

00:31:42Like they saw the evidence, they walked out.

00:31:44They all did the same thing.

00:31:44I do agree that that is the single most compelling piece.

00:31:47I've just got it circled in my brain.

00:31:49Whatever happened there is a big deal.

00:31:51I don't know what it is.

00:31:52And that is the problem.

00:31:54To overcome the collective action problem they have, which is they're going to make

00:31:59a bunch of individuals feel bad.

00:32:02A bunch of individual businesses will lose their marketing channel.

00:32:05A bunch of individual creators will lose their livelihoods.

00:32:08A bunch of individual people will lose their ability to just see trucks jump over

00:32:13shit on command.

00:32:14This will hurt me personally.

00:32:16To overcome the collective action problem, they have to lay out the case.

00:32:20But it is clear that they think if we all endure that pain, collectively we will get

00:32:26some benefit.

00:32:27And the benefit will be freedom from Chinese interference in our media.

00:32:30I don't, like that's the case.

00:32:33And when you take that and you're like, now I will make the same case against

00:32:36Facebook or the same case against YouTube.

00:32:39I would point out to you, the government has been trying to make that case.

00:32:43They haul these CEOs in front of the government and say, why are your

00:32:47algorithms bad?

00:32:49And the CEOs are like, yeah, I don't know.

00:32:52First amendment, go away.

00:32:53Like they cannot overcome that.

00:32:55They have yet to come up with an argument that is strong enough to overpower the

00:32:58first amendment and solve that collective action problem.

00:33:01They have not yet figured it out.

00:33:03The closest they've come is the kids stuff.

00:33:06That's why you have a kid's online safety act.

00:33:08The closest they've come is sex trafficking.

00:33:10That's why you get FOSTA and SESTA as carve outs to 230.

00:33:14That's it.

00:33:14The closest, actually the, the, the farthest they've gone is copyright law, right?

00:33:20Like that's why Disney gets to take stuff down off the internet because we've

00:33:24decided as collectively that's fine.

00:33:26And most people don't argue with that.

00:33:28In this case, they have a different thing that they can't wield against the

00:33:33Facebooks and the tech and the YouTubes of the world, which is like national

00:33:36security and they have to make the case.

00:33:39And I, they've had one kind of sham hearing where they just asked, like,

00:33:43that's your xenophobia where they just like, we're like, are you Singaporean?

00:33:46And he's like, I am Singaporean.

00:33:47Like that doesn't work.

00:33:49Um, they asked the dude if TikTok uses wifi.

00:33:53It's really like, that isn't the case, but the, some case was made to these

00:33:59people where they are willing to take the representative democracy hit, right?

00:34:06Where their own constituents are calling them and they're interpreting

00:34:09that as this is the problem.

00:34:11And I'm going to vote against what my constituents are saying to me.

00:34:13Can I put on that happens like very rarely.

00:34:16I think you might be underrating the extent to which it's a

00:34:20political win to be mad at China right now.

00:34:23No way.

00:34:23I disagree.

00:34:24I think banning TikTok is a political loser for everyone, which is why Donald

00:34:27Trump is out there being like, no, I'll, I'll, I'll keep TikTok kids vote for me.

00:34:31Donald Trump.

00:34:32Yeah.

00:34:32Oh, I totally agree with that.

00:34:33But there, there is a, a subset of people who are older and don't use

00:34:39TikTok and hate China, which is a lot of people in America who are

00:34:44going to be psyched about this.

00:34:46And so it's like, there are the, if, if you're just taking this as like pure

00:34:50political calculus, and like, this is not the thing we should get hung up on.

00:34:53But if you're taking this just pure political calculus, the TikTok users

00:34:56aren't going to vote anyway.

00:34:58The old people who hate China, but Oh God, they love voting.

00:35:02Like that's, and this is the thing.

00:35:05Can I say, can I offer you one thing?

00:35:06This is unsourced.

00:35:07It's half assed.

00:35:09I'm sorry.

00:35:10Uh, I definitely heard it Southwest Southwest that a significant number of

00:35:13people making the phone calls were boomers who spend all day on TikTok.

00:35:17Oh, the boomers love TikTok.

00:35:18I say that because they got nothing.

00:35:20They got nothing to do.

00:35:21They're all retired.

00:35:22Yeah.

00:35:22Sitting on their bags of money that they have yet to pass.

00:35:24I want to point out, I think you guys are both focused really a lot on the political

00:35:27side of this and not on the economic side of this, which is TikTok goes away.

00:35:32Suddenly all those American companies that are largely dominant in the social

00:35:36media space across the world, right?

00:35:39Like, you're like, I think I was reading today that an enormous portion of the

00:35:44famous people on social media are based in America because they use American apps.

00:35:49Like YouTube and Instagram, TikTok goes away, YouTube and Instagram

00:35:54immediately get more users.

00:35:56Like there is real economic incentive to get rid of TikTok because that puts

00:36:00money back into American companies.

00:36:02But they could just sell it.

00:36:04And I think this is also part of like the lobbying that is happening here.

00:36:08Like, like we're seeing, oh, they went and they all got convinced in some

00:36:12hearing that we didn't all, weren't privy to, but they were also getting

00:36:16convinced by lobbyists from, from Meta and lobbyists from, from Google saying,

00:36:20yeah, you want to get rid of our competition, go for it.

00:36:25And we can't ignore that, like the, the economic part component of this

00:36:30thing, because it's huge.

00:36:32Oh, I totally agree.

00:36:33And all these companies have had a big stock bump in the last week since

00:36:37this started to happen.

00:36:38Like Snap is sitting there being like, please, dear God, ban TikTok.

00:36:42Some people will come use Snap Discover.

00:36:43If Snap was smart, they would buy it.

00:36:46That's what I'm saying.

00:36:46Like maybe it go away.

00:36:48Yeah.

00:36:49But maybe Steve Mnuchin will put together his band of investors and buy it.

00:36:53Who is the other name that got floated?

00:36:55Bobby Kotick.

00:36:57Yeah.

00:36:57Activision's back, baby.

00:36:59When I, when I think about responsible media ownership, United States.

00:37:02The way that Choozy Choo, the CEO of TikTok has talked about it.

00:37:05It, that seems like a total non-starter.

00:37:07Like, I don't think there's any world in which TikTok sells.

00:37:11He has to say that.

00:37:13But also the, like who literally who could afford it?

00:37:16Like this is, this is probably a several hundred billion dollar company.

00:37:20Microsoft's back at it.

00:37:22You can't sell to any of the big companies for antitrust reasons.

00:37:27Uh, who else has the money?

00:37:29Snapchat doesn't have literally TikTok could buy Snapchat.

00:37:33I don't know, man.

00:37:34Elon put together 44 billion for Twitter.

00:37:38You think, okay, Elon, if you buy TikTok and take it private.

00:37:42And rebrand TikTok as X videos.

00:37:45Now we're onto something.

00:37:46I, I understand.

00:37:48It's a huge number.

00:37:49I just think that the opportunity for a bunch of investors to get that company

00:37:56and that advertising revenue, that influence, it's not such a big

00:38:00number for the thing that it is.

00:38:03Yes.

00:38:04It's a very big, big number.

00:38:05Well, we don't know what the number is, but that's the unknown.

00:38:09You're not okay with it.

00:38:10I just, I just think from, you're not going to be like you were open to a sale

00:38:14while you're still trying to fend off the bill that would force you to sell it.

00:38:16Sure.

00:38:16Agreed.

00:38:17And at some point there becomes a number, like everything has a number.

00:38:20It's a business.

00:38:22Yeah.

00:38:22Capitalism, baby.

00:38:23Welcome to America.

00:38:24I mean, and it is true that like we got a ways down this road in 2020 based on an

00:38:30executive order that pretty much everybody thought had no chance of holding up in

00:38:33court.

00:38:34Um, and like, that's, I think the thing that is different now, I think there is a

00:38:38real sense that this is a thing that could happen and could stick.

00:38:41And so to the extent that, uh, you know, Oracle talked about it and Microsoft

00:38:46talked about it and there were all of these weird machinations going on.

00:38:49I think everybody kind of knew it was probably nothing, but it seems to be much

00:38:55more likely to be something.

00:38:56And so we might get a real price tag at some point here in the future.

00:39:00Look, all I'm saying, I don't, I don't think it will end up getting banned.

00:39:04I think it will end up getting sold.

00:39:05Oh, I think the opposite.

00:39:06That's so fun.

00:39:07But we'll, we'll see.

00:39:08I don't know.

00:39:08That's a good, that's a good word.

00:39:09Chess prop bet.

00:39:10Um, I think nothing will happen.

00:39:12I think Rand Paul, a few other senators because they can kill it.

00:39:16Right.

00:39:16Like, like you do need, it was what 60 senators have to all agree.

00:39:19And who boy, I I'm, I'm with you.

00:39:22I think the massive.

00:39:25Like betting favorite is nothing.

00:39:27Never hear from this bill again.

00:39:29Yeah.

00:39:30Fair enough.

00:39:30But I will say there are, uh, in, I have a long history of producing work about

00:39:36the first amendment.

00:39:37You can go and you're throwing it all away.

00:39:39And one first cast, you can definitely go listen to it.

00:39:41I feel very strongly about the first amendment.

00:39:44There are a tiny handful of things that overcome the first amendment.

00:39:48Copyright law, as you may be aware, based on my long body of work, uh, national

00:39:54security is one of those things.

00:39:55Foreign ownership of United States media is historically one of those things.

00:40:00And I think that's gotten lost in all this converse.

00:40:02This is why I'm so focused on like mechanics of how the bill actually works.

00:40:05Because that thing is actually important.

00:40:08Even if you, even if you believe they're not using it now, should they have that

00:40:11capability?

00:40:12Has traditionally been so big of a deal that we've stopped it before it could

00:40:16even happen.

00:40:16And in this case, we just let it slide.

00:40:18Cause it's an app with dancing kids on it.

00:40:19Yeah.

00:40:20I mean, and if, if you believe that there is a nefarious thing happening here, that

00:40:25is the true genius of tick tock, right?

00:40:27That like, like the, the galaxy brain thing you hear is like all the kids in

00:40:31China are seeing on doing, which is like the Chinese version of tick tock, they're

00:40:35seeing like STEM and how to build robots and code and all this stuff.

00:40:38And we're just seeing dance challenges because it's making us all stupid and

00:40:40slow.

00:40:41And this is like a long con plan to make the Chinese kids smarter than the

00:40:44American kids, which like, if true, incredible, like well-played.

00:40:49My favorite.

00:40:50That's why they added the stem tab to tick tock, by the way.

00:40:53I know.

00:40:54Like this, I just want to point out it's right behind shopping.

00:40:57First it's shopping, then it's STEM.

00:41:01But I think the one thing I'm hung up on, like just, I agree with you.

00:41:04At the 50 to zero thing.

00:41:05And I think the idea that there is a smoking gun is very possible.

00:41:11And I'm so willing to be convinced by any shred of evidence that says this is

00:41:16happening.

00:41:17There are plans to make it happen.

00:41:19There is capability to do it quickly.

00:41:21Like whatever the flip side of it for me is we've been at this for four years

00:41:26now, and we've never heard it.

00:41:28And there are so, so many people with incentive to talk about this publicly.

00:41:33Like so many people.

00:41:36Yeah.

00:41:36But why won't they?

00:41:37Well, I don't know.

00:41:40Have you met politicians?

00:41:41They, they usually talk.

00:41:42This is what I'm saying.

00:41:44So either it is something so grave and incredible that we can't be trusted.

00:41:49It's like, it's like some alien shit where like we can't know where else it

00:41:52would destroy our way of life.

00:41:54Wait, there's nothing to talk about.

00:41:56Like, I don't know how to think it's not one of those.

00:41:58Usually when there's nothing, they make shit up.

00:42:00I just historically with politicians, usually when there's, then there's

00:42:03nothing, you know, it's like they pull off the sheet and the Scooby-Doo kids

00:42:06are like, it was bullshit all along.

00:42:09Like that's his, I don't know.

00:42:12Maybe that's it.

00:42:12Maybe I'm just over-indexing on 50 to zero.

00:42:14And the fact that so many of them were convinced by this campaign and there's

00:42:18something there that they won't say.

00:42:20What if this is all viral marketing for three body problems?

00:42:24Very good.

00:42:24Netflix just really going for it this year.

00:42:27Yeah.

00:42:28We could see, who knows?

00:42:30Look, I, I think I've been convinced for the course of the

00:42:33conversation that most likely outcome is nothing.

00:42:35Yeah, exactly.

00:42:37That's what Netflix wants you to think.

00:42:39And, and I really do think, and I can't say this more clearly.

00:42:44The government needs to show us its evidence before it takes this action.

00:42:47Yes.

00:42:48We have not seen it.

00:42:49That is, if you take away one thing from this conversation, it's me saying the

00:42:52government needs to show us this evidence before it takes the action.

00:42:56But it's crazy that the evidence apparently exists such that they voted 50 to zero.

00:43:01Yeah.

00:43:01You seem more convinced than ever that there is evidence, uh, which I think is

00:43:05fair.

00:43:06Like what we've seen in the last seven days would indicate that some people have

00:43:11seen some things.

00:43:12I think that's fair, but I just, and I don't think we should take that on faith.

00:43:17I think Americans should own American algorithms.

00:43:18That's it.

00:43:19I think that, I think that comes down to it.

00:43:21Like no algorithms.

00:43:23Well, I mean, if you really ask me, I think we should get rid of the algorithm

00:43:27and go start, bring back RSS, a bill to bring back RSS, the United States vote

00:43:32Patel.

00:43:32That's what they should do.

00:43:34Just put TikTok on the Fediverse.

00:43:35It solves all of our problems, everything will be fine.

00:43:38But barring that, I think it's pretty, it is, it just feels reasonable to me that

00:43:43what people see and consume should be, the people who are accountable for that

00:43:50should be here, closer to you.

00:43:53You know, who would agree with that argument is the communist party of China.

00:43:57And also most people, like, I think most governments are very interested in

00:44:03making sure that their citizens see something that comes from within.

00:44:07That's pretty natural.

00:44:08And I get this, I think just comes back to everything we've been talking about,

00:44:11which is, do you, do you think that you are like an individual in a sea of

00:44:18individuals or that you are part of a collective?

00:44:21And I think the internet makes everybody feel very alone in that particular way.

00:44:25And like almost every political problem comes back to that.

00:44:28I'm just thinking about what happens if we get like, everybody's like, no, you're

00:44:31right.

00:44:32Like we need to own our own media.

00:44:34And then we get like the BBC version of TikTok and like the NHK version of

00:44:40TikTok, like the national broadcastings for companies, for countries, but for

00:44:46TikTok.

00:44:47I mean, NPR, I think has a TikTok account.

00:44:49Just imagine that.

00:44:51I want, yeah.

00:44:51What's their, what's the NPR social media app look like?

00:44:55I want to see it.

00:44:57Well, is it just the Apple podcast?

00:44:59It's just that voice.

00:45:01All right.

00:45:01We should take a break.

00:45:02Uh, everyone can yell at me in the comments.

00:45:05Uh, also just tell us what you think.

00:45:06We have a hotline.

00:45:07I just want to say, I think it's, I actually think I do want people to reach

00:45:11out.

00:45:11You should call the hotline.

00:45:12It's six, six verge one, one.

00:45:13You should email us verge cast to the verge.com.

00:45:14But if I had to bet, I think most people are going to agree with you.

00:45:18I think it is, it is just, my brain is so broken by the fact that you were the

00:45:22one making this argument.

00:45:23I think it's a perfectly fair argument.

00:45:26We're all sort of arguing based on evidence that no one has.

00:45:29And fundamentally you have to trust somebody.

00:45:31And I think ultimately saying the, I choose to not trust China is like not an

00:45:35unreasonable place to be.

00:45:35I just can't believe you're the one saying all of this, but I'll, I'll, I'll

00:45:39get there.

00:45:39I'll settle down.

00:45:40It'll be, uh, yeah.

00:45:43What's the, what's the line of foolish consistency is little minds.

00:45:48This is whatever that quote is.

00:45:50I'm real smart is what I'm trying to say.

00:45:53Uh, uh, no, let us know.

00:45:56I look, I've been reading our own comments.

00:45:58I think most of our commenters believe I'm like stridently opposed to this ban.

00:46:03I don't know why.

00:46:03Uh, probably cause I haven't said anything about it until now.

00:46:06I think the United States government owes us this evidence.

00:46:08That's like the main thing I think.

00:46:09But apart from that, I think it's reasonable to say like, I don't know,

00:46:12media ownership should be more local.

00:46:13Show us the tapes.

00:46:15Yeah.

00:46:15I think we're clear channel next.

00:46:17All right.

00:46:17We got to go to break.

00:46:18We'll be right back with more for chest.

00:46:24Welcome back.

00:46:26All right.

00:46:26I want to tell Alex and David a story about the studio.

00:46:29No Lord.

00:46:30It's looking around in the break and things have moved and I, I know why

00:46:34they've moved and it's very funny.

00:46:36So the verge is part of Vox media.

00:46:38As you may know, uh, Vox media has a podcast and we're called the

00:46:41Vox media podcast network.

00:46:43On the Vox media podcast network is a very good podcast called point forward

00:46:48with Andre Iguodala and Evan Turner were basketball players.

00:46:52I'm assuming most people know that, but if you don't, they're basketball players.

00:46:54Now I know they're very tall and very famous.

00:46:57They do the podcast in the same studio we're in and they, they

00:47:01redress it with their stuff.

00:47:03Are they the reasons it smells like weed all the time?

00:47:05No different podcasts.

00:47:06Does this explain why my seat sometimes changes height?

00:47:09I think it, it explains the chair moving.

00:47:13I don't, they record on Mondays and it would be incredible if on Thursdays.

00:47:18So I'm just going to say no to that one.

00:47:20Call me.

00:47:20If you smoke that much weed, we'll hang out.

00:47:24That's different.

00:47:25Uh, but for the, so they redress the studio.

00:47:28For their show, which makes sense.

00:47:30And then we have to put our stuff back, but I think they didn't notice it for

00:47:33the first few they did in here.

00:47:35So the Heineken cube is behind them.

00:47:39Why would they get rid of that?

00:47:41It's so cool.

00:47:42Yeah.

00:47:42I think we should play NBA.

00:47:45Well, it was before two K like NBA 94 on the Heineken cube.

00:47:48I think jam probably existed on the, on the Heineken cube.

00:47:52Here's my official pitch for a Vox media podcast network crossover.

00:47:56I will play NBA jam on a game cube with Andre.

00:48:01Sounds amazing.

00:48:02We have a game cube.

00:48:03Yeah.

00:48:04Your move, Andre.

00:48:06We have a long promise.

00:48:07We will get together and do, and David and I will play Madden and we just are

00:48:10never in the same place at the same time with the game cube.

00:48:12Like we've been in the same place at the same time without a game cube.

00:48:17Both of us have been in this room with the game cube, but without the other

00:48:20person, we're going to figure out all three elements at the same time.

00:48:24I think you need some more elements like a plug, a controller, a copy of Madden.

00:48:31Critical elements.

00:48:32Some other stuff has to happen.

00:48:34I just want some on point forward.

00:48:36I want these NBA superstars to be like, is that a Heineken game?

00:48:40I've been searching for like, I'm on eBay all the time.

00:48:43Looking for one of those.

00:48:45It's very good.

00:48:46Uh, that shows great.

00:48:47You should listen to it.

00:48:47They just had a Megan Rapinoe on at South by with them, uh, which was wonderful.

00:48:51Nice.

00:48:52All right.

00:48:52Speaking of media, huh?

00:48:54As your segue, uh, boy, there's a bunch of media streaming news.

00:48:59This week, one correction I have to issue for the audience in our streaming

00:49:03draft.

00:49:03This is true.

00:49:05I, okay.

00:49:06So I have long since been claiming that I won.

00:49:09I think given this piece of news, I definitively lost, even though I think I

00:49:13had the best lineup.

00:49:15I think this is an instant DQ.

00:49:16What happened to motor trends?

00:49:18I picked as my niche streaming service.

00:49:20So David set up the draft.

00:49:22We had to pick player in every category.

00:49:25At 4k awards, Alex has an expansive definition of what counts as award

00:49:29winning streaming service.

00:49:30Correct.

00:49:30Uh, live all these things.

00:49:33And the last one was niche.

00:49:35And I candidly blanked on stage and I was like, I don't know.

00:49:39I have enough.

00:49:39Like I picked ticked.

00:49:40I'm good.

00:49:41You know, like even though it's going to get banned from app stores, like I'll

00:49:46take it for now.

00:49:47I want to ban tick tock.

00:49:48I'm going to pick it first.

00:49:50The point is to be confounding.

00:49:52Never let them know what's coming.

00:49:54Uh, so I blanked on stage and I picked what my father-in-law had been watching

00:49:59at my home before I left for South by Southwest, which is motor trend TV.

00:50:04And we published a streaming draft and YouTube commenters like the

00:50:08shit went 92 weeks ago.

00:50:11Like it was killed two weeks ago.

00:50:15So, uh, first of all, motor trend TV was long gone.

00:50:18It was called motor trend plus there's a rebrand and now it's being shuttered

00:50:23and being folded into discovery plus, which is where all of us learn about

00:50:28house flipping and going to car auctions.

00:50:30Yeah.

00:50:31Have you checked on your father-in-law?

00:50:32How's he holding up?

00:50:33You know, we haven't brought it up.

00:50:34Uh, it just wasn't one of those things.

00:50:37He's just watching like cashed videos.

00:50:41Yeah.

00:50:41You know, we're just going to let, yeah, you don't want to, you don't want to

00:50:44roll to a family member and be like, you have to watch discovery plus now.

00:50:49I think the app still works for a while.

00:50:50I think the app is still going to work for a while.

00:50:52Uh, it's uh, no, that's not even right.

00:50:55It's closing in 14 days.

00:50:58Super super.

00:50:59Isn't going to work for a while.

00:51:00Oh, you've got some time.

00:51:02He's, he's got time.

00:51:03He can, he can record it with his phone.

00:51:06Yeah.

00:51:08I'm just saying, look, I, I think overall I had the best, the best suite, but I do

00:51:14think picking an already dead service, like an instant DQ, like if you pick a

00:51:19thing, that's gone 90, you're out the draft.

00:51:22Netflix is next, but yeah.

00:51:25Yeah.

00:51:25That was the real takeaway is Netflix is super dead really soon.

00:51:29Yeah.

00:51:29Any minute now.

00:51:30Don't you worry?

00:51:31It's coming.

00:51:31I do think my ability to pick an already dead streaming service distracted from

00:51:36your bold prediction that Netflix would die soon.

00:51:39It didn't.

00:51:40I had friends messaging me being like, I heard the podcast, Netflix, Alex, what

00:51:44the hell?

00:51:45And I'm like, look, I think, I think Paramount plus Netflix.

00:51:51No, I don't.

00:51:51I don't actually say, all right, let's talk about some news.

00:51:59RIP to Motor Trend TV.

00:52:02Real one.

00:52:03Yeah.

00:52:04A bitch and rides.

00:52:05Where will you live now?

00:52:06That's a real show, by the way.

00:52:07It'll leave.

00:52:08It'll live on discovery plus.

00:52:10It's true.

00:52:11Yeah.

00:52:11You'll be fine.

00:52:13Which will then be part of max, which will eventually be merged with Paramount.

00:52:16Plus one way or another, you're going to watch bitch and rides.

00:52:20Yeah.

00:52:22It will find you.

00:52:23Don't you worry.

00:52:25I have a lot to say about that show, but I think, I think it's a very limited

00:52:28audience for criticism of bitch and rides.

00:52:30I've watched a lot of it with my father in law.

00:52:32Okay.

00:52:33Actual news, TV news, by the way, here's the disclosure.

00:52:37We'll just get them all the way.

00:52:38We mentioned Netflix.

00:52:39I was at EP on a Netflix show called the future of, uh, NBC is investor in our

00:52:44company.

00:52:44They run the Peacock service, which if you believe Alex will far outlive Netflix.

00:52:49I'm right.

00:52:50Don't worry about it.

00:52:51I'm right.

00:52:52Yeah.

00:52:53Uh, yeah.

00:52:54Our company makes full swing in the golf show on Netflix.

00:52:56That's pretty good.

00:52:57Uh, that's it.

00:52:58Those are disclosures today.

00:52:59I'm sure there are more.

00:53:00I believe wired connections are better than wireless ones.

00:53:03RIP Starlink.

00:53:04That's just a fact.

00:53:06I say that because the Starlink people think that I'm in the pocket of big

00:53:09Comcast.

00:53:10That's a real, it still comes up.

00:53:12Yeah.

00:53:13That's what I thought.

00:53:14They're like, he's in big ethernet's pocket.

00:53:16All right.

00:53:17Uh, actual news.

00:53:19Yeah.

00:53:20YouTube is revamping its TV app, not YouTube TV, but the YouTube app on TVs.

00:53:26I have a question about this.

00:53:28Who is not watching in full screen?

00:53:31What people are like, I want to watch like with the ads and crap all around it.

00:53:36Who are they?

00:53:37This is everyone's dream is to make QVC.

00:53:39Well, it's that, that is half of it.

00:53:42I firmly agree with that.

00:53:43That like the goal is to let you point at something on your television and it just

00:53:48appears at your house the next day.

00:53:49Like that is literally what everyone who makes TV stuff wants.

00:53:53The only dream that anyone has ever had.

00:53:55Yeah, truly.

00:53:56Uh, the other half of it is.

00:53:58YouTube has been on this very long quest to get YouTube onto televisions in like a

00:54:04more YouTube way, right?

00:54:06Like YouTube has talked for years now about how the TV is the fastest growing

00:54:11YouTube platform.

00:54:12Like it's, it's now to the point that I just laugh whenever they put that in a

00:54:15press release because it's like, yeah, it's been that way for like a decade now.

00:54:18Uh, but the problem with that is there are lots of things about YouTube that

00:54:23people like that are not just watching the video, right?

00:54:26Like there's all this community stuff.

00:54:28Comments are very important.

00:54:29Recommendations are very important.

00:54:30You want to subscribe.

00:54:32Like it's harder to subscribe to a channel from your television than it is from your

00:54:37phone or your computer.

00:54:38And that is actually a threat to YouTube over time as it stuff gets bigger.

00:54:42Right?

00:54:42So they've been on this thing forever to figure out like, how do we let you use

00:54:46YouTube while also watching something on your television?

00:54:49And their step for a long time was to connect it better to your phone.

00:54:53Like, you know how they have the thing now where you're watching YouTube on your

00:54:56TV and you open up YouTube on your phone.

00:54:57That little thing pops up.

00:54:58That's like, do you want to connect?

00:55:00First of all, that feature rules and thank you to YouTube for doing it.

00:55:03But that was their big plan.

00:55:05And I think that's how they thought they were going to solve it.

00:55:06Right?

00:55:06Like they were like, we're going to be both the first and the second screen

00:55:09simultaneously.

00:55:10This to me feels like them saying that's not really working.

00:55:14And so actually what we need to do is put more stuff, more accessible on the big

00:55:18screen in front of you.

00:55:20So they have this new thing where it's full screen by default, I think, but you

00:55:24can press a button and it will, the video will shrink.

00:55:27And then on the right side, you'll get some of the metadata, the description and

00:55:31the comments.

00:55:31And like I said, a list of the products in the video, it'll look more like seeing

00:55:36YouTube in like a desktop browser.

00:55:38To me, that feels like a reasonable thing to do.

00:55:43And also like the most obvious thing they're like, what if we just did YouTube on

00:55:48your television?

00:55:48It's like, yeah, that's the one, but it does feel like they're saying this thing

00:55:53where we're going to connect it to your other devices and you're going to be able

00:55:55to do it all simultaneously maybe is not actually the answer the way they thought.

00:55:58It kind of feels like they pulled a Vizio and went, Oh, you know what?

00:56:04Actually, people don't want to control their TV viewing experience from their

00:56:08phone.

00:56:09Vizio was like, yeah, that's what you meant.

00:56:11I was worried.

00:56:11If there was any number of other bad things, no, no, no.

00:56:15I'm thinking very clearly because I just, I have the 26 Vizio TV and I put it in

00:56:19the guest room and I have somebody staying over and I was like, Oh, I have to

00:56:22like, where's the remote?

00:56:24Yeah.

00:56:24I have to give you an Android tablet.

00:56:26And I was like, you just have to use your regular phone.

00:56:29I'm sorry.

00:56:30I refuse to buy a $29 Roku to solve this problem.

00:56:34It's true.

00:56:35No, it's because I couldn't find it.

00:56:36It's in another box, but I don't know where anything is.

00:56:39But, but yeah, this just feels like the same thing where, where people are

00:56:43starting to realize, wait, actually the phone is not the best way to do this.

00:56:46And sometimes you just want to watch this and interact with it with a remote

00:56:49because remotes are probably the best way to control TV is because they've worked

00:56:55forever.

00:56:56Yeah.

00:56:57And the idea that you'll own both the first and second screen is like the

00:57:00dream.

00:57:01Like you'll watch up there and shop down here.

00:57:02And it's like, people do that all the time, but they don't.

00:57:04No, we watch up there and we tick talk down here for now.

00:57:08I think this entire story is explained by one quote from the blog post, just one.

00:57:15And the image that YouTube supplied in that blog post.

00:57:19So the quote from the blog post, the design changes started with quote, the

00:57:24idea of reducing the size of the video player and simplifying the interactions.

00:57:29I hate it.

00:57:30That's just like, we're just going to make the video player smaller because we

00:57:33have, everyone has long thought that the TV is like the lean back.

00:57:37You just put up the video and you're done and you're going, and now they're

00:57:40realizing, oh, this is just an Android tablet on your wall.

00:57:43What if we just let you control it like an Android tablet instead of saying all

00:57:46the interactivity happens in your phone, which is what you're saying.

00:57:48Yeah.

00:57:48But that first one, we're just going to make the video player smaller.

00:57:51That is now acceptable on our TVs.

00:57:53Yes.

00:57:54That's a sea change.

00:57:55I mean, I, I, I fundamentally disagree with YouTube on this one.

00:57:59Possibly YouTube.

00:58:00This is what I'm saying.

00:58:01The whole story is in that quote.

00:58:02Yeah, no, I know.

00:58:03I agree.

00:58:04Cause you look at that and then you look at the picture and it's her talking about

00:58:07products and then all the products are down at the bottom of the video.

00:58:11Yes, that is true.

00:58:12Okay.

00:58:14My point is you pull over in your car and actually look at this image and you're

00:58:20like, here's what YouTube thought best represents their big idea.

00:58:24And you look at the thumbnail and you look at the headline and you're like, oh,

00:58:28YouTube has a quality problem because the headline is I bought in all, in all

00:58:33caps, many beauty products that actually work because that is how you, and maybe

00:58:39this video is great.

00:58:40I'm not saying the quality of the video is wrong.

00:58:42I'm saying YouTube is the algorithm is actively cheapening the YouTube brand

00:58:47because it's a YouTube thumbnail with like a YouTube face on it.

00:58:50It's a headline that has all caps.

00:58:53It's shouting at you.

00:58:54And then underneath it, what you're supposed to do is buy some stuff and

00:58:59you're like, oh, this, all of this adds up to a less premium, good thing.

00:59:05You know what I mean?

00:59:05Like it's all of it is being in the mall where everyone's yelling at you.

00:59:09I think you're old.

00:59:11Like that's, that's what I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, but like the

00:59:15idea that feels bad, I think because I like cool things that are cool.

00:59:21I'm sorry.

00:59:21I didn't realize I was an old guy thing.

00:59:23No, I mean like if, if you're, if you're mad at this particular video, fine.

00:59:29It has 2.8 million views, which I would say is a reasonable sign that it's, it's

00:59:33pretty good and people like it, but also I'm saying they should revert control of

00:59:37this algorithm to me personally, the president of America, if this, if this

00:59:42thumbnail just had a jumping truck, would you be less mad about it?

00:59:47And then underneath it was trucks.

00:59:48You could buy.

00:59:48Yeah, probably.

00:59:50Uh, no, look, I, I haven't, I don't have anything to say about beauty product

00:59:53videos or this category video.

00:59:55I'm saying the presentation that YouTube picked for what do we want you to do on

01:00:00televisions is a shouty shopping video, right?

01:00:05Like all caps in the headline.

01:00:06Like they are trying to take the market away from television.

01:00:11That's a long been the goal on TVs is where they are growing the most.

01:00:16And I, I think there's a real clash between what works in the algorithmic

01:00:20YouTube feed on phones and desktops.

01:00:23And then this experience on a television, this proves the opposite.

01:00:26Okay.

01:00:27What this says to me is that YouTube thought for years that what people would

01:00:32do when they sat down on their couch is they would YouTube like they television,

01:00:37which is to say, put something on and sit for 30 minutes and look at it

01:00:40without doing anything else.

01:00:41And YouTube has slowly discovered over time that not only is that not what

01:00:44people want to do, it's not even what they want to do with their remotes.

01:00:47That this thing where like fundamentally YouTube is about the thing that you're

01:00:51watching, but only in part about the thing that you're watching, it's also

01:00:55about who the creator is and what the description is and looking at the

01:00:58products in the video, because a lot of people do like to shop for this stuff

01:01:01and seeing the comments and, and finding recommendations and going down these

01:01:04rabbit holes.

01:01:05Like, to me, what this says is, Oh, people actually use YouTube on their TV

01:01:09with their remote, exactly the same way they use it on their phone.

01:01:11And so what we need to give them is YouTube.

01:01:13That looks like a desktop browser.

01:01:15Yeah.

01:01:15I, I think I agree.

01:01:16I agree with you.

01:01:18And in that specific way, I'm saying that even if you look at this headline,

01:01:23for some reason, the word bought is capitalized, but the words that actually

01:01:27work are not.

01:01:28And many beauty products is, oh, it's all cap.

01:01:31Like they are very tiny.

01:01:34Like when you take the algorithmic media and you just like make it this much

01:01:37bigger, I think that stuff is going to get highlighted in different ways.

01:01:41And maybe the fight is between people don't care and people do care, but you

01:01:45just end up in this place where all social media turns into QVC and really

01:01:49the dream of all interactive TV has always been to be QVC and YouTube turning

01:01:55itself into QVC, like literally turning itself into QVC puts them right next to

01:02:00real QVC, which is weird.

01:02:03I totally agree with that.

01:02:04And that is very clearly where all of this is going.

01:02:07They're like, look at some ads, pay us a bunch of money and buy every single

01:02:12product that exists anywhere in this video.

01:02:14Yeah.

01:02:14And that is how we went.

01:02:15But you know, what's interesting is the, the way, like our commenters picked up

01:02:18on this too, on the piece that we wrote, uh, what was it?

01:02:22A few months ago now that tech talk changed the thing where now when you

01:02:25swipe up to see the comments, instead of pulling the comments up over the video,

01:02:29it shrinks the video just down to the top of the screen.

01:02:31Yeah.

01:02:32So you can still see the whole video, just not as big.

01:02:36Uh, that's essentially what this is doing now too, right?

01:02:38It's saying you want to get to the other part of the interface, instead of pulling

01:02:40it up over top of what you're seeing, we're just going to shrink what you're

01:02:43seeing.

01:02:44And I think you can argue about whether that's the correct viewing experience or

01:02:49not, but I think that is very much the trend of where we're headed is like, we

01:02:53want you to see the whole picture.

01:02:55We're just also going to recognize that the rest of the interface is at least just

01:02:59as important as the video, or at least provides more opportunities to shop.

01:03:03Hmm.

01:03:05That one.

01:03:05I mean, it's just all, Oh, you're watching this.

01:03:07Yeah.

01:03:08I've been watching the video this whole time.

01:03:10I'm sorry.

01:03:11I wanted to see what beauty products actually work, but they are many.

01:03:15They are.

01:03:15They're very, very tiny, but it's, it's cheap stuff that I don't, I don't want to

01:03:19use this.

01:03:20Well, there are many, but it's, well, you'd think it'd be good stuff, but

01:03:23cheaper, not cheap brands.

01:03:25Gotcha.

01:03:26Ice cold Alex.

01:03:27Yeah.

01:03:27I'm, I'm, I'm one of those bougie bitches when it comes to my Sephora runs.

01:03:31Uh, the last time I watched QVC, I was in a hotel room in California.

01:03:37And, uh, it was, you know, it was the winter.

01:03:39It was just recently.

01:03:41And on QVC in California, someone was earnestly trying to sell a corded

01:03:47snowblower and being like, this court is so convenient.

01:03:50You just plug in the snow.

01:03:51And I was like, this is doomed.

01:03:53And somehow this is also the future of all media.

01:03:55It is.

01:03:55Everybody wants straightforwardly being like, what it is is a push snowblower,

01:03:59but you want to just plug it right in.

01:04:01No batteries to worry about.

01:04:02Yeah.

01:04:02Cause then you, then you get to use your, your extension cord also purchased.

01:04:08It really is amazing how much of like the stuff you see on Tiktok now even.

01:04:13Steals some of the conventions of how people used to talk on QVC.

01:04:16Like the thing where it's like, describe the problem.

01:04:19Somebody has an overly dramatic turn and then big, beautiful turn

01:04:23into what a cool world you live in.

01:04:24Like that's now Tiktok shop.

01:04:26And they're like, I can't believe how expensive it is.

01:04:28It's on the Tiktok shop.

01:04:29It's only going to be this price for this long.

01:04:31Get it now.

01:04:31It's like, you're, you're literally doing a QVC bit.

01:04:36And I suspect most of these people probably don't know what QVC is and

01:04:40have certainly never seen it, but like, it just turns out that's the correct

01:04:44way to do a, buy this thing from a video.

01:04:47It has just been optimized over time.

01:04:49There's just like one evolutionary way to tell someone to buy

01:04:53your stupid, cheap product.

01:04:54And that's the QVC way.

01:04:55Real like big thinkers.

01:04:56I was just watching this, you know, it's like the classic QVC, like male host,

01:05:01female host, like, wow, what are you talking about today?

01:05:04How are you going to cook in your kitchen?

01:05:06And how do you power this snowblower?

01:05:08And I was like, I don't know.

01:05:09It's just like obvious on its face.

01:05:14It was very good.

01:05:15It was the most QVC I've watched in some time.

01:05:17Yeah.

01:05:17In the middle, it was 70 degrees in California.

01:05:19I was watching people try to sell me a snowblower.

01:05:21I was like, I don't, maybe I travel too much for work.

01:05:23I can't watch QVC because one time in the nineties, I watched

01:05:26an episode of Mama's Family where she got addicted to QVC.

01:05:30And, and the family had to be like, you can't use QVC anymore.

01:05:33And for whatever reason, I was like, me too.

01:05:36Yeah.

01:05:36As like a five-year-old.

01:05:38Uh, I will tell one more QVC related story.

01:05:42My dad was the overnight doctor in the ER in Wisconsin.

01:05:46So he would come, he wouldn't be able to sleep at night when he wasn't working.

01:05:49He was used to being up all night.

01:05:51Boy, did we have a lot of stuff in my house.

01:05:53Boy, did I grow up eating a lot of dehydrated apples.

01:05:56The only thing on TV that time of night, like, what are you going to watch?

01:06:00Oh, I did it again.

01:06:01Six to eight weeks later in the eighties, we got a food dehydrator.

01:06:06The fruit leather is incredible.

01:06:08It's so proud of that food dehydrator.

01:06:10It was just a circle with a fan.

01:06:12I just, I don't know if you ever actually looked at it.

01:06:14Nevermind.

01:06:15Yeah.

01:06:15I've seen one.

01:06:16They're like, we took the hairdryer and now we've pointed it up.

01:06:19It's a food dehydrator.

01:06:21You get fruit leather.

01:06:22This is by the way, the Dyson story is they invented a fan and now they only

01:06:24make fan related products.

01:06:26It's very good.

01:06:26Okay.

01:06:27Uh, other news.

01:06:29Spotify now has music videos.

01:06:34I don't subscribe.

01:06:36Oh my God.

01:06:36Sorry.

01:06:37I'm excited for you all.

01:06:38I'm excited for everyone who subscribes and loves a music video.

01:06:42I just opened YouTube on my TV in a tiny box next to below a bunch of sales links

01:06:48and watch my music videos that way.

01:06:50That's true.

01:06:50And beers and liquors and hats that you see in every music video for the rest of

01:06:56your life, Alex, are you so excited?

01:06:57It's going to be really, really great for me.

01:06:59No, I think the music that you're saying, like, it turns out that every streaming

01:07:03story right now is kind of a Tik TOK story.

01:07:05Like when we've talked about it a bunch on this show in recent weeks, right?

01:07:10Like this question of like, okay, Universal's in a big fight with Tik TOK,

01:07:13Tik TOK, Tik TOK might be having an existential crisis.

01:07:16Whether it's going to continue to exist, who is going to show up and say, oh, all

01:07:21the music videos you want to watch, which are a gigantic portion of what is

01:07:24successful on the internet as a whole.

01:07:27Uh, and Spotify is like, yeah, we'll do it.

01:07:30But Spotify is doing it in like the slowest, weirdest way.

01:07:32They have like a tiny number of artists and a few videos.

01:07:35And it's like, guys, it's not actually that hard to put videos into your app.

01:07:39Spotify, like kudos to Spotify.

01:07:42I suppose.

01:07:43But like, if you, if you really wanted to do this, do it better.

01:07:46Also, Apple has had music videos forever.

01:07:49It's not a great player.

01:07:49It's not a cool experience, but if you're ever bored on your Apple TV and your

01:07:52Apple music subscriber, you can just be like, show me music videos and we'll

01:07:55just play a playlist of music videos.

01:07:56Or you can open the YouTube app.

01:07:59I do think though this thing where, uh, that, that YouTube music does very well

01:08:04and no one else does very well, where you can sort of seamlessly switch from

01:08:07video to music, you can do that.

01:08:09And I think that's what Spotify is going for here too, but Spotify is just like

01:08:13desperate to be an app that you look at more because they want you to subscribe,

01:08:17discover more stuff, pay the money and like look at ads.

01:08:21Uh, but they just aren't going to get there.

01:08:25Right.

01:08:26Like, remember, what was it like a year ago when they basically like

01:08:27redesigned the whole app to be tick tock and everybody was like, no, thanks.

01:08:30Like, I just want to play a song and then put my phone away.

01:08:33And I was like, no, I don't want to play a song and then put my phone away.

01:08:35No, thanks.

01:08:36Like, I just want to play a song and then put my phone away.

01:08:39And I think they just, they're not, I don't think they're ever

01:08:41going to escape that honestly.

01:08:43I think Spotify is going to buy Paramount plus that's who's going to do it.

01:08:47Solves everything done after Netflix collapses.

01:08:51Uh, in other Spotify news, uh, Neil Young has returned to Spotify.

01:08:56I'm pretty sure this is only on the list so we can reference the time that Neil

01:08:59Young was on the verge cast and described with his little player with the Pono.

01:09:04And he described, uh, the MacBook to me as Fisher price quality and said,

01:09:08your new engineer is captain kangaroo.

01:09:11I think we can just run the clips, Andrew.

01:09:12I don't think we have to say anything else about this.

01:09:14That man, uh, really cares about sound quality, very confused about how

01:09:19digital audio sampling works, refuses to acknowledge that it's very hard to

01:09:24hear the difference, uh, appropriate bit, right.

01:09:26Uh, and thanks to the, and I just want to say it, the Mac, he thinks the

01:09:31MacBook pro is a piece of crap, but an actual quote that we can run now.

01:09:35It's a piece of crap.

01:09:36Are you kidding?

01:09:37That's Fisher price quality.

01:09:38That's like captain kangaroo.

01:09:40Your new engineer, the MacBook pro.

01:09:43What are you talking about?

01:09:44You can't, you can't get anything out of that thing.

01:09:47All right.

01:09:47There you go.

01:09:50No, no.

01:09:50It's Neil Young.

01:09:56Uh, well, even, even Neil has caved to Spotify.

01:09:58Yeah.

01:10:00Everyone does eventually.

01:10:01Well, not me, but it is.

01:10:04I just appreciate the logic that like he left, he was the, the like loud

01:10:09protester to Joe Rogan, right?

01:10:11When he signed a huge deal with Spotify, Neil Young was like, I can't be on this

01:10:14platform.

01:10:15And then Joe Rogan got an even bigger, but now non-exclusive deal.

01:10:21So he's now everywhere.

01:10:23And Neil Young's like, well, shit, I gotta, I gotta sell music somewhere.

01:10:26It's like, I do enjoy those royalties.

01:10:29Yeah.

01:10:30Those are nice.

01:10:31Go beyond, go beyond like title.

01:10:33I don't think they have podcasts.

01:10:34Oh my God.

01:10:35Neil's young web site is so bananas.

01:10:38It's amazing.

01:10:39Readable.

01:10:40I wanted to read the blog post about his return to Spotify.

01:10:43Um, but it appears to be down and also Neil Young's website is fully insane and

01:10:48looks like an old time newspaper from the wild west.

01:10:51It's incredible.

01:10:52It does have a full res audio player on it with a switch that says master.

01:10:56Your choices are low res MP3 or master quality.

01:10:58I love it.

01:10:59It's very good.

01:11:00I, again, I love Neil Young.

01:11:01If we just, you'll listen to the episode of the Verge cast after these clips, all

01:11:05of it was astounding.

01:11:06I'm rarely taken aback the way that Neil Young just took me back when I was like,

01:11:10so computers exist.

01:11:11And he was like, kill yourself.

01:11:17Get this little music player.

01:11:18All right.

01:11:19Last bit of video news.

01:11:21I'm just going to say it.

01:11:21It's about Twitter.

01:11:23Or X, Linda Iaccarino, everyone's favorite composed, stable media executive, uh,

01:11:32continues to say X is becoming a video first platform because you get more money

01:11:37from ads.

01:11:38Yeah.

01:11:39When I look around the social media industry and the media industry, I can

01:11:44confidently say that the pivot to video has worked out super great for everyone

01:11:48and all these companies are doing great and not doing layoffs.

01:11:51Yep.

01:11:51Totally.

01:11:53Very, very accurate thing you said.

01:11:54Yeah, not, not the biggest companies in the world.

01:11:57They're super not doing layoffs because video is so good for them.

01:12:00Um, and then everyone's favorite free speech warrior, Elon Musk signed Don

01:12:06Lemon to do a show on X.

01:12:09I think he thought Don Lemon would be sort of the, the counterpart to Tucker

01:12:12Carlson, who does a show on X.

01:12:14Uh, Don Lemon said, okay, Elon, it'll be my first interview.

01:12:17They did an interview.

01:12:19We saw a tiny little clip of the interview.

01:12:21I couldn't finish watching the clip.

01:12:23The clip is Don Lemon saying, don't you think you'd have to answer to reporters

01:12:27for like hate speech on the platform?

01:12:28Yeah.

01:12:29And Elon saying, I don't have to talk to reporters.

01:12:31I'm only talking to you because you're on the X platform, which is very funny.

01:12:35Okay.

01:12:35Uh, deal canceled.

01:12:36Yeah.

01:12:37Um, and we talked about this, I believe last week, but in classic Elon Musk

01:12:42fashion, there was no actual contract.

01:12:45So now Don Lemon is out there threatening to sue X for a contract that doesn't exist.

01:12:52And I just want all of these people, if you are somewhere around Elon Musk, just

01:12:57write some stuff down and sign it on a napkin, all right, in the notes app, have

01:13:04him take a Sharpie to your phone and sign your phone after showing him the

01:13:07contract on a notes app, anything is better than the current situation where

01:13:12people just vibe deal with Elon.

01:13:14Uh, yeah.

01:13:15Don't, don't vibe deal.

01:13:16No, but please, I beg of you.

01:13:18Um, what about handshake?

01:13:20Anyway?

01:13:21No, no, no, no vibes.

01:13:22Handshakes are the ultimate vibes.

01:13:24Okay.

01:13:24Sorry.

01:13:24I wanted to make sure I wanted to like, I wanted to double check.

01:13:27I felt that way, but like I needed to check in.

01:13:30Handshakes.

01:13:30They should give that to you in law school.

01:13:32Okay.

01:13:32Handshakes are the ultimate vibes.

01:13:34All right.

01:13:34That's it.

01:13:34That's a class actually.

01:13:35Like no one really knows what's happening on the other side of that handshake.

01:13:40Well, I mean, not a contract and Elon's never a contract.

01:13:45Handshakes are the ultimate vibes, by the way, is algorithmic

01:13:47warfare's first album title.

01:13:50It's like surf rock and I'm very into it.

01:13:54Uh, anyhow, it's very funny that Elon claims that he's a free speech

01:13:57absolutist to cancel the deal over the most minor of questions.

01:14:01Uh, when you run a giant platform with speech on it.

01:14:04Yeah.

01:14:05That interview is supposedly running on Monday.

01:14:08I am, uh, going to watch as much of it as I can physically stomach.

01:14:13I started it and, and you started just that clip.

01:14:16I started the clip.

01:14:18Don spoke.

01:14:19Elon started to talk and like everything about it.

01:14:22I was like, Oh, I'm just cringing so hard.

01:14:25I can't even finish hearing him like finish the sentence.

01:14:28Yeah.

01:14:28Just the awkwardness alone is, is tough, but we'll see.

01:14:32Yeah.

01:14:33Here's one thing I'll say many people can have many opinions of Don Lemon.

01:14:38Uh, Elon mostly signed all those deals with journalists who treat

01:14:41him like he has all the answers.

01:14:43Tucker in his interviews with Elon treats him like all the answers.

01:14:46Matt Taibbi treats him like, you're letting me do this thing with all the

01:14:48answers.

01:14:49This is the first time I think anyone's straight up been like, so

01:14:53there's a lot of racism here.

01:14:54Are you accountable for it?

01:14:55And he just didn't know what to do.

01:14:56Yeah.

01:14:56Elon does not like to be asked questions.

01:15:00Yeah.

01:15:01Yeah.

01:15:02End of sentence.

01:15:04He doesn't like to be pushed ever.

01:15:06Like do, do not push him.

01:15:08That's a good way to have your, your vibes deal.

01:15:11Unvibe.

01:15:12Just sign contracts.

01:15:13If there's one thing I just beg of you, if you, it protects both parties.

01:15:18It's not.

01:15:18All right.

01:15:19We got to take a break.

01:15:22There are form contracts available online.

01:15:24All right.

01:15:24Just those will be fine.

01:15:26Anything.

01:15:33All right.

01:15:33We're back lightning round.

01:15:34We got to make this fact.

01:15:35We are way over.

01:15:36This has been a deep verge cast.

01:15:39We did food dehydrators.

01:15:40We did Elon Musk an hour on the first amendment, Chinese interference.

01:15:45We talked about motor trend TV.

01:15:46I just want to say we've been everywhere.

01:15:49This is why you come here and now it's the lightning round.

01:15:52And David says he has a sponsor.

01:15:53Yes.

01:15:54So at South by Southwest, uh, a friend of the verge cast named Simon came and it

01:15:59was his birthday and his big plan was when we said it was lightning round time

01:16:04to scream, it's my birthday and I'm sponsoring the verge cast, we didn't do

01:16:07a lightning round and he came up to me like full devastation.

01:16:11So, so Simon today is sponsoring the lightning round.

01:16:14Hell yeah.

01:16:14Simon.

01:16:15Happy birthday, Simon.

01:16:16Simon.

01:16:16We love you.

01:16:17Happy birthday.

01:16:18All right.

01:16:18For your lightning round, Kranz is going to talk about the British monarchy.

01:16:24We're so long into the show to just get into this now.

01:16:28Well, it's okay because this is going to be, I think the shortest, what is a photo?

01:16:32Uh, when we've ever had, Neil, I will not be talking.

01:16:35He will simply be sighing loudly.

01:16:37The entire story.

01:16:39It's so good.

01:16:41Uh, yeah.

01:16:42So, so Kate Middleton has been out of public.

01:16:46She's, she's just some, she's a lady who gets a lot of money to

01:16:50live in England and look pretty.

01:16:51Um, and, and she has been out of the public view and there's been a lot of

01:16:56theories about it and then a relatively recently, a Spanish journalist who at

01:17:02one point said out of pocket things about Michael Jackson and how he was

01:17:08probably murdered.

01:17:09Wow.

01:17:09Where are we going with this?

01:17:11Oh boy.

01:17:12She said, Kate Middleton is in a coma.

01:17:14And, and then, and then the, the, the, the Royals came back and said, she's not.

01:17:19And that's very unusual because they usually don't respond to like

01:17:22absolutely insane, stupid stuff.

01:17:24And so everybody's like, where is she then?

01:17:26So they released this photo and apparently Kate herself has claimed

01:17:30that she did the Photoshop job.

01:17:32But someone did it and they did that piss poor job.

01:17:35Wait, can I ask when the first time either of you saw this photo and

01:17:39Neely, I know you follow her on Instagram.

01:17:41So you saw it.

01:17:42She's in your close friends circle.

01:17:43So I know you saw it very quick.

01:17:45I only pretend to not care about the British monarchy because Kate and I

01:17:48have been involved for several years.

01:17:52Everyone has seen this photo.

01:17:53I don't feel like I need to describe it, but if you, if you haven't go, go to

01:17:57the internet, it will find you.

01:17:58Continue living your life in peace.

01:18:00Under no circumstances.

01:18:02Should you pull over your car and look for this image?

01:18:05But did either of you clock this as like weird in any way?

01:18:09A hundred percent right away.

01:18:10Yeah.

01:18:11Like I looked at it and I was like, why does everybody like, they all look like

01:18:13they have AI faces.

01:18:14Like they're all smiling.

01:18:15Oh, interesting.

01:18:16You went that far.

01:18:17Yeah.

01:18:17And then I didn't like to get to like zoom in and everything.

01:18:20And I didn't realize it was a story because I had to get on a flight.

01:18:23And so I was like, this is so stupid.

01:18:24And I sent it to all my friends who we talk sometimes talk about Royal stuff.

01:18:28One of them.

01:18:28It's just me.

01:18:29You are.

01:18:30Other people are allowed to care.

01:18:31I don't actually care that much.

01:18:33I have a lot of friends who do.

01:18:35So we have a lot of staffers who care about this the most.

01:18:38And it's, it's great.

01:18:39Ironically, none of our British staffers, just a bunch of Americans.

01:18:42Yeah.

01:18:43It's only the farther away you live from England, the more it appears you care

01:18:46about this.

01:18:47That's true, actually.

01:18:49I wonder if it keeps, that keeps going.

01:18:50So if you circle around the Pacific ocean, you start caring about it less.

01:18:54You get to Japan and everybody's like up in arms.

01:18:56But, uh, yeah, no, it was, it was clear to me, like something was weird in the

01:18:59photo because her head was enormous.

01:19:02I was like, why is her head so huge in this picture?

01:19:04And, and it turns out because the whole, most of it was Photoshop.

01:19:08We don't know entirely how much, uh, Kate later dropped like a thing being like, I

01:19:13just love to mess around with Photoshop.

01:19:14Still no photo of her.

01:19:15The only photo we've seen is a picture of her husband driving and there was a woman

01:19:20looking away when the photo was taken.

01:19:22And they said, that's Kate and it's like, it's it so unclear where she is unclear.

01:19:27She's alive.

01:19:28Can I answer the one question?

01:19:29Yeah.

01:19:30Not a photo, not a photo.

01:19:32You think so?

01:19:32Yeah.

01:19:33Cause it's a Photoshop just straightforwardly, not a moment in time.

01:19:36Yeah, it was.

01:19:37That was my big question is what is a photo?

01:19:39Is this a photo?

01:19:41And it feels like, no.

01:19:42And what's cool is everyone else agrees, including all of like the, the, the press,

01:19:48AP, Reuters, everybody said, yeah, we're not going to carry this photo because it's

01:19:52not a photo and it's been manipulated.

01:19:54And, and so very definitive, not a photo, everybody clocked it.

01:19:59I love how many people clocked in.

01:20:01I love how quickly, like, I will say that the misinformation on the social media

01:20:06platforms about what's been edited here is out of control.

01:20:08So the number of people who think AI is very high, uh, the number of people who've

01:20:12Yeah, it was a Vogue cover, I think from years ago and they've used the face, her

01:20:17face, it's like, it's nowhere close to being the same face.

01:20:21Yeah.

01:20:21No, it's just at an angle.

01:20:23It is very funny.

01:20:23You see them side by side and it's, it's the same person making what amounts to

01:20:28essentially two totally different faces.

01:20:30And everybody's like, they swapped them.

01:20:31And it's like, no, they super didn't, but the heart of the problem is that they

01:20:35don't know what's going on.

01:20:36And they don't know what's going on.

01:20:37And they don't know what's going on.

01:20:38And they don't know what's going on.

01:20:39And they don't know what's going on.

01:20:41Uh, but the heart of the, what is a photo debate, the heart of it is if you take a

01:20:47long sequence of photos over a period of time and synthesize one moment in time

01:20:52that never happened, but that contains all the other moments in time, is that a

01:20:57photo that's the heart of the iPhone smart HDR or whatever they call it now.

01:21:03The photonic engine takes, you know, eight frames and synthesizes one exposure.

01:21:09And that's what Kate did, but she did, but the eight frames happened like over five

01:21:13years.

01:21:13That's like, that's not the same thing that even her kids can say.

01:21:18Uh, the reason you asked and I said, I clocked it right away is I have, but one

01:21:22child and getting her to look at the camera and smile is very difficult.

01:21:26And I was like, all three of them.

01:21:28No way.

01:21:28Like just like immediately I was like, this is some JC Penney shit.

01:21:31Like no way.

01:21:32And it's the same smile on all of them.

01:21:34They all look like they had that.

01:21:35That's the filter and Tik Tok or whatever that makes you smile.

01:21:38That's what they, they all look like.

01:21:41It's horrible.

01:21:41Um, I'm sorry I had to write about it.

01:21:43I know a lot.

01:21:44We had a lot of commenters.

01:21:45I don't think we should apologize for writing about it.

01:21:47Yeah.

01:21:48Cause I was gonna say, we had a lot of commenters say, who gives a shit?

01:21:50All those commenters clicked and commented on the story.

01:21:52This is the top story on our site by a mile.

01:21:54People really care about this.

01:21:56I do not.

01:21:56I want to be very clear about this.

01:21:59I'm an Indian American.

01:22:00My people have escaped the British Royal family twice.

01:22:03We literally kicked these people out of, out of the countries that I'm from twice.

01:22:06Two different countries.

01:22:07We brought, came together.

01:22:09Here I am.

01:22:11Don't need you.

01:22:11And you're queen on my money.

01:22:12Get out of here.

01:22:13Like it's a king now.

01:22:16Sure.

01:22:16I didn't even remember that.

01:22:18Uh, but I understand why it's important.

01:22:20I understand why so many members of our staff thinks it's important.

01:22:23I understand people are reading the shit out of it.

01:22:25Cause it's hysterical.

01:22:26It just, I'm from Westworld and I'm looking literally getting started to be

01:22:30like, doesn't look like anything to me.

01:22:33I mean, I do think if you want to, like, there's a really interesting story

01:22:37about like the media and information sharing and how we understand what's

01:22:42true and like all of that is fine and good.

01:22:45And like Liz Lopato, I think is in the middle of writing what I assume will be

01:22:4835,000 words about the daily mail that will be very good.

01:22:51And I'm very excited to read it, but like, I'm with you.

01:22:53It's, it's absolutely not an AI story and it is pretty much not at all a, what

01:22:59is a photo story because it's just a hacky Photoshop job that CNN did a heroic

01:23:03job of trying to make it a, what is a photo story?

01:23:05They did.

01:23:07They're like, I admire the question of what even is a photo.

01:23:10And I was like, you guys, thank you to everyone who got that push notification

01:23:13and immediately sent it to us.

01:23:14This is how we know you are our people.

01:23:19Anyhow.

01:23:20Uh, well, I hope Kate's okay.

01:23:22Yeah.

01:23:23Who, who, who can say they may be weakened at Bernie?

01:23:25She hasn't texted me back.

01:23:27Yeah.

01:23:27What's up with that?

01:23:28Kate, get to it.

01:23:29Come on.

01:23:30Neal is waiting.

01:23:31It's a love affair.

01:23:33What can I say?

01:23:35This is why I have to pretend to discard the world.

01:23:38This is one of the rumors is that, that he was cheating on her.

01:23:42So, so like the rumor should be, yeah, like she got back at him with you.

01:23:46That's I can't even imagine how dismissive my wife will be of this idea.

01:23:51My actual divorce lawyer wife would be like, nah, it's not true.

01:23:58That's not the person I married.

01:23:59Uh, okay.

01:24:00Second line around.

01:24:01Uh, I'll just go as promised while we have been recording

01:24:04starship, the third launched, went up to orbit, open some doors to

01:24:09prove it could open some doors.

01:24:11And then it was supposed to splash down.

01:24:14That did not.

01:24:15Well, presumably it did just not in the way that everyone was hoping for.

01:24:20Well, no, the quote from SpaceX spokesperson, uh, that we have in our

01:24:24story, uh, we haven't heard from the ship up until this point.

01:24:28And so the team has made the call that the ship has been lost.

01:24:31So no splashdown today.

01:24:33Oh, you're right.

01:24:33I took that to mean like, it's going to come down.

01:24:35We just don't know where, but actually what that means is it's still up there

01:24:38somewhere or it burned up in the atmosphere or it came down and they lost

01:24:42track of it or it exploded in some other way and a number of exciting

01:24:45opportunities for starship fans.

01:24:47So as, as, as successes go.

01:24:50Well, so, uh, much, much more successful, um, than before, uh, when it fully

01:24:56exploded, uh, and then when the booster exploded, this one went all the way up.

01:25:00It did some planned maneuvers, love and maneuver.

01:25:03Um, and then the quote remained in one piece until contact was lost.

01:25:09I mean, I think it's generally true in these cases that getting it down is the

01:25:13part though.

01:25:13Yeah.

01:25:14That's the part that they worked on the hardest for the longest.

01:25:16That is the massive engineering problem with it.

01:25:19We've gotten, but in a test like this, like worry about that, once you can get

01:25:22the thing where it's going, right?

01:25:24Like, let's get it there and then we'll worry about getting it back.

01:25:26And it seems like the getting it there, we're getting there.

01:25:27Like, that's cool.

01:25:28Yeah, that's cool.

01:25:29Um, and probably the guy who runs that company, uh, different guys should run

01:25:33the company.

01:25:33It's maybe a thing.

01:25:35Why does he care if it comes back?

01:25:37He wants to go up and stay up.

01:25:38Go to Mars, Elon.

01:25:39I think everyone would be happier.

01:25:41It'll be fine.

01:25:41All right.

01:25:44I'm just going to run away from that as fast as I can.

01:25:46I just, I just want to take you on like a brief emotional rollercoaster that I

01:25:50went on earlier this week, uh, which is when I read a headline from Tom Warren.

01:25:55Lovely reporter at the verge who said Apple to allow iOS app downloads

01:25:59direct from websites in the EU.

01:26:02David wakes up to this news.

01:26:04Hell yeah.

01:26:05Sounds awesome.

01:26:05Super exciting.

01:26:07Apple's going to like let you properly sideload and then you scroll down a ways

01:26:11and Apple has done what it always does, which is say a thing and then set up

01:26:15like a hilarious set of hoops you have to jump through in order for this to be

01:26:18real.

01:26:19You have to be in Apple's developer program.

01:26:21You have to be in good standing.

01:26:22You have to have more than a million annual installs in the EU, which is

01:26:26actually a huge number.

01:26:28Uh, you have to only offer apps from your developer account.

01:26:31You have to be responsive to communications from Apple.

01:26:34You have to publish your data.

01:26:37Like you basically have to do all the things you have to do to be in the app

01:26:40store only harder.

01:26:42And then you can have it from

01:26:44yeah, you have to like go on a dinner date with Tim Cook at one point.

01:26:48Like that was a really weird one.

01:26:49I didn't understand that one.

01:26:51Yeah.

01:26:52You have to go to the house of everyone who wants to download your app and do it

01:26:55for them.

01:26:55Yeah.

01:26:56Uh, so yeah, again, like this is, this is just what Apple is doing here, right?

01:27:01Like they are, they are allowing things, but making it so onerous that I don't

01:27:06think anything real is actually going to change for people.

01:27:08But just the fact that this is a thing that technically exists, I still think is

01:27:12very cool.

01:27:13Yeah.

01:27:13The concept is cool.

01:27:15The execution is hot garbage.

01:27:18Yes.

01:27:18I'm just like, how's this going to work?

01:27:20The EU is absolutely like, come on, man.

01:27:23They won't stop.

01:27:24They won't stop.

01:27:25They're relentlessly European.

01:27:26Yeah.

01:27:26They will come to your house and then take a nap around 4 PM and they're going to

01:27:29wake up and they're going to regulate the shit out of you.

01:27:31They will work six hours and they will get a lot done in that six hours.

01:27:35They will.

01:27:35There are, I don't mean to denigrate our European friends.

01:27:37They're wonderful.

01:27:38Um, no, because they are getting stuff done.

01:27:40I think, I think Europe is doing a much better job at legislating technology than

01:27:44the United States.

01:27:44And it's because they eat well and sleep right.

01:27:46Yeah.

01:27:47Here we go.

01:27:48Walk a lot.

01:27:48Yeah.

01:27:48We figured it out.

01:27:50We solved it.

01:27:51You do some walkable cities and then suddenly you're able to do tech regulation.

01:27:55I think all this stuff we've talked about this at length is all going to backfire on

01:27:58Apple.

01:27:58Like this is political nightmare territory for Apple.

01:28:00These like technical compliance measures that don't actually add up to anything

01:28:05real.

01:28:06They're, they're just getting in trouble.

01:28:07All right.

01:28:07Karin, do you want to do one more?

01:28:08Yeah, I got, I got one more and that is, uh, our, our European friends will already

01:28:14know about this.

01:28:14The Dyson 360 VizNav.

01:28:18What is that?

01:28:19You ask with a name like the Dyson 360 VizNav that is a robot vacuum cleaner that

01:28:26uses visual navigation.

01:28:28Wait, do you know what I just realized?

01:28:29Alex, do you remember when Dyson was building an electric car, they for sure had

01:28:35a thing called VizNav and we're like, oh crap, we got to use this name for

01:28:39something.

01:28:39We like bought the domain name.

01:28:41That's where this came from.

01:28:42How was the car going to go?

01:28:44Was it going to like have a big fan on the back?

01:28:46I'm telling you anytime Dyson tries to make something that isn't a fan based

01:28:49product that either sucks or blows to get nowhere.

01:28:54And this thing does apparently suck.

01:28:56Um, like that, that, that's its whole thing is it's supposed to be really good at

01:29:00it.

01:29:00And it has the most enormous fluffy brush.

01:29:03Like, like she said, it's got a really fluffy brush.

01:29:06And I was like, that's a weird thing for you to say.

01:29:08And I don't understand.

01:29:09And then she like sent me a picture and I was like, no, it's awesome.

01:29:12Like, I want to just reach through the photo and touch it.

01:29:15Um, it just looks very squeezable, but she's going to be, she just got it in.

01:29:19Uh, it's, it's finally available in the United States or is about to be available

01:29:22in the United States.

01:29:23She just got it in.

01:29:24She's going to be spending a lot of time messing around with it.

01:29:27How stupidly expensive is it?

01:29:29It's so expensive.

01:29:30It's over a thousand dollars.

01:29:32Yeah.

01:29:32Like, come on.

01:29:33Can I just say the way this thing looks?

01:29:35David asking that question.

01:29:36I mean, it's Dyson, so I assume whatever number I think I should just double it.

01:29:39And that's what Dyson costs.

01:29:40This is not going to fit under, if you have one of those cool platform beds with

01:29:44like real low clearance to the ground, this will not clean under it.

01:29:49Uh, it is quite tall.

01:29:50$1,200.

01:29:51Sorry.

01:29:52Purple.

01:29:53It does look like one of those things, the matrix that puts you back in the power

01:29:58plant, but like in a friendly way.

01:30:00That's what it's doing to the dirt.

01:30:02That's how the dirt feels when it comes at it.

01:30:04It's like, you know, that scene, it's like, I'll get my body back to the power

01:30:07plant, but I don't want to know nothing.

01:30:09It's like, this thing comes to your house and it's like, we'll get you back in

01:30:13there, but you have to spray Neo.

01:30:15Uh, I have weird feelings about this vacuum cleaner.

01:30:17It's so fluffy looking.

01:30:18Like, did you look at the, it does look very fluffy.

01:30:21I, I don't know why I like both, both, uh, Jen and I were both like, oh my God,

01:30:26this brush, like we lost our minds over the brush, which was very weird and fun

01:30:30for us.

01:30:31I'm excited to see what she does with it.

01:30:34This is vacuum our house.

01:30:35Yeah, but she's got a lot of Robo vacs in there right now.

01:30:38And I really want her to put knives on all of them and have them fight.

01:30:41And she told me no.

01:30:42So, um, I'll update you guys on that.

01:30:44We can, let's work on that too.

01:30:45Yeah, we can work on that.

01:30:46I think we can do it.

01:30:47All right, dude.

01:30:48What's what, do you have another one or is it just me again?

01:30:49Mine's just really quick.

01:30:51Um, which is that Microsoft teams is now attempting to become like an app that

01:30:56families use to talk to each other.

01:30:57And Microsoft has been talking about this for a while as like a thing they want to

01:31:00do, but they're now like unifying the apps you can have personally and work

01:31:03accounts together.

01:31:04And I just feel very vindicated by the fact that I've been saying teams was the

01:31:08stupidest possible name for this product this whole time.

01:31:10And, uh, I was right.

01:31:12And I feel good about it.

01:31:13Can you imagine like going home tonight and being like, okay, I'm going to set up

01:31:16the family teams and then we're, that's how we're going to like, no, I'm out.

01:31:20Pass abort teams.

01:31:22Get out of here.

01:31:23I, I'm proud of you for having feelings of Microsoft teams.

01:31:26Most people I know who use teams, including me, whenever I use it, I try to

01:31:30use it on my computer.

01:31:31Something bad happens.

01:31:32I joined the team meeting, the audio is all messed up.

01:31:34And I always say this thing.

01:31:36I have a very complex relationship with Microsoft teams.

01:31:39And then everyone in the room starts laughing.

01:31:41It's a good joke because it's just, it's just, it's good.

01:31:45Yeah.

01:31:45Everyone knows what I'm talking about.

01:31:47Yeah.

01:31:47Whatever that and zoom has to update every single time you use it.

01:31:51That's the two facts of life.

01:31:53No, it's very good.

01:31:54And then, uh, Google meet on my 2015 iMac.

01:31:57Just, uh, talk about a Dyson fan.

01:32:01Ooh, that thing could power a car.

01:32:03You know, uh, it's not great.

01:32:05Got to get a new Mac.

01:32:06Still working on it.

01:32:07Uh, okay.

01:32:08Mine, my last one.

01:32:09And then we got to wrap this up.

01:32:10Uh, many people wrote in to ask about this.

01:32:13Nikon is acquiring red.

01:32:15So red, the big famous camera manufacturer, the phone maker, the

01:32:22red hydrogen one, famously one of the worst products we've ever reviewed.

01:32:26Uh, a review so bad, they canceled the product.

01:32:28That's only happened a few times in our history.

01:32:30I was just, I loved that thing.

01:32:33I mean, I loved like its existence.

01:32:36I didn't love it.

01:32:37What if we took the design language of a rugged hard drive and

01:32:40made you hold it all the time?

01:32:43Look at it.

01:32:43It was very bad.

01:32:45Bad 3d screen as well.

01:32:46Um, that is not why they're selling to Nikon.

01:32:49They weren't like, we're so embarrassed.

01:32:50We got to get out of this.

01:32:51There's been some patent battles in the past between these two.

01:32:54Um, if you're Nikon, you know that so much of the action of

01:32:58imaging is happening in video.

01:33:00That is driving a huge amount of the, just the sensor technology that is

01:33:05happening, just all the stuff is happening on the video side.

01:33:08Um, and that's not what Nikon is known for.

01:33:10It's not with it.

01:33:11Not even a little bit.

01:33:12Nope, not at all.

01:33:14Um, so you, you see the cannons and the Sony's of the world,

01:33:17like really lean into video.

01:33:19There's just an explosion of digital video making happening everywhere.

01:33:22Red obviously owns a big chunk of that.

01:33:24I'm not entirely sure how the shape of this patent battle led to an acquisition.

01:33:27I just know strategically Nikon was kind of out of moves.

01:33:32Yeah.

01:33:32And I think red saw a number and they took the number.

01:33:36I'm very curious to see if Nikon cameras turn more into red cameras, because I

01:33:43don't think that people who use red cameras will accept them turning more

01:33:46into Nikon cameras.

01:33:48No.

01:33:48I feel like both ways.

01:33:50It's like neither, neither one of those crews want to use that

01:33:53product, the other product.

01:33:55Yeah.

01:33:56And yeah.

01:33:57Which is, but that's, that, that makes it a good deal for them is because

01:34:00then they get both of those, those, yeah, maybe that's okay.

01:34:04Like red is a good brand with great products.

01:34:06Like maybe, maybe the best place to land is just like, Oh, you need

01:34:09Nikon to have a video strategy.

01:34:10Like here it is.

01:34:11It's called red and glass.

01:34:13So it's like, yeah, I mean, I'm a Nikon person famously.

01:34:16Uh, our video team is deeply confused by this at all times.

01:34:19Uh, but I love my Nikon, uh, D 7, 500 still going strong.

01:34:24Um, We'll just see.

01:34:26It is also, by the way, it is a good time and still cameras.

01:34:28We haven't really talked about this, but Becca has been doing a lot

01:34:30of coverage of like very exciting, still cameras from Fuji and Leica.

01:34:33They're coming out that

01:34:34Fuji film.

01:34:34I like, I think about it a lot.

01:34:36I'm like, I don't need that camera, but what if, what if I got into photography

01:34:40again, that's, that's what it like, that's a midlife crisis camera right there.

01:34:44I'm like, yeah.

01:34:44Oh, interesting.

01:34:45Yeah.

01:34:46What if Max doesn't go to college?

01:34:47Yeah.

01:34:48College is overrated.

01:34:49Yeah.

01:34:50What, what you want, beautiful street photography.

01:34:53Yeah.

01:34:53Uh, sorry, kid.

01:34:55Uh, I took a picture of a dumpster.

01:34:56Okay.

01:34:57Uh, that is it.

01:34:58That's the verge cast.

01:34:59We're going to send her to college one way or the other.

01:35:02We'll just see how many dumpster photos pay for it.

01:35:04Yeah.

01:35:04Uh, if she wants to go, which she's going to want to because I'm her father.

01:35:08Uh, okay.

01:35:09That's it.

01:35:10That's for chess.

01:35:10We've gone way over.

01:35:11Thank you for listening.

01:35:12Uh, many things to give us feedback on this time.

01:35:15David, tell us how they can get in contact with us.

01:35:17You can email us.

01:35:18Verge cast at the verge.com.

01:35:19That goes to all of us.

01:35:20Um, or you can call the hotline.

01:35:22Eight, six, six.

01:35:22First one, one.

01:35:23Uh, we got a tweet from somebody the other day who thought it was very funny

01:35:26that we used to tell everybody about Twitter and then we told people about

01:35:31threads for a minute and now we want them to call our landline, which is

01:35:34objectively very funny.

01:35:36Um, we're all also on threads.

01:35:37You can find us there.

01:35:38Uh, and also just like the first.com we make a website.

01:35:41It's pretty good.

01:35:42Yeah.

01:35:42Come to it directly.

01:35:43Escape the algorithms.

01:35:45That should be our new tagline.

01:35:46Escape from algorithms.

01:35:47It's pretty good.

01:35:47The verge.com.

01:35:48All right.

01:35:48That's it.

01:35:53And that's it for the verge cast this week.

01:35:55Hey, we'd love to hear from you.

01:35:57Give us a call at eight, six, six verge one, one.

01:35:59The verge cast is a production of the verge and Vox Media Podcast Network.

01:36:03Our show is produced by Andrew Marino and Liam James.

01:36:06That's it.

01:36:07We'll see you next week.

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