Matter One Point Six and Interoperability

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Visit betterethelp d. com slash voxpods Hello and welcome to the Virge Cast, the flagshhip podcast of Liquid Crystal on Silicon, a technology that all Snapchat users care deeply about and look forward to adopting on their faces I'm friend D Per,ppels here home. This is like I forot out what it looks like when you sit in your actual house making podcasts. Yeah, and like it all works and you're not staring out a window with a staircase behind me. I'm sad about the staircase. The staircase got a lot of love last week. It did. The staircase was a true hit on the virdcast. We have a lot to talk about this week Fox is buying Roku, which means we are for sure going to bring the G ninety scale back. and we have a lot to talk about There's some AI news. Brendny Carrars up to stuff There's a lotuck going on, but we have to start with specks So Snapshat. Evan Spiegel has been talking about Making AR glasses ten years, I think long time. since the last the first version of spepects I think was almost exactly a decade ago And this has been the future of the company for a very long time They announced a while ago that they were going to ship consumer ready AR glasses this year And now they've they've shown them off And they've announced them. They're called spepecs. And Nili just before we started recording, you did the thing that I have been doing obsessively, which is look at pictures of specs on people's faces. Yes. let me just run with run down the specs of these specs before we before we get into the thing. Because what's interesting about this and what I want to talk about is like These seem to be technically very impressive in a certain way, right? Like you and I have talked a lot about the Vision Pro being sort of one end of what you can do with this technology, right? However you want to feel about what it is in the world, it is a remarkable piece of technological engineering Specs has a little bit of that going on too. There are two different models. One is forty seven millimeters, one is fifty two. The lighter one weighs one hundred thirty two grams. which just for context, like the iPhone seventeen is one hundred and seventy seven grams So imagine like almost an iPhone seventeen kind of on your face And a normal pair of Rayban wayayfarers is about forty five So it's like three normal pairs of sunglasses on your face They have removable inserts for prescriptions, which they also think of as a way to do multi user support, which is kind of clever. You can just pop out your lenses. They have a fifty one degree field of view, which Evan Spiegel compared to having a twenty four inch monitor in front of you or one hundred fifteen inch TV ten feet away They have two snapdragon processors, seven millisecond latency Four hours of battery life, which is m and four more charges in the case They're like these seem to be about as good a pair of smart glasses with a display on them as you can make right now And then you see someone wearing them And here we are. Tell me the pictures you've been looking at Evans Spiegel is married to Miranda Kerr, right He's married to a supermodel. So he got a bunch of beautiful models to wear his glasses. And Jimmy Butler, the NBA player. And Jimmy Butler. So Kyerber, Sidneyrawford's daughter is the first picture I saw. She's legitimately a beautiful person. Yeah. And she looks ridiculous in the glasses. Like you can't make anything this big look good on anyone Jack Harlow does not look one glasses imageen heap. actually image and heap might look cool in the glasses Imagey Heap is one of those people who like could sincerely get away with wearing gigantic glasses. Yeah, actuallyctually the most interesting thing about these pictures is They're in black and white, but to indicate the glasses have a display, they put a slight color haze on the lenses and these photos. which to me is the whole game Right? The point of these glasses is not that they have cameras in them. It's that they are a full on little computer with a display that you look at in front of your eyes, right whatever viewing angle, we have to see them in this context don't mean a lot. Like the specs of a new pair of glasses in a product category that is totally nascent and no one has proven to work or have any demand whatsoever. It doesn't matter if the specs of this one are better than the specs of the X realial glasses. like sure So I mean, you know, there's an Eli scale of wearable bullshit, which is The utility of wearing the object on your face has to far outweigh the fiddliness of the thing. Yes So regular glasses have enormous utility because they help you see and they're really not very fiddly, but they're pretty fiddly The Apple Watch, not very fiddly at all. You just have to charge it. Wear it on a wrist like a regularily watch. enormous utility ups a success. Headphones. you put them in your ears, they're very usely, you takeem off, you just have to charge them. It all works out on the curve. Y. Every pair of things that you wear on your face has died in this way. Every computing device you have to strap to your head has died because they're so fiddly impose an enormous fashion cost and the utility of them has really not been that high It may be only in a case of the meta glasses which are a camera on your face and not very much else. Has anyone been like, okay, I can work this out and this is a category Here there's some shots of apps and like a video streaming and a maps app. We really don't have any particular details on who writes those apps. How power hungry those apps are, how good they are compared to your phone Right, This is a self contained device. It's supposed to compete with the phone And to do that, they had to make enormous compromises on its form factor because they needed to basically put a phone on your head And then we don't know if it's going to work well enough to pull it off Yeah, I mean, there's there's some interesting stuff going on just in the fact that this is Snap doing this, right? Because Snap has been building the lenses and stuff into Snapchat for a long time. They'd sort of been building this technology in public that was obviously ultimately meant for glasses There was this they announced it at some developer conference and U Bobby Murphy, the co founder of Snap. showed off a bunch of sort of demos, sort of developer, they like coded on stage a little bit. But there's one where it's like you're wearing the glasses and you're playing Uo And you can sort of see it as like a rectangle in the middle of the screen. Again, it's like imagine having a computer monitor in front of your face that is see through. like it's not immediately not a sort of normal way to think about how you interact with the world U But he he's essentially, you know, they're pking cards and putting them down. and it's every AR demo you've ever seen, right? Like everybody has the same idea about how this stuff is supposed to work The idea is just now you can use your hands to control it and you don't have to look through your phone in order to do it. Snap is interesting because it's been building this kind of experience for forever, right? It's been doing these like virtual try on things with clothes longer than most. It has built all of the camera lenses that make you do, you know the rainbow when you open your mouth. It's building some of these games like This is what I mean by Snap is actually able to do this maybe as well as anyone is able to do this because it has just been at this long And so it's like, I just I have a hard time imagining what the software would have to be in order to make any kind of hardware like this appealing, especially at the price, which I haven't said, which is two thousand one hundred and ninety five dollars This is a quote unquote consumer product that is not remotely for consumers. But then you look at the thing. like, hold on. Okaykay. So you mentioned Evan Spegel after they did this announcement, he went on CNBC to talk about it. He did a couple of interviews with people actually wearing the specs. Let me just play you this one clip. that I have a feeling is going to be very, very hard for Snap to overcome. Watch and Evan, thanks for joining us here today. You're wearing your new specs, which you just unveiled. They cost two thousand one hundred ninety five dollars. I'm just going to pause it here. Right now, again, I'm so sorry if youre if you're not. watching But just imagine Evan Spgel sitting here in this crowded room. Evan's like he's a good looking guy. He's got the specs on. They're enormous and they are just rushing the hell out of his ears. Like they're too thick and too tall to go where they're supposed to go, which is like behind your ears And so it's literally they're just resting on top of his ears. There is no shot that is comfortable. Just none And you'll notice even in a lot of the like beautiful photo shoot stuff that you're talking about that they did, the real advertising photos almost every case They've hidden the people's ears in some way. L it's hidden behind hair. Even Jack Harlow, they clearly like styled his hair to not show it smosshing his ears because these things these just obviously are not comfortable to wear on your face And and there's no getting past that. Like The lesson we keep learning from all of these things is like people buy Rayband Madas because they're just a pair of glasses that do more stuff. And that has turned out to be vastly more compelling than put a giant computer on your head We'll give you lots of stuff to do All right, so here's why there's a giant computer. and I want to give Snap credit for this because I have been for a long time They've diligently pursued one vision. They haven't done a bunch of weird side quests. Tk Meta has done These are the first true AR glasses I think we have seen. And what I mean by that is att least there are screenshots and videos on their marketing materials where the glasses, the cameras and glasses are looking at the world processing that. and they are putting information directly over the world. Yes. And of course, the demos are the same demos everyone has ever seen. There's people playing chess, a virtual chess board. Hilariously there's you can replace the coolant in a car, which tracks perfectly with a holo lens demo. I got ten years ago where they had me change a spark plug There's people putting furniture in a room and doing measurements. But the idea that the cameras are processing reality And then on a display that overlays reality. so the real light is passing through your eyes In low latency, they're putting digital information of the real world is incredible There really has not been that thing. Maybe the Hollands got closest. mayaybe Magic Lp did it. Apple couldn't get there and they did Division Pro where they did mixuality where they totally had to everything in on the camera and composite it. and then show you a screen Snap is not doing that here, right? They're overlaying actual reality, which is very challenging. Yeah, this is honest to God, augmented reality. And so I don't want to discount that at all What I'm pointing out is to do that, you are stuck in this form factor Right If you don't have a phone to offload the processing to or they're very proud that this thing is self contained.. You need to put the cameras in there, you need to put the connectivity in there. you need the processors. It has two snapdragon processors in there, which Qualon is very proud of. It says it will enable all kinds of experiences like this in the future. And then you need batteries to run it all Where's that stuff going to go? It's going to go right here. It's going to go right across your temples onlyn place for it to go Well, here we are. like this is they needed to get there first because Ma is trying to get there because Apple is trying to get there. And I think these are the compromises that have kept those companies from shipping a product like this I think if Apple wanted to ship a product like this, they could They've shown us enough AR demos on an iPad and enough events proved that if they wanted to do tracking and compositeing, the Vision Pro exists, they can do tracking and compositing.. I think this form factor is the natural compromise of all of the things you need to pack into the the glasses to make this experience work And this is the experience they want Well, and the irony is, I think Again, as we've talked about and according to the N Iel theory of wearable bullshit The form factor is actually the only thing you can't compromise on Like over and over, this is the lesson that is learned is you have to start with I like wearing it on my face or you you're nowhere. Like at least with the technology is currently constituted There is nothing that even suggests you can back into Sure I'll put this on my face and this this to me is like, this is this is why specs I think is so interesting. It's like If you look at this as the best it is possible to do right now And I think there's a lot of evidence that it is. And again, there' some there' some genuinely cool demos here No one seems to want this. Like the overwhelming response to this has been like investors hate it. users are like, what on earth are you doing? No No one I see is like, oh my God, I can't wait to wear this on my face. It just people don't see it. Again, to be fair, it's hard to know if it's any good until you wear it. You cannot read the spec sheet of this thing in what's it seven milliseconds of latency. You cannot know what that means unless you're wearing them. And you can feel what seven milliseconds of latency of digital information augmenting real light passing through your eyes feels like. As it smooushes your ears to bits. Is it worth it? Like I don't, I don't know. L I don't think there's enough devices in this category for us to look at a spec sheet and say, oh, they got the specs right, such that it overcomes the form factor untly I don't think that's tr. I think's kind of true in VR. Like We can talk there have been enough VR headsets that I can look at a spec sheet and be like, all, I kind of get what they're doing here.. This is new It's new, you know, yes, it's very expensive, but As a consumer device, this is wholly new and Maybe changing your oil in augmented reality is so awesome I mean, it's not. it'saiful. you don't believe that It's not. I don't know. Yes, you do. What are we doing here? I don't know Maybe get rules. You think there's a world in which Given even the limited amount of stuff that we know now that this combination of technology and features works Like forget the price I don't know It sounds like there's apps. L like is any are any of these things the killer app? I do not know I think to me the the single most problematic thing in this whole space, always all the way back to Magic Le. is that it gives great demo You put it on, you wear it for five minutes and you go, oh my God, this is it. E Ebody has this experience. We had this experience way back when with like the very first occulus rift that you put it on and your brain explodes. You're like, I can't believe this is possible This is incredible. And you take that to mean This is something I want in my day to day life. and actually the gap between those two things is enormous and has not gotten that much smaller even as the technology has gotten better. willill you will if someone in your life has a pair of these and you put them on and they're like, here, do this Pokemon G style thing that you can do in the Snap specs. You'll do it, and you'll be like, oh, cool And then you will take them off and you will go about your life and you will tell people about the cool demo that you had. And the distance from that to, I wantan to spend two thousand dollars on these and wear them for four hours at a time is vast That I mean, this is the this is the utility versus cost. like How fiddly is it? How much does it cost in dollars Is a type of fiddliness in my opinion? Dollars are fiddly. Yeah. I mean, like you got it's like, how much do I have to care about this? It's two thousand two hundred dollars I have to care about this Right? And are they huge and heavy? and do we have to charge them every four hours? It's all cost And then there's how much utility is there And I'm not saying it's so much utility because you change your own oil. is the thing I'm just pointing out like there's obviously a set of apps here And they want yes, they all give good demo. But most people have never experienced anything Itact my only like the brakes and not going to judge it is You actually don't know how people react to having the real world augmented digital information And maybe it turns out all anyone ever wanted was a timer floating above their pasta water I don't think so, but I'm just hesitant to be like, I absolutely know this won't work because most people have literally never come close to this outside of watching a movie. And there's other foibles here that are going to get in the way. None of these demos are in anything close to the dark Right? So like can these cameras see in the dark well enough or even in dim light well enough? All of these things are outside in bright sunlight to be able to recognize what they're looking at didentify it, you know, send it to whatever AI system is going to do all that recognition and blah blah blahah. And then appropriately center the digital information over that in the dark huge glaring question mark Yeah. becausecause then the utility this falls even farther. R? You can only wear it outside Well, that sucks, right? Yes Um, my kitchen is very is really quite dark. Will it not work for my pasta bl because it's like dark in the kitchen? Like these are questions I think they have to answer I'm just looking at these photos and I'm thinking about my theory of wearable bullshit Oh, the cost here is staggering. compared to the utility I'm just not going to prejudge no one will like this because I don't think Anyone has actually experienced this product in this way I think that's fair. And I think my argument is less no one will like this and more I cannot imagine how this clears the boundary for people. And I think there's something to Like very specific use cases for smart glasses, right? Like This is what we saw was Google Glass where it's like people who want to fix carburetors in cars have an actual use for Google Glass. Google Glass couldn't do that But like eventually they did a bunch of the enterprise edition stuff and it started to work for some of these features. People used it to like scan codes in factories as you're like running around, moving stuff or in warehouses, you can scan the code that you've picked the product just by looking at the Google glass. like That is a great use case for these glasses. It's also a very specific thing that you then take them off after Yeah and Evan Spiegel. is once again making this grand case that what we are doing is we are bringing computing into the real world. We're taking you away from looking at a screen and we're making the world and the screen one and the same. And like on the one hand You look at some of these things and it's literally designed as if there's just a floating computer monitor in front of your face, which is the wrong UI. L some of these things are just giant pl in between you and what you're attempting to look at, which is not what this is supposed to look like But then on the other hand, it has four hours of battery life. It's going to smooush your ears to bits. It cost two thousand two hundred dollars. Like I just I don't I don't see any evidence clears the boundary to like, yes, this is a thing I will just wear in my day to day life. And again, the only reason I'm offering the benefit of the doubt. is M people have never experienced this thing. Like I'm not sure I've experienced the full vision of what they have here, and I've tried almost all of these centas We're going to look at the world and we're going to augment it with digital information in real time. in self contained glasses is just not a thing that has existed before, really And Snapchat's AR prowess is real. Like this company has been at this longer than most And a lot of the stuff that it's built is very cool and very popular, right? Like We don't talk that much about Snapchat on this show, but it is like It's a it's a weirdly sort of unsuccessful company that has built a massively like generationally important communication. Like Snapchat is culturally central to lots and lots of people in the world U and they've built some really interesting stuff at the camera. They've been way ahead on a lot of things. so like I want this stuff to work. And I was really excited about these glasses. and then the minute I saw them on somebody's face, it's like, this doesn't this doesn't seem like it's. Right to do the thing you wanted to do. The technology doesn't exist yet, and so the form factor is compromised in very real ways.. And exactly. We've been talking about that for how long Here's things they didn't demon They didn't demo facial recognition. They didn't talk about what it means to be constantly recording the world around you to augment it with digital information. They' they didn't talk about the privacy implications of having two cameras on either side of your head all the time that are looking at the world. There's a lot here you have to really consider. and I think people are already pushing back on with the metaglasses and other glasses If you want to build this device There's no way to get around the fact that you have to be constantly ingesting the world so that you can augment it with digital information Another thing I didn't deo, my favorite question ask all these folks, if you look at a Capitol building and say what happened here on january sixth What is the answer you're going to get? Is it an insurrection or not You have a content moderation problem staring at your augmented reality glasses that no one wants to acknowge So yeah, I think they They put all of their emphasis on let's build the dream and this is the form factor they can execute now, because I don't think anyone else has gotten any closer than this But then the actual problems are like I mean, you know SnApper is a content business. They run content moderation. They do it. They know what to do Boy are these like an entirely new set of problems to have when you are altering the physical experience people have through their eyes Right? It's not a screen. It's like, I'm really looking at this and there's really an arrow pointing at the Capitol buildilding, being like Notably on january sixth here, a number of people got a tour of this building. Like, that's not what you want people got it t technically accurate in a certain way. Some people wandered the building. Yeah, look, I think I think a lot is going to you're right, be very clear the minute we are able to put one of these things on. And I'm like I'm genuinely excited that Snap is shipping these, right?ve We've watched this company sort of coil in the background and keep shipping stuff but not actually shipping it and like Kud is for actually just putting thing out in the world. Like I think it I think it's cool We can't think they're going to sell a lot of these. They have to believe that they needed to put a stake in the ground that they got there first. I think that's right And then in theory, you sell some of these And it makes it easier to both build and sell the next one and like I can see the playbook and also I think they promised they were going to do it this year and they just like it probably if you're a company like Snap. who has had the business track record they have, it was very important to ship these things I get all of those things. I just look at this and I'm like if this is the best anyone can do and I think it probably is Are we actually anywhere And we'll see. you're right. wa than I think just to be one hundred percent clear, I think the answer is no also willing to say very few people, if any have ever actually experienced a product like this? Yeah There's something to just keeping your mind open to that. Like maybe people are gonna lose their minds I doubt it But I'm not willing to just like close it off before that actually happens I really hope somebody makes like a cool accessory that like straps it around the back of your head And we just go full like cyberpunk crooky situation. That's gonna be awesome. That's a free idea for anybody wants it. All right, we should take a break. and then we're gonna to come back and we're gonna talk about a product everyone uses against their will, which is Roku. Support for the show comes from rippling Retaining your best employees should always be top of mind, especially if they are in high demand. 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So don't settle for AI, that's all talk Head to rippling. ai slash Vverge and get AI that turns insight into action That's R I PP L I N G AI slash Vverge Sign up for exclusive access today Support for the show comes from Granola It feels good to walk away from a meeting that actually felt productive. But our brains can hold only so much info You might look back and realize you either A got caught up in your notes and missed some important stuff or B You couldn't even take notes, and now you're just trying to reconstruct it all from memory If that's your dilemma, granola can help solve it Granola is an AI powered notepad built for the way real people actually meet You can take rough notes like you normally would, while Granala securely transcribes the meaning. Then after you rarap It turns everything into clean, structured, actually useful notes. Granola also works through your device's audio, which means it integrates seamlessly into the video conferencing tools you already use It's your standard meeting setup, but enhanced If meetings are eating up your day, granola is a no brainer. You could try it totally free for three months Just head to granola. Ai slash verge That's granola. ai slash verge to get your time back Get three months free at granola. Ai slash Verge All right, we're. Let's talk streaming worse Uh The big news this week is that Fox is buying Roku or at least is planning to buy Roku Who knows if any deal ever gets done in the world in which we live It's a twenty two billion dollars deal. It would put these two companies together. Lolland Murdch, who runs Fox is making a lot of promises about the future of Roku and we can get into some of those. Neili, give me your immediate reaction to this deal This is a sort of nightmare vertical integration and distribution that Maybe Lena Khan was like the most opposed to and the Trump administration loves the most. Loves so much Wait, explain. what is the like I think people have had a hard time this week as I've been talking to people and reading about it sort of imagining these two companies do for each other in that like company that makes content buys other company that makes content. you're like, oh I get that. Now it's bigger company that makes content. This is like a bunch of Ostensible puzzle pieces all sort of smosshing together. Like what is your sense of how these things all combine I think when media companies buy each other in an effort to get scale, they almost always do themselves. you only need listen to the Virgecast know I believe this in my heart. This is Neil's Warner Brother Time Warner AL theory way back when. It's possible that the only antitrust policy this country needs is to prevent AT and T from buying anything ever and to prevent anyone from buying T time Warner. And like maybe we'll be fine. Lbe that's all we need to accomplish is preventing those two things from doing anything and we'll be fine. U So you know, big content companies by big content companies, paramount by CBS. Like who who cares? They don't have any distribution. This is actually the problem for all of these companies, right? audiences wake up, they pick up their phones and they push a button that is owned by a big tech company and they distribute all the content to you And if Mark Zuckenberg wants you to see one thing on Instagram, he can turn the knob and he can deliver it to you. If YouTube wants you to see one thing on YouTube, Neil Mohen can turn the knob and deliver one thing to you. And they all deny that this is true Yeah But it's true. like they control the distribution and they might have built systems to prevent them from having such contontrol The reality is that they have control And so it doesn't matter how much content you make or how good it is you're subservient to the distribution I just I believe this with alla. And most companies try to deal with this bite buying enough scale, having enough stuff people want that they can roll up to YouTube or Instagram or whver and saying, look at how much stuff we have pay us more money. Right becausecause we have the stuff that you need. You have to negotiate with us. It's not competition, it's leverage. It's leverage. Yes. If we go away the thing your audience loves will come with us. And mostly the platforms have like looked at that, laughed, and killed those companies. Like just looked them dead in the eye and like, what if we kill you instead This is the Bzzfeed story Joanah Predy on Dcoder and was like the origin sin of the internet is you thought you could make stuff so viral Facebook would pay you money. And then we argued about that for a full hour G len episode. That's the original s. Okay so Feel how you want about Fox, feel how you want about the Murdoxs. U It's weird that every now and again, I agree with them. It's weird that every now and again on the show, I agree with the Wall Street Journal editor page They've understood this From the beginning They are always their companies are always yelling about Google search. They have been since the start. They are suing these companies. They you know, the Murdos are Australian. There's a reason that Australia was the first country to pass the laws requiring social media companies to pay for links. which Maybe dangerous and bad. like maybe as a policy decision for the internet very bad But the Murdoch made sure that links to their content got paid for. They have understood their relationship with distributors from the beginning and they have been the most aggressive So here we are at you know, whatever end of whatever internet we're looking at And they're like, oh, most video is distributed on these platforms on Roku, Fire TV, Google TV, whatever it is And they just went and bought one. They bought the only independent one becausecause I can'ty Google TV They can't buy fire TV I think Samsung would let you do anything you want with ties in, but no one's going to do that What are you going to do? What is the only independent platform for watching television that exists, it's Roku And they went and bought it, and the quotes surrounding this deal are naked about their ambition. Anthony Wood, CO Roku on a call said, promoting Fox owned and operated properties on the Roku home screen is a key component of the company's plan to increase profits What are they doing? They own the interface,? They bought the platform that has all the apps on it. They've made a bunch of noises about remaining neutral they're going to use that to put their content and their services first. This is what every platform does Right And again, you can feel however you one of these companies. I think it's pretty obvious how I feel about some these companies. But they're the only ones who understand that owning the point of distribution is the way that you compete with Googles of the world Everyone else is trying to get leverage over Google and trying to Google to pay more money and they never will They simply will not do that. And I think Fox figured that out early and said, okay, we're going to find lots of other ways to get leverage overies. So on the one hand, this deal is very smart. On the other hand Fox is going to own everyone' stream box, and they're going toomote a lot of Fox content. I bet a lot of Rgu customers are going have a lot of feelings about that in a huge variety of ways. Roku is already being insertified, which is something you complain ye about all the time. There's a data component here where I don't think a bunch of streaming service providers are going to want their competitor in Fox to have the analytics that Roku provides Roku tracks everything. Roku is also the advertising provider. If you have an app on a Roku platform and you want to serve ads in that app, Roku gets a cut All of those streaming service providers now want to start to being cut to Fox, which competes with them for advertising. There's like layers and layers and layers of why people will be angry at the deal, but just from the very abstract strategic point of view. Fox is the only media company that's like, oh, we need to buy distribution. And they went out and they bought it Well, and all the reasons Everybody else would be mad about the deal or kind of exactly the reasons to do the deal, right? Like Roku, I think has been this fascinating thing for a long time which is that it started as Switzerland, R? Like it started as a thing inside of Netflix. and then Netflix was like, okay, well, actually Doing this inside of Netflix is going to make it very hard to do the thing that we want to do, which is be a good partner to the entire streaming ecosystem because we will be perceived to be bias towards Netflix. So they spun it out, Roku becomes its own thing. and part of the way that it won is exactly what you're just saying. It is the only one of these that is not owned by somebody with bias, right? Like Of course you go on a fire TV and it's going to sell you Amazon stuff. Like it would be insane if they did anything else Same was for Apple TV, sameame was for all of these other platforms. and Rok who was the only one that could with a straight face be like, we actually don't have a dog in this fight. We We just want you to use our product Whatever you want to do on it is up to you. And that was like that was a pitch they made to users. That was a pitch that they made to streaming services and it worked for a super long time. And then Roku became fundamentally an advertising business and started to compete with all of those people But by then it was so big Where are you going to go I mean, they basically reinvented the cable box in like a cell phone framework So they gave all the hardware away essentially for free. Like there are expensive high in Roku, but But you could buy it for nineteen dollars in the checkout line at CDS. L there'' easy now. If you sign up for a checking hat, you get a Roku. Like they mass distribute the hardware every shitty TV you buy is Roku. Yeah, they sell really cheap TVs that run their operating system. and they went to all the service riders and said Look at all the scale we have P put your apps here, we won't preference any of them. But if you want to sell ads We will be the ad provider And then we will have to scale to sell your ads. And there's don't we don't talk about connected TV ecosystems on the show really ever, but that is where all the action is right now in Ad worldorld. likeike there's tons of money flowing to CTV. So Roku just has this big play where they are a massive connected TV advertising provider and they squeeze the app makers So if you want to do something else or something innovative, They're like, no. And the relationship looks a lot like Apple in the apppp store Oh, that's interesting. Yeah Right? Like It is the same kind of model there And consumers get all the benefit for free because R's like, as long as we have all the hardware makers won't have any choice but to deal with us. R Well you add Fx to that mix. And it's like, well, a bunch of those people are going to say, no, we don't want to be in business with our competitive this directly actuallyctually we want different terms. Actually maybe we'll find antrust lawsuit to blalock this deal. L there's just like real business concerns of having the supplier by the distributor in this way in a normal administration, you would you would already hear Well, and I mean like we'll see. to your point. some of the reporting that's come out since this deal was announced is that Netflix also sniffed around buying Roku and in fact, walked away from it because it was worried about the antitrust concerns, that it was like, I mean, and this is, you know, Netflix that ran into like a buzzw of weird Antitra stuff when it tried to buy Warner Brosers looked into this was like, okay, we're going to get the same smoke and just decided not to do it Yeah. Fascinating But I agree with you like this whole this whole idea of Roku. Being so big It is undeniable and you can't walk away even if you want to because this is what the business has become A, I think is true, and B is like central to this whole idea working, right? Because if there were a bunch of other good platforms people could go to this would not be nearly as appealing to Fox because it's like, okay We can insidify this to the point where people will just leave. like, no, you can't Like that TV right behind my computer here runs Roku, and I literally can't stop it without buying a new television. Well you can. You just disconnect from the internet and plug an Apple TV into it This is more of a d TV. But this is, well, have you heard of the Nvidia shield This is more of a danger to all of this than I think either of these companies believe Right? There's a lot of free TV's out there running a lot of Roku software. Yeah. and maybe you're locked in and maybe you can put Fox spports programming on the home screen acting and' you're going w or maybe Roku is already getting in shitified. It's already pushing people towards the Roku channel. It's already making people feel bad about how much tracking it's doing. And what people are going to do is they're going to turn off the Wifi in their TV and plug in anything else because the screen still works just as well as the day as they bought it. and I think Amazon can deliver a lot of free fire sticks to an audience like that playay that game. I think If Apple had any sense at all, it would have cheaper Alees. There's a lot of ways you can get away from the Roku ecosystem without having to buy a whole new TV Especially when you many people enter the Roku ecosystem by buying nineteen dollarars stream All of that is true in theory and I think like demonstrably not true in practice, right? Like No, I think the switching cost of TV streamers is way lower than anyone thinks. Yeah, but people don't this is my point. L I have I have been arguing that Roku has gotten steadily worse for like five years as Roku watch share and market share has just continued to climb Because I mean, it's it's if what you were saying is true, Dumb TV's would be on sale. Do you know what I mean? Like there's just you're describing a world that doesn't exist where people will do something other than buy the cheapest possible television that is very bright in a best buuy. Like that's actually not how people shop for these products. I think people are totally like unaffected by shitty interfaces. Yeah. We're surrounded by them all day and all night I think they might be a little bit more affected by I don't want to see Fox News on this home screen I don't want literally the Murdoch family to own this surveillance device in my home I actually think that is a higher order consideration for people. than this interface is pretty bad now That's very possible. I will say, I think Fox has done a pretty good job historically of keeping Fox News in front of Fox news people and away from other people. L Fox stududios and Fox News have actually not. overlapped in the way that you would think if this company was not as savvy about this stuff as it has been But that said It hard. The studios are gone e. Disney Yeah, but like it's there's still some stuff, but anyway, it's not a hard thing to imagine this company putting Fox News on people's home screens. and I think they will rebel against that. But like It wasn't that long ago that Roku just rolled out this huge redesign that instead of your home screen being just a grid of apps, it's now a few apps and then a bunch of like recommended content, which like spoiler alert, all of which will eventually be sponsored Roku is going to turn into Amazon in that you're going to search for something and the first seventeen things are going to be ads and you're not going to know which is which. That is where this company is going. and to the extent that six of them are just going to become Fx properties ure I just have a hard time imagining that being like the thing that turns a bunch of people towards buying an Apple TV I hope I sincerely hope I'm wrong. Again, I just I think bad interfaces are one thing and we maybe you and I are not tolerant of them, although you have a Roku TV for some insane reason. I have a Google TV streamer plugged into it. I never use because I can't find the remote anymore. Perfect I'm just say like, you know, the cold strategic logic of this, this makes sense Right The content creator is buying the distribution because they get leverage over all the rest of the distribution, probablyrobably the only play that will ever work I know like there are people who are like at the end this will get swallowed by an even bigger player because the connected TV marketplace is so important And there maybe maybe maybe this all get acquired yet again That's the business logic of it. I think the execution of this where There is a political component to literally the Fox Brand, the Murdoch family and the point of this deal in the quotes in the press conference is to promote that content That is a buzzaw. Like Yes. America's deeply polarized and politicized However you feel about bad interfaces is one thing how you feel about The Fox Business channel is another. Yeah. I do none of my hottest ste. please. I was just at home on a farm where I was with Becky's whole family. Do you know why? all of Becky's older aunts and uncles have fire sticks. L they run Android and they can be jailbroken to steal TV on IPTV services. Oh interesting There's there's a just gets cooler and cooler man. I mean this is why I actually wrote the Yankca Rucker story Everyone' stealing TV because I was like, this is wild. Like I'm in the I'm on the farm. Wow. And we are pirating television. like They're not, though, not those if the police are listening, They pay the money. Also motion smoothing was on all of their TVs and they didn't have the heart to take turn it off because then they would not it, you know, anyway home. this is what happens when I go home It's lovely and then I'm like I need a fuck with all your TVs Anyhow, I'm pointing out like there's another exit ramp here that people care a lot about that is not on the books Maybe more people are going to take that exam No, I think that's fair. like I sort of hope you're right that there is a check on this for Fox that is like, okay, it makes sense that you want to own the distribution and have something that feels like a more closed ecosystem. If you ruin it, people will run just not positive, I think that's true. There is one other thing about the steal that I just want to talk about briefly before we switch gears here, which is There is Some sort of huge new streaming service potential brewing inside of this thing We've talked a bunch about Tubbe, which is At this point basically Fox's main streaming service. Fox has had a weird relationship with streaming services over the years. They've like tried a bunch of different things to be really worked. That was an acquisition, I think four or five years ago. Fox onene is now kind of having a moment because it's where you can watch the But like It never had the sort of high end SVod streaming service But what it now might have is like a Titanically huge free streaming service. So I went looked and the numbers for both the Roku channel, which Fox is buying and Tubbe, which itready owns are like shockingly huge. So the Roku channel This is according to the Nielsen gauge, which tracks all kinds of TV viewing. The Roku channel accounted for three percent of total monthly TV viewing in March of this year T be accounted for two point two percent If you combine the two, They have not said they intend to make it one streaming service, but if you combine these two free streaming services, you have a streaming service about the size of Disney pllus, just like that which is nuts. And As everyone is running towards advertising, you have the Roku Channel, which is already a really successful advertising business. you have Tube, which is already a successful advertising business. You can make this thing justust a monster of a free streaming service all at once if you want to. And they're different in interesting ways. likeike a lot of people on the Roku channel watch fast channels Tubbe is much more on demand. They have lots of like, I'm deep in the world of licensing deals for a story I'm working on about why I can't stream the movie the Nice G. This story has like slowly taken over my life, but I've learned how companies acquire content. This company would be hugely powerful in doing that. If they decide to fold the Roku channel into Tub be or do some combination of the two We suddenly have another like a list streaming service at Fox, which I just think is underrated and fascinating They have so far said they're going to run them independent But that's what they always say. Everybody has always said that about every acquisition ever. and it has I don't think it has ever once successfully been true U T me is a shocking success story. It just works The fact you can open that app and watch it without any kind of loggin, I think is onene of the smartest strategic decisions in all the streaming. Angelie S sued that COTB has been on Coder. I' been like, what's it like working for the Murdox? And she deferred. she's like, Nope She's a pro. I appreciated it, but she was like, nope. Uh, but like You know, she's BCO Vimeo. She's basically figured out like Oh, we need to put free streaming front of a lot of people. this is a huge opportunity for us and they've managed to grow at a pretty huge clip without the benefit of being the Roku channel free thing that runs in your nineteen dollars shooting box. Right, Which Roku advertises to death. Like you cannot avoid the Roku channel every time you's run on your Roku and that is very much on purpose So I mean imagine if you can takeake the Roku channel and the benefit of just being the default And we've learned how to market the free streaming service Pretty good likeike you can see the opportunities there I suspect they will combine the advertising reach for the two without the service itself because all of this is just ad based. Yeah, you can sell them both on the back end like together without smosshing them together as one product. And then may maybe you leave your antitrust concerns alone, who knows? Maybe Synergies, baby, That's what we do here T Should we go ninety these things? just this is a useful clarifying exercise. is it time to bust out the go ninety scale of doom streaming services But only talking about to be in a rookie channel, right So I want to do Tubi and I want to do the Roku channel and I want to do just this whole deal. You sort of You sort of alluded to the idea that like maybe this is being bundled up to be rebundled to some even bigger player which would presumably be a tech company. Could YouTube buy this combination and have that kind of make sense? YouTube has connected TV Like the thing that most of the players have already is some big connected TV play Apple has one, they have the Apple TV. They have their service. like They there's They're able to get I mean, Apple doesn't care about advertising so much that they You know, they run an app to run the TV in the same economics. But Google has massive connected TV reach with YouTube and YouTube TV and Google TV. Roku obviously has it. Amazon obviously have it. They run prrime they it. So doesn't have one. Microsoft doesn't have one, Ma doesn't have one. There are lots of big digital advertising ecosystem players We're like, oh, this this would be the thing you'd buy for Connected TV. Now, I think meta has no institutional focus on its core business right now So who knows, but yeah, maybe All right, well let's just do these three quickly before we get out of here. So Ah T be, I think we both agree, probably belongs toward the zero of the list that T be survives. yeah, it's hard to imagine a world in which we come out of this deal and T be is completely gone So are we putting it do you want it zero? It's said zero. T be two me is great. Ands Fox is baby So rightero can kill its own baby, right? That's fair. Yeahah, I agree with that. All right, so Tuby goes to a zero on the G ninety scale of Doom' streaming serervices, named, by the way after the Verizon. Streaming service, G ninety, which immediately went ninety because it' disastrous. Yes, zero is alive and ninety is dead. ninety Go ninety you die you keel over and you die. All right. T be is a zero U whereere did you put the Rku channel I'm going put it at ninety N And here's my argument. Maybe the words the Roku channel exists as an app icon somewhere. Okay But there's no world in which to be in the Roku channel compete in the marketplace for content. Be they got to go buy stuff, right? Yeah. They got to buy shows and movies and whatever to stream on these services If they compete, the prices go up. So there's They're going to unify the content acquisition, R right? They're going to go out the market and say we're gonna run this. They're going to unify the advertising, and eventually you're basically going to get a skin on TB called the Roko channel Oh, that's interesting I could see that. So it's kind of like in the old way of television, it would be like having like Nickelodeon and Nick Jr. where it's like These are technically different things, but they exist only to have more places to put things acquired by Nickelodone. I think that's right Okay. I don I don't want to go all the way to ninety just because the Roku channel is so shockingly successful that maybe if you're foox you're just like, we're just going to leave this alone, sell some ads, try to make our money back. fun But spiritually, I like it. it eighty eight. We'll put it in eighty eight. eighty eight feels good. Right. I think they're gonna to hollow out its business operations.. and they'll it's successful Nobody cares about the business operations of the Roku channel? No. And Tubi is a vastly better brand. Like it had a big moment with the Super Bowl. They're going to keep getting stuff like that. like TB has a really interesting bunch of creator plays going on. Like if you're going to pick a streaming service, it's obviously TubB. Yeah, Charles Poiamore did a story for us about how TubB goes and courts black creatives specifically And that is a market that they've identified It's really interesting. Ageie Se, their CEO is ally interesting to hear talk about how they think about content, which is very different from any other platform that I've talked to you U All right. So that's fun. So this means I would say the whole Fox Roku tie up has got to go somewhere in the middle And this really depends on like do you think this is being packaged be sold for, you know a hundred billion dollars to some giant tech company Or do you think there's a real competitive streaming player here? What do you think I think the Muroch family does not want to be owned by anything else They're certainly not hurting for money. And like I said, I think meta maybe is a buyer, Microsoft maybe the people who don't have connected TV advertising stories are potential buyers here They all lack any kind of focus on anything human beings want They're all totally distracted by super intelligence or whatever. I feel like Microsoft has tried the Xbox TV thing too many times to just makes no sense for them. And they're going to sell Xbox. By way, this is my super hottest take. but you put Xbox on the go nineties. Like it feels like they're just paring it down to sell it, right? So they want out of this game. So I think Well I think right now you got to leave it at forty five. Like deead center. I don't know. Yeahah dead center. I don't know if this deal will close. I don't know if the atttorney genereral of California is going to file antrust lawsuit. I don't know the other studios will. I don't know if Netflix will show up and be like, here's more money Right? Like there's a lot here. Yeah. So I wouldd say forty five. L they go either way right now. Okay I was I would say if the deal goes through, like if you could tell me one hundred percent of this deal is going to get done, I'd put it at like a twenty s. because I think I do think this thing is like It might be too expensive of a deal, but it's powerful enough. as a platform that it might work If you throw in the just possible for like political insanity over this deal U includluding around the world, by the way. Like Roku is a big global platform That is going to make a lot of people feel a lot of things. There's been a lot of fulminating in Europe. There's all this fulminating in Europe. That's the thing it feels right full coin toss for what this thing gets to be in the future I like it. All right U by the way, one last button on this. Did you see the story this week about what happened after Stehven Colbert's show went off the air to the ratings of CBS This is Byron Allen doing comics unleashed and she likeaking CBS. Yeah. They basically they sold the time Stehven Colbert's time slot to to Byron Allen essentially like it's he's doing an infomercial. U And they found that Stehen Colbert's ratings were super high at the very end and then they immediately lost two thirds of the audience and that actually it's having a ripple effect Because one of the things that happens is a lot of people turn off their TV's at night and then they turn it back on in the morning and the channel that it's on winds up being important. So like if they're watching Jimmy Kimmel at night, they're going to watch ABC's morning show instead of CBs morning show. So there's like there's just this It just it goes back to the same thing we're talking about a distribution, by the way, right? Like being the place peoplee go to find you is V vastly more important than anybody realizes. and it's actually very hard to just content your way through that problem. Yeah. And this is just a tiny little microcosm of that thing B. Nobody is watching Byron Allen's show. And as a result It's hurting the rest of CBS because people have changed the channel. And that is just the audience of people who have linear television either broadcast or table And they turn on their TVs and it just starts playing stuff. And that's enough. Wild. Yeah. And CBS's response is like, well, we're making money from that time slot. whatever. I mean, yeah,B, can we look to CBS and go to ninetyca? they're like eighty five. Oh God, yeah. and sprinting towards ninety. L at a dead run towards that All right, we take a break, then we're getting back. We got the height desk we got a lightning rack We all do it You have a night for yourself but don't like the sound of the silence, so you turn on the TV just for the ambiance It's a little trick that helps you feel like you've got company and aren't alone And other insurers, well, they may make you feelillone But when you switch to GICo, you've got claims repps available around the clock So whenever you need, you'll have people around to help And let's turn on the washing machine. just for good measure Isn't that soothing? It feels good to have support. It feels good to Gica. Support for this show comes from Odoo. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odu. It's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all in one fully integrated platform That makes your work easier. CRM, accounting, inventory, e commerce and more And the best part, OdDu replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you Try Odoo for free at odoo. com That's O d oo d. com All right, we're back. It's time now for the hype desk where our friends Ross and Ashley come and tell us. what's cool on the internet and in the world. You're both here this week. Ross, Ashley, Hello. Hello reunited. does it how does it feel? Euse That sounds about right. I'm told you guys have both been to movies that you both have feelings about this week U actuallyct, I want to start with you because I am reliably told that you have what I would call an extremely surprising take about a movie. Okay. hit us with it. You gott to hear me out, everyone, which is He Man is is a sleeper hit and everyone should go see it and you're totally missing out on it. Masters of the Universe is so much fun It is just don't believe I don't believe is Okay. I agree. I agree that the trailers did not sell this movie the way that it should have. I think they did a little bit. So he Man, the guy who plays Adam is so good and so charming. It is the perfect summer Himbo movie. Like it is the perfect summer Himbo movie This movie canan I just stop you? This implies that is a thing that I'm after, but go ahead. but I'd argue that we could all use a little joy, right? Like a little joy. Sure. I'm with you. And I feel like this movie is just like if especially if you are a kid of the eighties, but even if you're not, it's still really entertaining U you really cannot Jared Letto plays Skeletor and I was like very dubious about I mean immediately out then. I was like I hate you sort of l So this movie has gone through development hell like it was there was like multiple different versions of the script. There were different actors attached. like it's gone through some stuff. Like there were there was a whole other version of this movie that was happening not three years ago, I feel like. This is a hell of a sales pitch Universse. So that's okay, but I'm selling it because I'm saying I was so skeptical about it coming into it. I was just like, I don't know. I think it's going to be so bad that I want to go see it. Like it's going to be so and I was so pleasantly surprised. It really has Thor Ragnarok vibes. It's like very fun. It's just like it's a light it's a light romp. The movie is like two hours and fifteen minutes long. That's never light romp. That's't dragged at all. Pacing was great. felt like the movie kept going. like there wasn't any like weird side quests. Like I never felt like the movie like got into a weird like, oh, the movie need to be longer. So like let's make them have some obstacle to go do a fetch quest. there's none of that It's like he gets the sword. goes to attorney. like it's a whole thing So everything like leans into the conceit of this being ridiculous. And it is like there's a moment early on where like skeletor iss like laughing and it's sort of very Austin powers where like he's like laughing and then he looks around. he's like, I didn't st I like it is stopm laughing like or whatever And so and Allison Breee plays Evil Lyn And she is like very good and it's wild how much this movie came together when it absolutely against the like against all odds. This movie should not be entertaining and it absolutely is. and I highly recommend everybody go see it for a fun summer rump All right Ross, you also went to a movie theater. Yeah. Speaking of eighties nostalgia that looks different on paper, I went to go see Disclos Day, the new Spielberg film Um I don't want to go after a master of the universe because that's such a good case and I do not have the same case for Spielberg film that sounds really wild to say Um But is it is interesting because it's akay,' Spielberg doing aliens. It's All back in the Alyens, the question is How would humanity react if we all just found out at the exact same time on social media or wherever we're looking in modern times that aliens are real and we've been lied to for years And it is a lot of people call it classic sppillbberg. And I think for the first half, it is classic sppillbg. You've got car chases men and black It's two kind of disparate narratives that spoiler kind of come together. In one, you've got Josh O'Connor as like, the whistleblower who knows the truth and wants the world to know. And in the other, you've got Emily Blanche as a random local meteorologists in Kansas City who just start speaking alien language. And then all of a sudden it's just committed to going drive somewhere she doesn't even know where big shadowy figures, organizations, Colin Furth is like the head of an ominous corporation. When you get to the first half of the movie, it is the most be The first half is theater. It is theater tier is some of the best like car chet scenes and explosions and destruction that Spielberg has done And I really want to tell you the rest of the movie is good and there's a reason it's not in the marketing because it's a spoiler, but Spielberg's done this before. He did close encounters, right? I am Richard Dreryfist, I saw a UFO. holy shit, I am so fascinated by it. I have nothing but hope and optimism really want this to happen. And it almost feels like in many ways, like Spielberg kind of trying to recreate that moment. But in modern times. and modern times are just so much more cynical It's not are aliens real? It's more, yeah, we all know aliens are real, but how much is the government covering it up? And how will I be to find out? Do you rem movie Don't look Up that came out during COVID that was like everyvery great actor you've ever heard of, basically. and it was like an allegory for how we experience information. And it winds up being like the bleakest possible movie about the end of the world. I feel like you just described that movie to me again. Yes, but I will say and this iss not spoiler. It is Spielberg. So in many ways, it does end on hope, right? Spielberg is a person of hope. If you look at these directors they they all have their thing, right? Christher Nolan. it's going to be a movie about time and memory Denny Villenu loves cycles of violence Philberg. Aliens exist, and if you live in the suburbs, you're probably gonna see one. ultimately, humanity is pretty cool Like that's every film he's uultly made. And this is no different, but it just has that such a bleak political thriller start that it just has this shift. and I love it. It is also a great airplane movie. It's a perfect airplane movie. Tough. I'm gonna sum up the ppe desk in forward Gip Spielberg, se. Wow wow. That's a lot tough same Before we get out of here Neili, I'm told you have a contribution to the Hype desesk. I do. I'm very excited about this. So as you may or not know, the New York Nicks have won the NBA fininals. They're the champions of the league. They're very exciting to anywhere close to New York right now. I could hear the screams in California. It's And friend of the Vverge, Chris Person, who's written for us is now Aftermath, which great indie game site, goo subscribe to Aftermath, read everything Chris does. He posted on Blueky that he was at a techno festival U during game five and I guess one person put a laptop on a chair on a table and the entire techno festival basically stopped and watch the next one. single tiny like ity bitty laptop. This is one of the funniest pictures I've ever seen. It's like the most vergge way into the NBA finals I can think of. This video is incredible. Just run the video clip. Yeah, I will say before we get to the video, I just want to say if you're not watching this. A, I'm sorry and B Click on the link because Chris takes us through a truly incredible journey. It starts with a picture of like a few people gathered around a laptop watching the K at this festival And then a few minutes later, a bunch more people are watching a laptop at the festival. And then Chris just tweets, okay, they put one of the laptops on a chair now and like a crowd starts to build. And then a few minutes later it is literally I don't know, one hundred fifty. people one hundred fifty people watching my go. And then lapop And then it culminates in this video Literally like massive festival level cheering for a laptop because the mix up it's very good That is incredible It's very good It's also good see This is Like I know you've all heard the let's go Nix chanceross across the country and world, but they're cheering it on a laptop on a chair, which It's perf. thirteen inch laptop screen. That is absolutely incredible. Chris also posted somewhere else in that thread that the other thing that was like the thing that was supposed to be happening at the Tenano Festival was an artist who was just playing a pair of giant subwoofer cones with a sheet of plastic And he's like, I don't know how this is music, but it also kind of rules. Oh my God, amazing. L a perfectd events Like I was like, I know how to bring the NBA finals onto the Virgecast and it is through the post of Chris personerson. So thanks for and we can show that stuff. So thanks to Chris, goo read afterftermath, you know, and know all the rest of it. That's the hypest thing that happened. It's good stuff. was that was a gress. Big week. M maybe we should all watch Disclosure Day and Masters Universe on a laptop. at laptopaptop. That goes on scale. I dont accept. I don't accept. All right, Ros, Ashley, good to see you guys. Thanks for being here. Cheersill All right, now it is time for America's favoriteodcast within a podcast friend in carars it Shout out to Violeta Goomba who created that and also to the people who email us about all the funny places that you are when that theme song appears and whether it fits the vibe. I we have it mayaybe the next week the entire segment is just us reading those emails. Oh, I like that. We can definitely do that. But this week, Brendon's doing stuff What are he doing? He's always doing something. He So first, I'm angry at Brendan. he's he's struck in an indirect way this time There's like a second order Brendon effect. Okay. Uset that Brendan has forced me into agreement with Ted Cruz. Oof. It's rough. That's rough stuff Yeah U so, you know, the actions of this administration have scrambled political lines all over the place I think this is actually the second time you've agreed with Ted Cruz on this podcast. Ted Cruz is for his many, many faults. Do does not like it when you screw with the First Amendment. Tue. So Center Cuise and Center Round Wyen. introduced a thing called the jawbone Act. which would let individuals sue the government when they meddle with their speech. and create transparency requirements for government communications with social media, AI and broadcast companies. And what they're saying that they're worried about is the government messing with AI because is the goverment can go to Google and demand that Gemini say some things but not o other things. What happened at the Capitol building on january sixth? That's a real problem. And so if your speeches interfered with legally, there should be some remedy And so the Joban Act would create that remedy, would allow Jimmy Kimmel to sue the FCC job owning his speech and it would allow all of us to see what these government agencies are saying. Now there's like layers and layers of complication here. like Is this built off of some bad faith readings of how the Biden administration talked to Facebook about public health initiatives at the tail end of the Of course it is. Did that case also go to the Spreme Ct And did the Spreme Court say all that was above board and was fine because ultimately Facebook said no a lot And I was fine, sure O do most companies feel as embolded in this Facebook to say no? L they do not. So this law is sort of like creates the balance, but I'm just upset that I've been forced into agreement with Ted Cruz in this way This bill is coponsored by Ted Cruz and Ron Wyden Two people you would not expect to be simultaneously excited about the same thing. Ron Ryden wrote two hundred thirty Yeah ight Like these are free speech warriors to the internet in a very pricy way. They've got a pool of supporters, the ACLU, FIR, which is another free speech organization, the Night First Amendment Institute of Columbia. All people we've talked to about people that are you know we know to be defenders of the First Amendment in particular ways Trump is particularly mad Brendon Car here. And so he's just issuing fiery quotes of Brendon Car. Of course, like I said, there's also some nonsense about the Biden administation weaponizing the blah, blah blah, the pressure. It's like, whatever, man. Maybe you believe that Actually that that case did go to the Supreme Court. We did read all the emails. Yeah. and we did see that the tech companies were like, no So Yeah, It turns out it's not illegal to ask somebody questions, Generally speaking It'sally fine. I just want to say by the way U Jawbone, in this case is a back acronym. It stands for justice againainst weaponized bureaucratic overreach to networked expression A, very good. and B, if you are the person in any of these offices responsible for coming up with the name to make the acronym make sense You're the only person in the world I care about My white whale story is how bills get named because they start with the acronym and work backwards I want I want I want those stories. It's all I care about Maybeob very good. That story was great five years ago and you one hundred percent know the answer right now is Claude Oh, that sucks. Yeah They're like, re I call it the Jabone act. What could actually be called? Fire up those GPU's justustice against weaponized bureaucratic overreach to network expression Like Ted Cruz is like walking on the plane, just come up with this whispering into his phone. All right, one other thing, we talk about this a lot the notion that everything is owned by a tiny handful of Trump allies in media. There are some rules preventing people from owning too many radio stations or too many broadcasts TV networks in an area, those rules are getting wived over and over again. R loves those rules until loves those rules U this week, a bunch of radio CEOs are meeting with Car and saying they need to quickly and substantially relax the radio ownership rules so they can own more radio stations in given areas How were there any left? Did't didn't we like just combine all of them into one company to do it You channels. Now we're doing with radio Yeah. We did it with TV channels. We're doing again. And their big argument is that local radio doesn't just compete with other local radio stations, they compete with YouTube. And so what have I been saying about the ill fated way to compete with YouTube? You need enough scale to bring YouTube to It's never going to happen for you. that you just wantan to own all the local radio stations and monopolize local media. We compete with sleep is like everybody's argument about everything now Brandan loves to characterize this as like the scrappy independent local news. And it's like, no these are billionaires with political viewpoints. so they want to foist on everyone in a given region. and we actually want competition Anyhow,'s Brendon this week The corruption is naked, the stupidity is high. Brendon, as always, if you want to come on this show or any show and defend yourself or just issue whatever gobblyook nonsense that usually comes out your mouth, you're welcome I'm available I'll answer the call , that's been Breanon Cr D donem Aica'savorite pcasts in the pcast Beautiful. The corruption is naked, the stupidity is high, is a merch idea waiting to happen. And I just w to mark that right here in the podcast. Sounds like the pool status sign outside the reflecting pool corrosion. That's pretty good actually. How are the waves makeak it? That's very good. All right, mine My first lighting round item is about threads And I just I have a number to throw at you that I have been trying to figure out what to make of for a couple of days, and I want to know what you think about it. So it's about to be Threred's third birthday. It came out in July of twenty twenty three. U and they just announced that they have five hundred million monthly active users on threads On the one hand This is a very big number On the other hand, I think there are a lot of ways in which it is not a very big number, which I am happy to explain. But I'm curious, like, five hundred million threads users. How does that number hit you I wonder how many of them clicked on an Instagram carousel and didn't realize they're opening th it. Yes. I assume the answer is like three quarters of them, right? Like I honestly think that is right. Like There's a way to look at it that says, okay Uh five hundred million people use threads every month kick ass growing really fast, doing great. Like we used to talk about how Threads adds a blue sky every day That number seems to probably still be at least true time On the other side, There are about three billion people in the metaamily of products Meta is unusually good gettinget people between products and unifying the products and sort of making you exist across its many platforms. That is like Meta's whole thing. is' like, okay, well, Facebook is dying. We're just going to get everybody onto Instagram. And like that that works. That's a game they can keep playing So the idea that after three years only a sixth of that user base. even touches threads once a month feels kind of like failure. I don't know. this is what I mean. L it's a huge number and a tiny number all at the same time. Yeah I mean, it's much bigger than X. right? X is in decline Blue sky is stagnant to decline. threads is growing Are they growing because screenshots of tweets on Instagram aren't as good as a carousel of threads posts and you can kick them out to threads That's a user behavior you can kind of get into Maybe Meta says almost all of the daily users on threads increase because of communities. Right? So like NBA threads is it like rockin or like whatever it is I think, you know, we talked about it for a long time on the show last week that making these big networks feel smaller is what everyone is chasing. And so here's more evidence threads iss going to lean into communities, it's going make that thing feel smaller, and that's where the growth will come from. Connor Hayes, who runs threads at Meta, says right now, all of their communities are made by Meta, but soon they will let users make their own communities, which might unlock even more growth There's something there. They're doing a Rddit too. Everybody's doing a reddit right now. I actually think the opportunity for threads is to be like, we're the only social network that isn't going to turn into TikTok because Instagram already exists, and Instagram is doing a fine job of turning in TikTok. It really is. So we' here treads you look at it and you say, well, all of our money is in realels. What if we just put Reels on threads But then you can of just make Instagram it. I think like they'll put reels on threads, but it'll kick you back in Instagram and that little dynamic is actually an opportunity for them That may be true. Yeah, I'm forever trying to figure out the extent to which threads has been A hit versus like kind of a subtle failure. Like to the extent that Mark Zuckerberg wanted to create something as culturally central as Twitter once was, Like that was a big part of it, right? that There was a lot of good reporting that Mark Zuckerberg was always sort of jealous of Twitter and the fact that cable newews was people reading tweets and that that was where people went for real time information on real time events that it was like It was the heartbeat of the interternet in a way that Facebook, even though it was much larger never was, and he wanted to do threads to make that Red is not that at all. No. That thing largely doesn't exist, and to the extent that it does, it's still on X Um but it largely doesn't exist. And so I think in that sense threads has not achieved the goal But on the other hand, five hundred million people use it every month. I'm sure it''s a brisk advertising business that is growing fast for Meda. And they think they can get to a billion. I think maybe the question is just how much text based posting is going to grow at all Right compomared to the thing people are doing all day long, which is watching social videos. Y Wait actually can we can end on your lightning round item, but I have another metal one to talk about. Sure, which we should talk about. U this week Facebook announced a new AI mode U which is basically its answer to Google's AI mode, which, you know tries to instead of giving you links to search results, tries to sort of stitch together a narrative for you from your search results Meta's AI mode Uh. It just sounds insane to say this out loud. Meta's AI mode instead of synthesizing the web, synthesizes all of the public posts across Meta's various networks to give you information about things And Nili, if I were to say, What is the least reliable corpus of information on the internet? Wouldn't you say people's Facebook posts Right, like Facebook limiting itself to the content that people post on Facebook is just this thing will be insane from the jump Yeah Like my community's local Facebook posts are some of the wildest conspiracies. And this is like a, it's like a nice New York commity. Yeah. U It's going to be great. I'm super excited for everyone's drunkest uncle to be the source of Facebook's AI training. It's very funny because they Alison Johnson on our team tried it and had a couple of funny experiences with it. But The way they frame it is the same way everybody frames everything, which is like trip planning and find stuff to do around me. Always trip planning. It's NAPA. In our example,'s are going to NAA And what's funny is on the one hand, I actually think a Bummer about the internet is a lot of that stuff did for a time get moved to Facebook. for a long time if you wanted to see if The restaurant you wanted to go to was open or closed Most to date source was probably their Facebook page, right? That was like When Facebook was ascendant, a lot of that stuff just moved there. And so a lot of the like what is going on around near me moves to Facebook And then it died. So now you have this like incredibly old outdated set of information about all of the places around you. And for me, the idea of like, what's going on that would be fun for the kids nearby this weekend? is a good idea that I want very badly I just I don't think there is any chance and Alison seem to have the experience of it not really working because Ma is just not an reliable source of information in any sense It's I mean, again We had a power outage here on Sunday night and my local Facebook groups were like, there was an explosion and then just like wild speculation about what caosted theage My My neighborhood, it just makes me think of like my next door, which is just like pictures of people in hoodies being like, arere they criminals Nope. They're teenagers. M It's fine will misidentify criminals at the highest rate of any AI system That's very true. All right You get you get the last lightning round item what do you got Is this a lightingound item? All right. Oh no Genuy. The nation's number one matter and thread reporter. is struck again I mean, I love this. is what I'm here. Why do we believes in matter so. I believe in matter so much You're we doing it? Why does the verge exist? It's to make sure that someone covers matter as hard as Jen covers matter. Absolutely. This is the most important thing. So if you don't know what Matter is, why are're listening to the show? Matter is a universal smart home connectivity platform that's supposed to bring everything together. And the experience of using matter Yeah Five years now, more has been to assume it can do things it cannot do Right sometimes to assume that because they directly say that. Right is like the literal obvious promise of a universal smart home standard is that everything will work together. And every step of the matter journey has been like, what if it didn't? Yes What if it was slightly and yet completely broken? And then then not to downplay how complicated it is to make everything worked together. We end up in this situation where like Matter one point three A will introduce thread network credential sharing so that my Eero routers can pick up the password for the thread network created by my Apple homehubs. None of this makes sense to any human being. Literally the only person who understands it is Jen. and I think Jen understands it better than the people who run matter Oh, I a hundred percent agree with that Uh So this is just like a huge In thread is like a different network. So this is all crazy all over the place. Anyhow Matter one point six was announced this week at UnFy the Connectivity Standards Alliance inaugural confonference in Austin Texas. Jen is there. She's on the ground Matter one point six includes a new spec David. joint fabric. Do you get it, Tred? fabric They are good with with theian names. I respect that. And in one point six, when everything is updated to one point six There will just be one smart home system that all of the different things can talk to at once So you won't have to set up the device in Apple and Samsung and Google and Alexa. You will finally be able to be like, there's a smart plug. It's I set it up in Apple and my Google can see it just as well from the jump without having to set it up all over again. I was describing Matter. This is Matter is supposed this is legitimately what I thought it would do five years ago it was announced But we're here, bud. Matter one point six. we're finally doing matter Excuse me, it's called joint fabric I want you to get it right There are other there are other features in in in matter one point six U There's something called Thrmostat suggestions, which is obviously very important NFC said, but joint fabric is going to finally unify the smart home. Just as soon as it is implemented in the spec, the spec is launched and all of the smart home makers support it all at once So ten years from now, ye, joint fabric operate. I will say there is a lot of pressure on these platforms to get this right because bringing the AI system into your house and saying turn on the lights and it not happening is a problem for all of them. and have more incentive just solve it so they can all get access to the same system than ever before because this is all the product they want to make. And if your're Apple And you're going to relaunch Sya and a new home pod this fall or whatever you're going to do and everyones stuff is already in Alexa your incentive to support joint fabric. and get the Alexa stuff into your system is actually really high Will that actually happen W people respond rationally to the incentives put in front of them for interoperability I would say question mark The incentives are there I agree alsoso wonder if any of these companies care at all Like is Google Google announced this week that their home speaker is finally about to start shipping Google giveive a crap if you use do they know for home things. like if you buy the speaker and use it to talk to Gemini and that makes you a more dedicated Gemini user for other Gemini things What if smart homeome just remains the eleventh most important thing that any of these products do And like what if Jen is the only person on Earth who actually cares about the smartphone This is wored. Yeah but I don care about. You like wired your house with Eethernet and got weird into home assisting. You're off on like a different not even I mean, the people who are in home assistant, they're like another level. Like they will never, none of this will ever have mattered to them because they have figured out their own joint fabrics. Yeah. Like if you want to homeb brew a joint fabric, you can do that today with a raspberry pie and a couple of beers Like you can get it done. It's absolutely right Uh, but this is like I think the fact that it is not a priority is the incentive Do know what I mean? Sure if you have a vision for how it should work being like, we're going put the resources behind going to every weird Chinese smart plug vendor and making sure they work with us versus We're just going to support matter and everything will work It's way easier to support matter. and that's the The CSA, the Cony Center Allines is made up of engineers and product people from all of these companies I just think I'm starting to worry there's a real sort of tragedy of the Cons problem here in that The only way this works is if everybody sort of equally decides to hold hands and do it together And there's not Anyone reallyally with so much incentive to like drag everybody else along with them. It's like Philips Hugh is maybe the one who has the most to gain from all of this working together. Everybody intellectually understands this to be a good idea I'm just increasingly struck by like there aren't that many parties for whom it is like crucially important for this to work And I hope you're right As more people get these new devices with Gemini for homeome and the new Apple Home stuff, which seems to be very good and Siri AI and all of the stuff coming from Alexa Plus like As more people get those things into their home and they start having higher expectations of their smart home, maybe that forces all these companies to raise their game But so far it's like everybody, everybody thinks this is a good idea. Everybody believes in matter. everyverybody wants matter to work. Nobody really needs matter to work. and I feel like that is The thing that worries me the most right now about matter I you see more smart home stuff in your assestate. I gonna come over I'm come over to the big pile of light switches Some of those govy outdoor bulbs I'll change your mind. Dude, I'm down. I have spent a lot of time shopping for goovy things recently. I have It's like, what if Phillips Hugh, but cheaper and's basically It's Phillipsugh but cheap and runs on matter And that's their whole company and they are winning like straightforwardly winning. Yeah. No, I mean, look, they care insofar as that we're at one point six in years and years of development And it's the companies that fund it And the products exist now at scale. You know, the fact that it doesn't actually do the thing you want it to do is very silly, but we're we're way past This device only works with Google Home and this device only works with Homekit and this device only works with the WeXO. Like, That core problem is solved. You just buy the one light bulb from GoVi and it works every everything because matter just works every The next problem is unless you buy it from IKEA, and then it's like mostly broken for reasons and on just doesn't work at all. Yeah A different set of problems Anyway, look, I don't know when joint fabric is going to change the world But I I'm hoping it does I I'm try to end on a high note. It's beautiful. J look, again, this is the thing. Matter is the right idea. It is filled with the right ideas And I God, I hope at some point I get a product filled with all of this.'s in aw.ight idea. She's at the conference. Yeah If anyone can get them in line, it's Jen. She's You know, she's she's a she's a mom. She's ferocious. She's she's raised teenagers She can get these companies in line. Yeah, absolutely right. Jen will save everything, I think is basically where we've met it. Yeah She's got the accent. but there's a lot of pieces for it's like Jen will solve it. H's the title of episode Don'try Jen'll fix them All right, we should get out of here. Two quick things before we go. One Vversion history is back The Harmony Rote episode was super fun. If you didn't hear it, I would say there is a non zero chance you're going to hear it on the Virgecast feed very soon, because we're going to be off tomorrow for juneteenth. We'll be back normal scheduled programming next week. Roomba is this weeknd at on Vversion History. suuper fun episode with Colin Engle, the co founder of Iroobot. It's good time' Nil, who's D deccoder next So we are off This week, we took our little july fourth break early Because on the third of July We are running our annual grill episode. We did it again, which is a full circle victory for me. Our first grill episode was Roger Dah the CEO of Blackstone, the Giddle Cany. And it was like right when they were starting like pandemic darling and a little company it's figuring it all out. and they got so big that they bought Weber So he's back But now he's the CEO of Weber And we wanted to have him last year, but he was an antitrust review so he couldn't come on So this is the full circle moment for the Dakoter Grill episode That's When we started, our producers and I were like We got to get Webber, like eventually, you're going to our way to Weber And we got there because our first guest ever bought Weber I can't I be happier about this That's that's like an equal victory lap on both sides. It's for D dec Coder and for the CEO of Weber. You literally heard it here first That's awesome That's really good. Listen to that. it's going to be very fun. We'll make sure you know it comes out when it comes out U'm As always, you can subscribe to the Vvererge to get all of our podcasts, including the ones we just talked about. ad free, plus all of our exclusive newsletters, all of our coverage, everything else Fverd dot com slash subscribe We get a lot of people asking us how you can support like us and the show And we're grateful for all of you. And that is the single best thing you can do. That is how you make Nili unovernable