This Week in Tech Episode 933 Transcript

Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.

Leo Laporte (00:00:00):
It's time for Twitter. This week in Tech, we have a great panel for you, the return of Denise Howell, formerly of this week in law. She'll be telling you about her new podcast, launching soon. Alex Lindsay, you know him from Mac Break Weekly in Office hours.global, and a brand new visitor, Jason Del Ray. His new book Winner Sells All is all about between the battle between Amazon and Walmart. And we'll be talking a lot about Amazon and Walmart and Google. And yes, we'll mention the Cage match. It's all coming up next on Twit podcasts you love

Denise Howell (00:00:38):
From people you trust.

TWIT INTRO! (00:00:40):
This is twit. This is,

Leo Laporte (00:00:48):
This is twit this week in Tech. Episode 933 recorded Sunday, June 25th, 2023. The Iliad Flow this week at Tech is brought to you by Lookout. Whether on a device or in the cloud, your business data is always on the move. Minimize risk, increase feasibility, and ensure compliance with lookout's Unified platform. Visit lookout.com today and buy AG one by Athletic Greens. If you're looking for a simpler and cost effective supplement routine, ag one is giving you a free one year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first purchase of a subscription. Go to athletic greens.com/twit and by ACI learning it skills become outdated in about 18 months. You need to stay ahead of the curve and future proof your business's competitiveness with customizable entertaining training. Fill out the form@go.acilearning.com slash twit for more information on a free two week training trial for your team and by Miro. Miro is your team's online workspace to connect, collaborate, and create together. Tap into a way to map processes, systems, and plans with the whole team. And get your first three boards for free to start creating your best work yet at miro.com/podcast. It's time for Twitter. This week at Tech Show, we cover the weeks tech news. Oh, you're gonna like this panel cuz we got two oldies and a goodie <laugh>. Denise Howell, you're not an oldie, you're a goodie internet and technology lawyer, former host of this week in law. Her new podcast is coming soon. Hearsay culture.com. Hi Denise.

Denise Howell (00:02:44):
Hi there. Wonderful to see. That's our network. We'll have a number of podcasts there.

Leo Laporte (00:02:48):
What's yours gonna be called?

Denise Howell (00:02:50):
I'm gonna be on two mine. My main one is gonna be called Uneven Distribution with a nod to William Gibson. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And I'm also going to be on r and d with d and d

Leo Laporte (00:03:03):
<Laugh>. You're one of the Ds I presume. I'm one of the Ds. Yes. That's awesome.

Denise Howell (00:03:07):
Dave Levine is the other

Leo Laporte (00:03:08):
D Nice. Can't wait. Thanks. It's great to see you. We were down your way, but I didn't knock on your door because we just drove by and waved. I hope that was <laugh> Good enough. Yes. another oldie and goody Alex Lindsay is also here. Normally you see him on Mac Break weekly, but every once in a while we let him come up to the adult table. Office hours stack Global N zero Nonzero Media. Hi Alex. Hi. I was thinking about rum slag when I was at the Disney, the new Disney Star

Alex Lindsay (00:03:38):
Wars. Did you see Rums leg? Was he there?

Leo Laporte (00:03:39):
I looked for him. I couldn't find him. <Laugh>. We did buy $250 lightsabers though. <Laugh>. So,

Alex Lindsay (00:03:47):
Well there's, you know, for a good, a good quality lightsaber, it's about that. There, there's some folks that I work with that make like, really, like movie quality. I mean, they're from the is model shop and they make

Leo Laporte (00:03:56):
These are like that. They're metal. They're really nice. Yeah. But of course they don't have, they don't actually, they won't cut you in half, which is probably a good thing. Yeah. They have fluorescent tubes and then there's this whole, I

Alex Lindsay (00:04:06):
Always thought that they should, they should make one little ones. Little ones just, yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:04:10):
Just like you slice your bread with or maybe a Turkey jerky

Alex Lindsay (00:04:12):
Jerk. It slices, it dices, it cooks while it cuts.

Leo Laporte (00:04:14):
You know, that. Yeah. Dyson could make one. You know, like for Thanksgiving it'd be great. <Laugh> the Turkey light saber. Hey, we wanna welcome somebody new. Never been on the show before, but I'm thrilled to have him. Jason Delray. He has just published a Hot Ticket winner sells all Amazon, Walmart, and the Battle for our wallets on Audible. I have the Kindle version also in hardcover for you old timers. It's

Jason Del Rey (00:04:40):
Great to whatever you want.

Leo Laporte (00:04:41):
<Laugh>. Jason, welcome. Great to have you.

Jason Del Rey (00:04:44):
Thank you for having me. Yeah,

Leo Laporte (00:04:45):
Great to be here. It's a, it's a really good book. I I bought the Kindle version, but I also read the excerpt Fortune published about PillPack. And I read it with interest cuz PillPack used to be a, a sponsor and I did not realize Mm. Walmart was ready to buy 'em.

Jason Del Rey (00:05:00):
That's correct.

Leo Laporte (00:05:01):
And then it fell through.

Jason Del Rey (00:05:04):
It did. They dragged their feet a bit as they've done on a couple of big acquisitions that Amazon was also involved in.

Leo Laporte (00:05:11):
And Amazon's, they'd already, I guess, talked to Amazon, but Amazon said, Hey, you know, if Walmart's not interested, we still are. But TJ doesn't seem too happy at Amazon.

Jason Del Rey (00:05:24):
Well, he, yeah, he's, he's out now and doing the VC thing, which,

Leo Laporte (00:05:31):
So he got, he got enough

Jason Del Rey (00:05:32):
Guess he still wants to

Leo Laporte (00:05:32):
Work a big enough check <laugh> that he, that he could do that. That's that's all I need to know. 32 years old when he sold for, I who knows, hundreds of millions probably.

Jason Del Rey (00:05:43):
Around a billion. Yep. A

Leo Laporte (00:05:44):
Billion pill pack. As you might remember, if you saw the ads had these machines, they would package your prescription and your vitamins in little plastic pouches and send them out to you. So they were already ready to go. And it was actually quite a, I thought I used it for a while. It was quite a cool service. Is I, I haven't used the Amazon version. Is is it the same? Has it changed?

Jason Del Rey (00:06:08):
I've, so I do not use the service, but I saw some very big media personalities on Twitter complaining about the service post Amazon acquisition. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:06:22):
Amazon struggled with health, haven't they? For a while? They had it looked like they were gonna get big, maybe still looks like they're gonna get big into the health business, maybe regulatory snafus. But they Go ahead. You write about this in the book. I know.

Jason Del Rey (00:06:41):
Yeah. They, they they're still going at it. I mean, they just spent almost 4 billion for essentially a future looking doctors' chain. I mean, one medical. And Walmart's the same. I mean, the biggest issue at Walmart with their healthcare initiatives is that they can't keep a health leader more than like 18 months at the company. Yeah. Yeah. I think they've gone through like nine or 10 and 10 years, but they both want to be there. So it's a space, space I didn't know much about before reporting the book, but space, I think they're both potentially could have profound impact in,

Alex Lindsay (00:07:18):
I I think that the, the challenge really, I've been thinking about this a little bit related to medical specific specifically, and I think that one of the problems is, is that what Amazon does when it buys a company is usually drain out the goodness <laugh> of it to, to make it more efficient. You know, like, let's take a little bit of the goodness out and then make it more efficient so that we can make more money at it. Your margin is our, is our opportunity. And they squeeze that. And you can feel that even when you go to Whole Foods. You know, I you go to Whole Foods and now you can't, you know, you ev about once a week you can actually get arugula, which is something I put in my salads and there's some kind of supply chain thing there. And you know, that they're just cutting corners somewhere. Like there's there, you know, and there's things that just run out and then some, and then they're slowly turning Whole Foods into trader Joe's, you know, they keep on adding 365 brands and so on and so forth. And everything gets kind of dumbed down, you know? And, and I think that that hard part as

Jason Del Rey (00:08:07):
A Trader Joe's lover. We'll, we'll, we'll continue that conversation later,

Alex Lindsay (00:08:11):
Joe. Anyway, so, so anyway, so I'm like, if I wanna go to Trader Joe's, why do you

Leo Laporte (00:08:14):
Hate ReWalk? What, what kind of evil person hates Trader Joe's? I just

Alex Lindsay (00:08:17):
Wanna pick, I just want, it's weird. It's a weird place. <Laugh>. Anyway, so it's, and it's, and it's, it's, it's like a weird layout. What's wrong

Leo Laporte (00:08:23):
All Joe? Don't you like snacks with humorous

Alex Lindsay (00:08:26):
Names? I don't like snacks, actually. Oh, okay. No, I don't. And and the thing is, is that I, I have brands that I want, and I have things that I want, and I want to go and get the things that I, the things that I want to have. I want to have them. I don't want them all under one brand. And so I kind of feel like the Trader Joe's is like three blocks from Whole Foods in Novato feel. Like if I want to go to Trader Joe's, I can go to Trader Joe's, but I want to go to Whole Foods and buy the, the brands that, and you just watch. I'm just watching them slowly work those brands out and put their own own in. And they make it harder to find the brands. And you, as soon as it becomes hard to find the brand in Whole Foods, you know, that there's gonna be a 365 brand that's gonna get added to where that one was. You know, like the Nutellas gonna go away and they're gonna add their own version of Nutella and it's gonna be in there and, and so and so forth. And, and they just do this. And, and so you just watch this thing. And I think the, the reason I bring this up is because I think people are more sensitive to that when it comes to medicine. Yes. Because it might kill

Leo Laporte (00:09:13):
Them. That's

Alex Lindsay (00:09:13):
A good point. You know, and so that's a good point. So the thing is that

Leo Laporte (00:09:15):
Don't be putting peanut butter in my Cialis. That's a very good point. Yes, I agree. It

Alex Lindsay (00:09:20):
It, so I think that, that, that's why they have trouble with it, is they try to, oh,

Leo Laporte (00:09:23):
Peanut butter. Cialis pretzels would not be a bad product. I'm just saying

Alex Lindsay (00:09:28):
I think Trader Joe's would sell that. Not Whole Foods though. Exactly. Exactly. So, so I think that, I think that that's the, the challenge that they have with medicine is that people are a little bit more sensitive. You know, a lot of people have anecdotally said that the, some of the generic drugs are not as effective as the real drugs. They're like, Hey, I know people say that's true. They're saying, but they're not. It's not

Leo Laporte (00:09:47):
True, is it?

Alex Lindsay (00:09:49):
No, it's now, it's coming up in India. They have all kinds of problems with kinds of problems with, I

Leo Laporte (00:09:53):
Thought formulaically, they're identical, right?

Alex Lindsay (00:09:55):
They are supposed to be formulaically identical, but when they're made cheaply, it turns out that they're not identical <laugh>. And so, and so the thing

Leo Laporte (00:10:01):
You put baby laxative in my in my metformin, more

Alex Lindsay (00:10:04):
Sawdust in there, and it, it's not as effective. And so, and I've, I've had friends that have had, you know, they've had all kinds of problems with those. And so the thing is, is that in the same sense though, as I think that the problem is, people get sensitive when they think that, that it might affect their health or that might kill 'em. Yeah. Yeah. No kidding. They're, they're more sensitive, you cutting corners. And so I think that that's where health is you know, gets a little more complicated, you know, for them. You know you know, and I think that that's gonna be, continue to be a challenge because they're so margin formulaically, you know, pointed, you know,

Denise Howell (00:10:34):
Wow. That's the first I've heard of that. And I am now concerned for the entire health insurance industry that only covers generic drugs.

Leo Laporte (00:10:45):
<Laugh>, I, I pretty much, cuz I'm on Kaiser, which is a health maintenance organization, an HMO in the West Coast. Pretty much all I can get is generic <laugh>. But Right. It saves you a lot of money. I hope I'm getting medicated properly.

Denise Howell (00:11:02):
I hope you're not getting harmed. Yeah,

Alex Lindsay (00:11:04):
Because yeah, I mean, the lawsuits, it hasn't been, I, I don't even,

Leo Laporte (00:11:08):
I had no idea. I really thought they were, they were identical, but

Alex Lindsay (00:11:12):
And they should be <laugh>. It's just that there's, I have, maybe it's

Leo Laporte (00:11:15):
Just India that we have a problem with, right?

Alex Lindsay (00:11:18):
I don't know. I mean, it's, there's no margin in, in, in generic drugs. There's no money in generic drugs. And so when there's no money in something, you can expect the quality to bever to vary. You know, like

Leo Laporte (00:11:27):
When there's not, I don't want to channel RFK Junior or anything.

Alex Lindsay (00:11:30):
I'm not, I'm not that. But like, I'm not trying to do that. I, but I have, I specifically have a, that's not this, a friend who had, that's Joe wrote, I had a friend who had a mother who had a, you know, had Alzheimer, you know, she was, and she had drugs for that. And sometimes they worked and sometimes they get, some things are really effective and sometimes they weren't. And as they started talking about it, they started realizing that, oh, you know, the, the, the, you know, the formula, it wasn't that it was damaging, it was just that it wasn't, some batches weren't effective. Yeah. You know, and, and they were, they were varying enough that it was a problem.

Leo Laporte (00:11:58):
So it was, that's your next book, Jason. I want you to get to work on that right now. <Laugh>

Jason Del Rey (00:12:01):
Man. Yeah. Anyway, man. But,

Alex Lindsay (00:12:03):
So, yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:12:06):
See, you mentioned Trader Joe's and I, my mind immediately went to the Slate article this week called Trader Ooze. You're not imagining it. Trader Joe's employees are all Bing each other. <Laugh>.

Jason Del Rey (00:12:17):
Oh,

Leo Laporte (00:12:17):
<Laugh>. Wow. That's, I actually, my daughter worked there for a year. I, I immediately said is, is that Trish? She said, oh, yeah, <laugh>,

Jason Del Rey (00:12:27):
That just, there was a lot of, lot of stuff going on at the Clifton, New Jersey, trader Joe's, but I didn't sense that, but, well,

Leo Laporte (00:12:36):
I think it's the lion shirts and just the, the vibe. Right. Just the

Jason Del Rey (00:12:41):
Age group too. They hire a lot of young people. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:12:45):
Anyway, I'm sorry to derail this. What was a very highfalutin conversation.

Jason Del Rey (00:12:50):
Never got there. Don't worry. <Laugh>.

Leo Laporte (00:12:54):
All right. Let's talk about <laugh>. Let's talk about the week's tech news. There was a, there was a lot happening this week, and I was unfortunately out of pocket for three days. Jason Howell, I producer, said Hey, Jason Del Rays coming on and there's nothing <laugh>. It's Saturday and there's nothing to talk about. I said, don't worry, I will be retroactively going through the news. And in fact, a lot of stuff happened. But I kind of wanted to put the Amazon and Walmart stuff up front, because Jason is an expert on all of that. Amazon. I think the big story for Amazon this week is the EU is is mad because they say Amazon Prime is using dark patterns. Actually, I'm sorry, the, it's not the eu, the us it's Ustc.

Jason Del Rey (00:13:44):
Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Yep.

Leo Laporte (00:13:46):
FTC has, we have

Jason Del Rey (00:13:46):
The iRobot in, yeah,

Leo Laporte (00:13:48):
The iRobot eu. I get 'em all confused. Okay. Actually, this is Le Khan's FTC suing Amazon over manipulative tactics used to enroll millions in prime according to the Wall Street Journal using dark patterns, not so much to get you in, but to make it hard to get out. Unfortunately, the, the filing, the FTC filing was heavily redacted. <Laugh>, did you look at it, Jason?

Jason Del Rey (00:14:14):
Oh, I, I, I I attempted to. Yeah. There was more black than I don't know what, but yes. Yeah. So definitely an issue. I mean, they, they are alleging, you know, in, in some cases, especially, you know, when someone thinks they're signing up for just Prime video, they're got kind of getting pushed in the direction of the more expensive prime offering and a couple other tricks and other dark patterns using on the way in to get people signed up. But then they were also alleging that the 16 step cancellation process, which Amazon has largely corrected. I think the FTC alleging not until April of this year. So so yeah. That, that was not necessarily the ftc complaint that many people watching this dynamic were expecting, but perhaps just the first of two with, with something on the antitrust front coming eventually that we've been waiting

Leo Laporte (00:15:15):
Quite a bit. I'm curious because I think politically this might not be the first thing I would've filed as the ftc. Mm-Hmm. Cuz I think people, correct me if I'm wrong, I think they like Amazon Prime.

Jason Del Rey (00:15:28):
I mean,

Alex Lindsay (00:15:29):
I didn't know people actually got the video service without the, without the shipping service. I thought the video service just kind of came for free with the shipping service, because I've had the shipping service, like, since it started Me too. And then I got video. Yeah. And then I, and then they're like, no, I get video. But if, if, if, if they killed that, if they, if they, if they killed the video part or separated it out, I wouldn't get it anywhere. I'd be like, okay, whatever.

Leo Laporte (00:15:48):
You get a lot, you get Amazon Prime members get unlimited photo storage for free. I, the delivery for the two day delivery

Alex Lindsay (00:15:57):
Seems, I get so many. Amazon seems

Leo Laporte (00:15:58):
To be a little less than it used to be. Right. Like a lot of,

Alex Lindsay (00:16:03):
I get mine on the same day. Like, I get mine on the same day. Well, I get in the morning.

Leo Laporte (00:16:06):
Sometimes it's the same day and sometimes it's two weeks from now and it's not clear what it's gonna be. Go ahead, Jason, explain that.

Jason Del Rey (00:16:12):
No, no. I, I mean, I've been trying to, some parts of, of the us you know, where I live now in, in New Jersey, you know, overnight on, if you

Leo Laporte (00:16:22):
Have a warehouse near you, you get it right away. Right.

Alex Lindsay (00:16:25):
Which I do. There's one in Napa. Yeah. Think that's

Jason Del Rey (00:16:27):
Why. Yeah. And we have, we have one being built in our town, but we have many others. But in some parts of the country, I mean, I, I had a piece on this last year two Day Prime just sort of completely went away <laugh>, and the company's just not saying. And, and, and it's not better than today. It's, it's become worse. And actually had a former Amazonian Logistics data analyst volunteered to do a little test and study for me. And in some parts of Washington State and some other regions in the country, just with the pandemic, I kind of just went away for good. But company's not, I, I was never able to figure out exactly what's going on there. But for many people like Alex is saying, Alex is saying, it, it, it has gotten faster. It's just, it's kind of luck of

Leo Laporte (00:17:13):
It's inconsistent where you're living

Jason Del Rey (00:17:14):
Right now. Well,

Alex Lindsay (00:17:14):
And I, it definitely feels like

Leo Laporte (00:17:16):
It's a, it's, it's a, it's definitely a, a cost center for Amazon. I don't know if they make money on Prime. And they certainly are trying to push you to, for instance, delivery day saying, oh, everything comes on Monday. It all comes on Monday, that'll save you gas and stuff. So

Denise Howell (00:17:35):
I do like that. It is the, if you aren't rushing to get your item, that is the most environmentally friendly way to go about it. Yeah. But especially if you order multiple items a week.

Leo Laporte (00:17:46):
I didn't know this somebody man in our

Alex Lindsay (00:17:50):
A day,

Leo Laporte (00:17:50):
Oh gosh, I have an Amazon package at the door every day. It's not just me. It's, it's family worth. Mike Mann says, Amazon Prime includes GrubHub free delivery. Who knew that? I didn't know. It does.

Alex Lindsay (00:18:01):
I I knew that. So we've been doing that. But, but,

Leo Laporte (00:18:05):
But my, my point, my point is that politically, I don't know if people are gonna support attacking Amazon Prime. Cuz I think Yeah, it's hard to ca or it used to be hard to cancel it, but most people never cancel it <laugh>.

Alex Lindsay (00:18:18):
Well, and, and I, yeah, I think it's so part like, and I think that the lock-in for Amazon is on the other side too. Like, you go to Whole Foods and you drop off your, your stuff you don't want. And that, at first I was like, how does this make them money? Because they ask you not to even put the box, put 'em back in the box, you know, they're not going back on, you know, they say, don't put 'em in the box, just bring 'em over. We're gonna throw em out. Yeah. No, no, no. They don't throw them out. I actually had a conversation with someone about this. Oh. it's in our, it's in, so put

Leo Laporte (00:18:40):
'Em in a giant bin and they ship it it to Amazon where they throw it out.

Alex Lindsay (00:18:44):
No, no. They, they, they, they, there's a box at, at Whole Foods, and they scan them and throw them in, scan them, throw them in, scan them, throw them in. They, it'll never come outta that box. <Laugh>, it goes to, it goes to a box, it goes somewhere. And people get people who sell stuff on eBay. Right. They get told what's in it reset. They're not told what the condition is, but they're told like, Hey, there's a whole bunch of stuff in here. And then, and this is the price of the box. Like, you've take it illegal, you're not, you know, and then they go and they buy it and it's, it's frac. You know, there's pennies on the dollar and, but that's a good way

Leo Laporte (00:19:11):
To recycle it. That's better than Chinese kids burning it and causing cancer.

Alex Lindsay (00:19:14):
Yeah. No, no. They're selling it back into, they're injecting it back into eBay and they're letting people do whatever they're gonna do with it. But people get to see what's in it because they scanned it. It's, it's a very efficient system. But I was still like, they're losing a lot of money. They're not, there's, you know, that's, or it felt like they're losing lot of money. But I realized

Leo Laporte (00:19:28):
There's no way to make money on returns. You're gonna, or, or save money. This is gonna cost you huge

Alex Lindsay (00:19:32):
Amount. But, but what I realized is I am super resistant to buying anything that's on Amazon anywhere else. You can't because if I buy it right, I know that I can just take it the Whole Foods the next time I go and pick up my arugula and I, and I, and I get, and I can and I can, I just drop it off and move on. And I'm like, oh, I'm gonna

Leo Laporte (00:19:47):
Ask buy something, Jason. But my guess is Amazon does a lot of these things. It seemed like a very good idea in the early stage of, in Ification when they were trying to build their customer base. But late stage Amazon, these are cost centers that they would love to get rid of Jason, am I right? Yeah.

Jason Del Rey (00:20:03):
They've, they've been, they've been, I mean, they've, they've given us this convenience, but you're right, it has become, you know, problematic as they scale. And so you see, you know, we do u ps drop off for free in our town, and no packaging, nothing. Although my wife actually will package stuff up just to get rid of the cardboard, all the cardboard that we have. And I don't know if that's doing anything better for the environment, but she likes to think it is. But now they're experimenting with charging, charging it again, a dollar for u p s Dropoffs, or, you know, we have, we have a big delivery. If we bring it to Kohl's, it's free, but if we bring it to UPS now it's gonna be seven bucks. And so they are, you know, the return logistics is, is super costly. And I think they're still, they're still trying to sort it now as they cut costs in other areas. Yes. It's, it's expensive, but, but it is so, like, like Alex was saying, I mean, it's such a lock-in just to know <laugh>, you can order 77, you know, variations. Absolutely.

Alex Lindsay (00:21:04):
I bought, I bought all these, I was trying to figure out long U S B C cables for my little cameras. And and I just bought like four sets you bought. It was like, just four different, different versions. And then I just took three sets and I gave them back to 'em. Like, I was like, no, these don't work. I mean,

Jason Del Rey (00:21:17):
Last, I'm not proud to admit this, but last night I couldn't find my ethernet adapter and for overnight delivery I needed for the show, the minimum. Thank you. Yeah. So I bought two <laugh>. Right. Just

Alex Lindsay (00:21:31):
Different ones. Make sure.

Jason Del Rey (00:21:33):
And to hit the minimum and Oh, right. And wanna go back tomorrow.

Alex Lindsay (00:21:38):
Right. Wow.

Denise Howell (00:21:39):
I, I could do a little pattern recognition for us on the Dark patterns issue. You guys will remember that the FTC also came after Epic Games for that. And they ultimately settled that complaint for 245 million

Alex Lindsay (00:21:57):
About, can you explain it? What is the dark patterns that they're talking

Leo Laporte (00:21:59):
About? And by the way, Vonage Vonage paid a hundred million due, same thing. How hard it was to cancel. I'll read you this.

Alex Lindsay (00:22:07):
Read the part that makes it the dark pattern or the getting,

Leo Laporte (00:22:09):
Lemme read you the complaint. Or part of it, the part that we can see underneath the black marker from the Wall Street Journal the complaint alleged that Amazon used quote, manipulative, coercive, or deceptive user interface designs known as dark patterns and quote to dupe users into automatically renewing prime subscriptions. Amazon leadership slowed or rejected changes that would've made it easier for users to cancel Prime, because those changes adversely affected Amazon's bottom line. They talk about how many clicks to, to get Amazon Prime, which is a couple compared to how many clicks, at least until April to cancel Amazon Prime, which was a four page, six click, 15 option cancellation process. Amazon internally called the Iliad Flow in a reference to Homer's Endless Trojan War story. <Laugh>, the agency said the quote, labyrinthine Pro procedure and quote was designed to make a cumbersome and confusing for customers to cancel prime. So go ahead Denise, explain to us what are, what are dark patterns and why are they wrong?

Denise Howell (00:23:23):
Dark patterns. You see them every day. They are, every time you have, you come to a decision point that involves commerce usually, or, or involves some sort of giving up of your rights or

Alex Lindsay (00:23:37):
Acceptance media

Denise Howell (00:23:38):
Of turn. All

Alex Lindsay (00:23:39):
Media sites are terrible at it. Is like all those GDPR things that, that, like all

Denise Howell (00:23:42):
The gdp, oh, well, the

Alex Lindsay (00:23:43):
Eu, you could say yes or we're gonna

Jason Del Rey (00:23:44):
Give you whole bunch of pages. You can't actually find the button.

Denise Howell (00:23:47):
Right. Right. So the EU actually cracked down on that. And you, you may have noticed there's been a shift in all those G D P R cookie warnings that you're getting. Where it used to be that they could default you to opting in to all the data collection, et cetera. Now they have to default you to opting out, and you have to affirmatively check that you're gonna opt in. Cuz the EU also, like our FTC, is no fan of this practice. So it's that, it's when there's a big colored button that makes it attractive and you almost, you know, rush to go click that and there's something small or gray out or white or whatever that, that is, your eye doesn't go right

Leo Laporte (00:24:29):
To it. Oh, Microsoft does this like crazy. That's the right choice. Microsoft does this when you're gonna buy Windows 11 or upgrade to Windows 11, big colorful button that says yes. And then mm-hmm. <Affirmative> barely discernible because it's gray on white or something it says. Or you can just not do it, but we don't

Denise Howell (00:24:46):
Please.

Leo Laporte (00:24:47):
Right. You know, those are so we've all experienced dark patterns like crazy. Yes. but the ft is, is this a new trend that the FTCs cracking down on these?

Denise Howell (00:24:57):
Seems to be. I didn't know about Vonage. So that's three.

Jason Del Rey (00:25:01):
There's Yeah, there's definitely been, there's definitely been other cases in, in e-commerce or online retail for sure. And so good. It is, it is good. This is also, people love Amazon Prime, so Well that's,

Leo Laporte (00:25:15):
Yeah. See that's the thing. I don't know politically if it's if everybody's gonna say, oh, yay, finally the FTCs cracking down on Amazon Prime. It was, you know, it was the same problem with zero rating back in the day when telecom companies would not charge you bandwidth costs for certain streaming services, which to a consumer is, Hey, that's great. What's wrong with that? But if you're a competing streaming service that doesn't get that, it's like, see, <laugh>, they're putting their thumb on the scale, very hard to tell consumers this isn't good for you. I've tried to explain zero why zero rating is bad for years and it's with little success. Here's the website. Deceptive design I've referred to many times. This is, I love it, is a a hall of shame of dark patterns. <Laugh>. And there are a lot of them. There are a lot of them. In fact, 24 for Google, 20 for Facebook, 17 for Amazon, 12 for Microsoft. The, the Trump campaign has nine, LinkedIn has eight, Instagram has eight. Apple seven. And that's just what's in the hall of shame. This is a great site if you're confused about why dark patterns are a bad thing. And apparently there are, you know, federal laws against dark patterns in the US as in, in the eu. I,

Jason Del Rey (00:26:38):
I I think

Denise Howell (00:26:39):
This is, there, there are laws against deceptive practices.

Leo Laporte (00:26:41):
Right. That's why this is called deceptive design, not Dark Patterns. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

Alex Lindsay (00:26:46):
I think this is as a, as an iPhone user, why I'm so attached to the, the iPhone stores. Cause I can always cancel all my subscriptions. I can see where they all are and just go, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And the idea of it getting me having to deal with like how, figuring out where I was subscribed to what I'm not excited about <laugh>.

Leo Laporte (00:27:05):
So, Carrie Denise, also, you'd probably be interested in this epic Games. This is also from Deceptive design. Epic Games paid 245 million Yeah. To settle charges. They were using deceptive patterns of Fortnite. Our, our, our sponsor noom, the diet app paid 62 million to settle charges. They were using deceptive patterns in their subscription and auto renewal process. At and t paid 105 million. This is all to the FTC to settle charges. They were adding unauthorized fees for services. That's not a dark pattern Exactly. But it's deceptive for sure. And there's a long list of of, of effective lawsuits in the EU and the us on this website. It's a good, it's a good source if you're, you know, wondering there were 90 total decisions against companies for deceptive patterns.

Denise Howell (00:27:59):
Yeah. And, and you can imagine, I mean, the problem, obviously it's a problem whenever you do it, but when you're targeting young people and children Yeah. And they're spending the family money, that's

Leo Laporte (00:28:12):
Particularly, well, if my kids wanna subscribe to Amazon Prime, dammit, I'm gonna let 'em <laugh>. That's good for all of us. Actually, that's another thing. Amazon Prime, everybody in the family gets a benefit, which makes it even harder to cancel. I know I, once I canceled YouTube Premium and man, did I hear about it from the six family members, <laugh>, we're all suddenly getting ads on their YouTube <laugh>.

Alex Lindsay (00:28:36):
I don't, I don't even know how someone could watch YouTube without premium. You have to pay for it. Like, I've had it for, you have to pay. I've had it for so long and when you, I I've, I've had it where I've changed my credit card or something. So it goes off for a day. And I am like, it is mind, mind numbing. Like, it's like, how would you ever watch this content without turning, without paying?

Jason Del Rey (00:28:51):
May I introduce you to my 10 year old son,

Alex Lindsay (00:28:54):
<Laugh>? You can watch through those ads. He's, he's fine.

Jason Del Rey (00:28:57):
He thinks it's all the same. He is just like,

Alex Lindsay (00:28:58):
It's

Leo Laporte (00:28:59):
More

Alex Lindsay (00:29:00):
Contents, more content. Do

Leo Laporte (00:29:01):
You find that

Denise Howell (00:29:02):
He, when he's 13, he'll be beyond it. Jason,

Leo Laporte (00:29:04):
Do you find that he wants to buy a lot of the stuff he sees advertised on his on his own craft?

Jason Del Rey (00:29:09):
He is so best. He is so basketball obsessed that frankly, it is. I don't hear about anything else. I probably should occasionally watch over his shoulder though,

Alex Lindsay (00:29:18):
See

Leo Laporte (00:29:18):
What he's seeing. But yeah. So he's watching basketball videos.

Jason Del Rey (00:29:23):
That's all interesting. That's all for now. For

Leo Laporte (00:29:25):
Now. So the real

Denise Howell (00:29:26):
Reason, well, if he wants to watch football in the fall, YouTube is the place

Leo Laporte (00:29:30):
Yeah. To do it.

Alex Lindsay (00:29:30):
They so

Leo Laporte (00:29:31):
Exciting.

Alex Lindsay (00:29:31):
Yep. As a Pittsburgh Steeler in San Francisco, I'm super excited about that because I can finally watch all the games. Yeah. That's

Leo Laporte (00:29:37):
So exciting. So is our Unaccountably addicted, the Green Bay Packer's 20 year old son? I don't understand how this happened, but he will be able to watch us. Well, I

Alex Lindsay (00:29:46):
Mean, everybody knows that the Steelers and the Packers are the only cool,

Leo Laporte (00:29:49):
Apparently. So. Okay. Michael's going with Lisa and and his father to Green Bay this fall to watch a Packer's game at length. Well, that'll

Alex Lindsay (00:29:59):
Be cool. It's a, that would be, it's a really cool field. I think that's cool.

Leo Laporte (00:30:02):
Yeah,

Alex Lindsay (00:30:02):
Yeah. Yeah. I worked at, I worked at a Green Bay game. It was really cold. That's all I can remember

Leo Laporte (00:30:07):
Is like, I can't feel my fingers. Well, there is a debate in the family. I say they should go in December or January where you get the real fan experience. And ideally as a Packer fan, he'd paint himself half gold, half green, and take off his shirt in the 40 below weather for the real Lambo. The real experience, real experience. And if it's snowing extra points. Anyway, back to the FTC <laugh> what are their odds? What Solina Khan has really, this was her, the promise made when Biden nominated, her chairman of the ftc, she had already written as a professor at, was at Harvard. You know,

Alex Lindsay (00:30:48):
No, it was a student Yale. Yale. Yale,

Leo Laporte (00:30:50):
Phd student. Right. Or law Yale School. Yeah. Okay. Written a number of anti big tech articles in the law review. So we kind of knew what we were gonna get. Grade her, Denise grade, her performance. So far she's certainly been fairly aggressive.

Denise Howell (00:31:09):
You wanna let her grade? I, I, that's tough. I think we have to let this play out a little bit more.

Leo Laporte (00:31:15):
See, see, yes, that's a good point. Until we know whether it succeeds.

Denise Howell (00:31:19):
Yeah. but as far as, I mean, she, she seems to be very aggressive particularly on the question of child online safety. And I mean, it's hard to argue with the fact that we could use some help in that regard, but I just don't know that Lina Khan and the FTC are sophisticated enough about how to implement and enforce.

Leo Laporte (00:31:49):
She's been in office exactly two years since June 15th. She has a three and they're trying nothing majority on the ftc, let's not forget that. Yes. She's also got a commission. But the republicans haven't not, haven't filled out their three seats. So I think she's been aggressive. Tim Wu mm-hmm. <Affirmative> says she's doing the stuff Congress should be doing, taking on privacy non-competes and ai. She's rebooted the antitrust law. Right. Brought it back into prominence. There was no very little antitrust action in the last 10 years under Republican presidents. Right. Yeah. And Obama, I should point out, didn't do much either.

Denise Howell (00:32:40):
If, if the alternative is to leave it to Congress to do these things, then, you know, probably

Leo Laporte (00:32:45):
Us Chamber of Commerce says she's trying to ruin American business <laugh> and entrepreneurship with owners and unfair rules. Okay.

Denise Howell (00:32:56):
She's, she's not alone though. I mean, she's hand in glove with the EU and California and some other states. That's true. There. Did you know, there are now 144 pending proposed child online safety laws in the United States. Almost all

Leo Laporte (00:33:15):
Of them

Denise Howell (00:33:15):
On the various

Leo Laporte (00:33:16):
States bad though, right?

Denise Howell (00:33:18):
I I, you got me. I haven't read all proposed

Leo Laporte (00:33:21):
One California law laws four. No, no, but the ca I I'm sure they're based on the California law, which was I think not a, not a good direction to go and, and, and ineffective. But maybe I'm, maybe I'm wrong. I don't know. This is the problem with government regulation. I am not anti-regulation by any means, but there's always this risk that the government will be slow and heavy handed and misunderstand the problem.

Alex Lindsay (00:33:47):
I don't think that the government is, is capable of it, to be honest. And I think the problem isn't so much that they don't care or that they're wrong. It's just the, the, the, to what Denise was kinda talking about. I don't know if they have the tools to do this well. Yeah. Like, I don't think that they have. And, and when you, when it has to go through that process, it, it's, it may look like a scalpel when you started talking, but by the time you get, you know, by the time it becomes law, it's a dull, broad sword that you're just swinging around and it, you know, and I think that that's the real, the real problem with a lot of these things, I think that we have to think about what's safe for kids. Something, obviously, if you look at the data, something obviously is going wrong.

(00:34:20):
Like something is going horribly wrong. And it, it starts at about 2013 and the, and then the st you know, depression starts spiking all, you know, all kinds of problems have happened because of online access. We don't know exactly. I don't think anybody knows. There's, in other communities I'm in, there's a lot of discussion about that. <Laugh>, no one really understands the math of what it is because it's not clear, whether it's Facebook or it's Twitter or just messages, you know, like, like just going back and forth. But, but there's something going wrong. But I don't know if the government is the, has the, the apparatus, you know, to actually make any meaningful change. You know, I think that's the

Denise Howell (00:34:55):
Problem. Right. And short of a appointing Leo dictator of all things tech policy, which I, I think would be a grand idea, <laugh>

Leo Laporte (00:35:03):
No. Cuz I'd be frozen. I'd be frozen in an action not knowing, well what should we do? Cuz I, I understand both sides. I think you wanna encourage innovation. Sometimes that means antitrust regulations so that new companies can sprout up. But sometimes it means you punish the innovators in a way that Right. Discourages other innovators. It's very, very difficult.

Denise Howell (00:35:26):
And our legal process is so messy that the latest iteration of the California privacy law, you were referring to, Leo is coming to us courtesy of a ballot proposition. Right. That amended the privacy law. So,

Leo Laporte (00:35:39):
But then the courts got involved in that, so that got amended. Yes. And yes.

Denise Howell (00:35:43):
Right.

Alex Lindsay (00:35:44):
Well, and, and I think, I think sometimes we, we need, I think one thing we oftentimes mix miss with regulation is regulation is very hard to manage. Tort is actually really effective <laugh>. So companies being afraid of being sued actually often makes more change than companies. You know, when you start suing companies for things that they're not doing. So sometimes I think that the government needs to think about not so much regulation, but taking away protections. Like, Hey, we're not gonna protect you for doing the things that you're doing, and we're gonna let people sue you for it. And I think that one of the things that and I, I'm gonna, I come from family lawyers <laugh>, so, so, so that

Leo Laporte (00:36:19):
A trial lawyer, we might add, right?

Alex Lindsay (00:36:21):
But when you, you know, like the, the, when you, you look at like the, the one that most people make fun of is the McDonald's suit, about the hot coffee, the Yeah. Hot coffee. But when you get into the details of it, it is a completely reasonable thing that the, that the jury came up with, which is, I think it was one day of coffee, you know, like the cost, the, the, the, the how much McDonald's makes on one day of coffee, because they won't make the, they won't make the water a little. It's literally, you know, a little bit cooler because they think that'll, because it'll last longer <laugh>. You know, so, so that's, so they've decided that that's just the way they're gonna do it. They had, they had tons of things ahead of times, but what happens is, is that people start lawsuits force people to start thinking about force companies to start thinking about it.

(00:37:04):
So I think the real problem we get into is when we start limiting torts, you know, and saying you can't sue for a lot of money. You can't cause real pain for corporations. Then I think, because I think that's a much more of a scalpel than government regulation, which is that when someone's doing something stupid you could, it's gonna be get really expensive. And when they have to write that big check, they have to make, you know, someone goes back and says, let's not do that again. You know? And, and that's the, I think that that's one of the things I, I think you still need regulation, but I think sometimes in the finer details of things you know, because I, I know a lot of companies that spend a lot of time not doing things, not because that there's a law. It's just they don't wanna get sued <laugh>. They just don't wanna, you know, like, you know,

Denise Howell (00:37:42):
Alex the problem with that is if you take that to its logical conclusion, you do away with section two 30 of the Communications Decency Act. Because a lot of these companies are protected from tort actions by that law. And That's right. You know,

Alex Lindsay (00:37:58):
Been way, and I don't, again, I think it's a balance. I don't think it's, I don't think it's an all or one, I think, but when I, when we look at some of these things, cause I, I am a huge proponent of two 30 <laugh>. So I think that two 30 should not be messed with. I don't think it's perfect. I think it's broken, but I don't think we should touch it because if we pull one little pin out of that, we have no idea what's going to happen to what we're doing. So I completely agree with you there. I don't think that torch are the only answer. I just think that sometimes they come in and they start making things that they can handle things. Sometimes when we think about regulation, I think sometimes we have to think about that process as well.

Denise Howell (00:38:31):
There's something in the rundown that, that tackles this head on. It's that after babble, why Hate and Schmitz proposed social media

Leo Laporte (00:38:39):
Reforms? Oh, that's a great

Denise Howell (00:38:40):
Story. Are insufficient.

Leo Laporte (00:38:42):
Let's, yeah, it's, I wanna take a little break before we get to that. Yeah. But that is a great story. I do wanna wrap up Thelina Khan report card, cuz Axios Pro had a very interesting article this week about this on the negative, the ftc, which went after Meta's acquisition of within Met the FTC gave up and said, all right, fine and we're gonna cover this. But more recently, if you've been watching the testimony in the Activision Blizzard administrative law case, it has not been going well for, I believe for the FTCs case. They're trying to block the acquisition. That will be interesting to watch that. And then Axios points out, yeah, she's two years in, but she may only have two more years because we've got a presidential election in 2024. So this stuff takes a long time and it, she may not have enough time to finish her job. I

Alex Lindsay (00:39:37):
Think, I think my biggest complaint with her is that she doesn't have any life experience. Like, like she's just,

Leo Laporte (00:39:42):
She's just too young. You sound like an old man, Alex.

Alex Lindsay (00:39:45):
I don't mean young. Look at her schedule. When has she actually been, she's an academic in commerce. Yeah, no, she's an she's an academic. She has no, she, you know, and academics very rarely understand how companies run, you know, and so I think that she's getting a mixture of being heavy handed in places that she doesn't understand and also losing, because as soon as you start unwrapping this, you realize, oh, this is really complicated. You know? And so, and that's what an app, what happened to an academic when they get into, into actual production is like, they open it up and they're like, oh, this, this was so simple. When I was writing a book,

Leo Laporte (00:40:13):
Jason, you know, I I'm sure you read her, her essay in Yale Law School, Amazon's Antitrust Paradox, because it's right up your alley. Was it accurate?

Jason Del Rey (00:40:24):
I I mean, there was, there was a, to me, a compelling argument that the framework we've been using to establish antitrust wrongs in the last few decades is not sufficient. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> to kind of reign in some of, some of what might be problematic with the companies today. You know, just, just back to the prime, the, the prime case that, that lawsuit that they just filed, ju you know, what's interesting to me is, and someone saw someone commenting publicly, I'm forgetting his name, and this is gonna sound like a not nice way to describe his role, but basically he runs what's essentially a front, front group for Amazon and Google policy. But he, he was saying, why, you know, she could have just settled. She's, they've settled with all these other companies. Why didn't they just settle with Amazon on this? And I did wonder if while Prime is really beloved if she went after this first related to Amazon, because it's something more, you know, the average person can understand.

Leo Laporte (00:41:26):
They at least know the Yeah. They at least know the name. Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Del Rey (00:41:29):
But yeah, I think it's too early to grade her. But I think, I think there are fair concerns about some of the selections they've made so far. My big thing for me in my world is does she get, do they have the manpower to, to first of all really go through with a suit with this, right. And then a separate antitrust suit and will she have enough time? Right. so always a

Leo Laporte (00:41:55):
Problem course

Jason Del Rey (00:41:56):
Brought up in the Aris

Leo Laporte (00:41:56):
Still, right? Because every four years there's a new president, often the new FTC chair and often the new power party in power, and they reverse each other back and forth, back and forth. I agree with you, Alex, about tort Law maybe being something that's a, a necessary corrective. I

Alex Lindsay (00:42:16):
Worry it's not, it's not a replacement. It's, it's just that it's, you know, I don't wanna make it sound like I think that we should get rid of all regulation and just No.

Leo Laporte (00:42:22):
But understand there are, there are companies who say, well, well, we've gotta stop. We need tort reform and we need to stop regulation. They want to take all the tools away. Right. And exactly. And, and I think maybe I, I don't have an opinion on Lena Kahn, but I do think it's about time we, somebody at least said Big Tech is running rampant, unchecked. Maybe we should look at this. I mean, look, we're technology podcasts. I've based my entire career covering tech. I like tech. I think we get a lot of benefit from Big Tech. I don't think there's any company in the world except Apple that could have created the Vision Pro. I mean, there's a certain value to size, but at the same time, there's a huge valued innovation and competition. And I believe in that too. So that's why I, it's, this is such a challenge, right? It's a, and government seems like not an ideal tool. I mean, I, I'm glad to see government involved, you know, they should say something. If you see something, say something. But whether that'll be enough to be effective, I don't know. At least it'll raise people's awareness. You know, if nothing else, people now looking at, well, if I wanted to cancel Prime, what would I have to do? Is Prime still, most of the problem with Prime is nobody ever thinks about it. Like I'm, yeah, just every year I'm gonna renew. I'm sure it's worth it.

Alex Lindsay (00:43:42):
Well, and I, and I think that there's some things just the government showing people what's going on. Like, I think a California law that makes a lot of sense. Precisely, California makes a lot of bad laws, but one of the good laws that they do make is you have to show the calories for everything that you're selling at a restaurant. And I gotta tell you, there's things that I look at that I used to, I used to think were healthy. And I look at it and I go, whoa, I'm not gonna eat that anymore. You know? So now you they didn't have to go ahead. Now you just feel bad though. Oh, no, no, no. I, I, there's definitely, it has definitely made significant changes of, of my behavior based on Yeah. On looking at food and just going, that's a thousand

Leo Laporte (00:44:14):
Calories if nothing

Alex Lindsay (00:44:16):
Else. You know, like that's the

Leo Laporte (00:44:17):
Value,

Alex Lindsay (00:44:18):
Right? But I think that's, that's very valuable. And I think that that should be Nation. I mean, I think that just doing those kinds of things where you really show people like what's actually happening there, I think makes, is where the government can be very

Jason Del Rey (00:44:30):
Effective is research and, and

Leo Laporte (00:44:32):
Publishing. Absolutely. Information. Information. Yep. All right. We gotta take a break. I want to come back. We have lots more to talk about. Great panel here, Alex, Lindsay, you know, from Mac Break Weekly, Denise Howell, you know, from this week in law, and don't forget hearsay culture.com, her new podcasts coming, and a new member of our panel, great to have you. Jason Delray, his new book Winner Sells All is about the battle between Amazon and Walmart. And, you know, speaking of exposing information we weren't aware of, there is a lot of interesting juice about Walmart in here and how seriously they took the Amazon threat.

Jason Del Rey (00:45:10):
That's right. Or, or how they didn't take it very seriously

Leo Laporte (00:45:13):
For a very long, they didn't it long seriously. Until they did. Right. <laugh>.

Jason Del Rey (00:45:16):
Until they did, yeah. And now, and now the last five to seven years they, they're starting to move pretty aggressively to the, to the point that no longer, at least in my opinion, a a laughing stock in digital. Right. Which they were for about two years.

Leo Laporte (00:45:31):
Oh, I remember them buying jet.com and just <laugh>, not just de just destroying it, basically. Not that it had much promise to begin with.

Jason Del Rey (00:45:40):
Yeah. It's, there's, there's a whole bunch of on on that in the book. And and then the clashes between that leadership team and the old guard at Walmart, who, to be fair, had a very difficult job grinding profits out of those super centers. And and did not look fondly upon Mark Laurie just especially admitting publicly they make the money. And I spend it, probably not, probably doesn't go over well in Arkansas. <Laugh>

Leo Laporte (00:46:07):
Mark Lore was the founder of jet.com, right? That's

Jason Del Rey (00:46:10):
Correct. Yeah,

Leo Laporte (00:46:11):
That's correct. And, and when they bought him, he became a power broker within the Walmart. I'd love your story about Sam Walton, who's dying and f discovering how much the hospital was charging him for an mri, saying the Walmart leadership team, we gotta do something about this. Yeah. Healthcare costs. Yep.

Jason Del Rey (00:46:29):
Those, that was, I mean, yeah, and they, they there's a lot of, what would Sam do? Interesting. Still, still spoken about inside that company,

Leo Laporte (00:46:38):
I have to say, probably because I'm a a metrosexual that probably didn't come out right, but because I'm a metropolitan type guy, I'm team Amazon, right? And I would guess that in rural markets, team Walmart for the most part, right?

Jason Del Rey (00:46:55):
I mean, Amazon's everywhere now, but

Leo Laporte (00:46:57):
Yeah, it doesn't matter.

Jason Del Rey (00:46:59):
But I, I will tell you, I visited what Walmart calls their home office,

Leo Laporte (00:47:04):
Bentonville, Arkansas,

Jason Del Rey (00:47:05):
And it, it ranks top 10 for places to raise a family in the US almost every year now. It is, it is. We have,

Leo Laporte (00:47:15):
We have unique

Jason Del Rey (00:47:15):
Place, but

Leo Laporte (00:47:17):
Pretty cool. A regular panelist, panelists on our show, Phil Libin, who was the founder of Evernote. Oh yeah. Last time he was on, he said, I moved to Bentonville. It's the best place in the world. <Laugh>. He loves Bentonville. He talks all the new restaurants that are opening up. Cause it's getting gentrified.

Jason Del Rey (00:47:33):
It is the Walton family's just pouring, I want to, I was gonna say billions, but maybe not billions, but a lot of money into that, that place, including a $350 million new Walmart campus.

Leo Laporte (00:47:48):
They my friend compared it to Pleasantville. <Laugh>. Yeah. I think it's Pleasantville, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Phil Libin has built their company headquarters in this really cool building in Bentonville. It really is very interesting. Yeah, I'm, I'm en envy you going to Bentonville and you had a good reason to too. We're gonna take a break. We'll come back with more with Denise, Alex, and Jason, our show today brought to you by Look Out Business has Look Out business has changed forever. Boundaries to where we work, even how we work, dissolving in the mist. That means your data is always on the move. Whether it's on a device in the cloud, across networks or at the local Airship Coffee Shop in Bentonville, Arkansas. Well, that's great for your workforce. They love it. They could be anywhere, but it is a challenge for IT security, right?

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Visit lookout.com today to learn how to safeguard data, secure hybrid work, and reduce it complexity lookout.com. We thank Lookout for their support of this week in tech. Make sure you tell 'em when you, when they say, Hey, how'd you find out about us? Oh, Leo told me. Just say twit. I, I saw it on twit. Denise Howell, Alex Lindsay, Jason Delray. We're talking about Lena Kahan. We should probably talk about the Activision hearings. The Microsoft Activism acquisition testimony began this weekend. And wow. <Laugh>, I don't think it's going well for the ftc. Among other things revealed now, it's not a trial, right? There's an administrative judge, so it's more like a hearing. But the judge will decide if if the action to block the acquisition goes forward. Here's this from the Verge. Tom Warren, I guess is in the courtroom.

(00:50:44):
We're only minutes into the hearing. We've already had a bombshell revelation. Jim Ryan of PlayStation says, blocking the acquisition isn't about exclusives according to Sony. That's all it's about. According to a newly unsealed email. Within internally email Microsoft's lawyers revealed the exchange between PlayStation Chief Jim Ryan and Chris Deering, former c e o of Sony Computer Entertainment. Ryan said in the email quote, it's not an exclusivity play at all. They're thinking bigger than that, and they have the cash to make moves like this. I've spent a fair amount of time with both Phil Spencer and Bobby Codick over the past day. I'm pretty sure we'll continue to see Call of Duty on PlayStation for many years to come. Oh, no, <laugh> as, as my lawyer, as my internet lawyer, Denise, you probably would advise me not to put thoughts like that in writing.

Alex Lindsay (00:51:41):
Yes, please don't. <Laugh>

Leo Laporte (00:51:43):
Discovery's a bitch.

Alex Lindsay (00:51:45):
Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:51:46):
This kind of undermines Sony's entire case in which they're saying, well, you know, we're worried about Call of Duty leaving our platform. And by the way, Microsoft has said, again and again, Phil Spencer has signed a deal saying, we'll give it to you for 10 years, guaranteed.

Alex Lindsay (00:52:05):
And it's hard for them to say that they're gonna give it guaranteed. Like, what if Sony changes the rules? You know, like, and which has been brought up that,

Leo Laporte (00:52:10):
Well, that's, they have a contract. Like, they're like, Hey, do we know what this is? What for 10 years? Or, this is what the deal is. Right? Right.

Alex Lindsay (00:52:16):
If they do that, absolutely. Because they, the FTC tried to press, Hey, are you going to, like, are you pro well promising that that's our goal? And they said, well, they're trying to press down on the goal. And they're like, well, if they change the rules, we're not gonna make everything available <laugh>. Like, but that's not gonna make sense. So, so I think that that's the case. I, I do find this one to be a little bit digging a little deep, you know, for the FTC <laugh>, like, I feel like this one was like the

Leo Laporte (00:52:39):
EU has already approved it. Right. Japan, the

Alex Lindsay (00:52:43):
EU approves it. It's, you're kinda of like, okay, well,

Leo Laporte (00:52:46):
Japan, where Sony's headquartered has approved it. Right. The only other person blocking it right now is the uk And they, and they chose a very interesting tack. They said, not so much, it was a cons about the console wars, but it was about the future of cloud gaming, whose future I might add is pretty cloudy. After Google pulled out with Stadia Mike as Sony doesn't really have a, a, a strong play in cloud <laugh>. I don't, and it's not a big market for Microsoft either at this point. So the UK's kinda out in left field on this. Among other testimony at this at this hearing, it's really kind of fascinating. Phil Spencer was pressed to kind of, for a long time, Microsoft said, no, it's a three player game. There's Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo's Switch. And a lot of people say the Switch is not a console.

(00:53:45):
Microsoft would like it to be a console. Cause if it is, then they're number three in the market. At some point. They got they got Spencer to agree that that Microsoft was losing the console wars, which is FTCs lawyer asked Spencer has, has Microsoft lost the console wars? Spencer paused for 10 seconds again from Tom Warren in the Verge to gather his thoughts and said, I thought a very, a very judicious statement. And the Verge decided to put it right next to his picture as the console. Wars is a social construct with the community. I would never want to count our community out. They're big fans. If you look at our market share in the console space over the last 20 plus years, we're in third place. He didn't wanna say we've lost, but he didn't wanna say, we've won <laugh>.

Alex Lindsay (00:54:44):
That first sentence. That that's a real quote.

Leo Laporte (00:54:46):
Yeah. As the c get this. Okay. Okay. Can you imagine this? This is, well, yeah. This is, this is the quote from The Verge as the Cons. Wars is a social construct with the community. I would never want to count our community out. They're big fans. That's double, that's corporate double speak. If I

Alex Lindsay (00:55:06):
Ever, he's just saying, I don't want to say we lost, but we're at third <laugh>. Like, and third is still making money. Like, I think that's what he's trying to say. Yeah. Third, still a profitable place to be. It's just that. So it's not like a, because Lost is that, that becomes the headline, you know, across many, many things. As much as he tried, you know, I think

Leo Laporte (00:55:21):
It's still the headline at The Verge. Has Xbox really lost the console wars <laugh>?

Alex Lindsay (00:55:26):
Well, but I think that, I think Microsoft, I mean, one of the things we have to look at is Microsoft has mentioned that what they're really interested in, or what they may be interested in is the mobile market. Mobile, of which Activision is actually a sizeable player, and Microsoft is not a player at all. You know? And so they're, you know, so micro, I think Activ, Activision is like the sixth, sixth largest in sales. Well, behind Apple, Tencent, alphabet, Sony, net Ease, I don't know even know what Net Ease does. But, but it's so, but, so, but, but Activision is, is sitting at number six or seven, and

Leo Laporte (00:55:57):
Net's is, I think, focus Chinese

Alex Lindsay (00:56:00):
Oh yeah. Competitor. And Tencent being like 30% of, you know, I mean, a huge percent or 17% of the market, right? Or, or maybe not 30% of the market. Spencer. Spencer was

Leo Laporte (00:56:09):
How the Activision deal could help Xbox consoles. This is the transcript. F t C, if the Microsoft is gonna grow, particularly in a business like console, it can grow by taking sure from its competitors. Spencer says there is no console growth in deal ftc.

Alex Lindsay (00:56:25):
Yeah, they're not. So, so the thing is, is that they're not, so the FTC is trying to say they're trying to take control of consoles and Micro Microsoft's not even interested in console. No. Like, they're, like, it's mobile. Maintain that, that's what he's saying. He's like, we're interested in mobile, we're interested in cloud, we're interested in these other things. They're not even playing the console war anymore. They have, everybody has what they have, and they're gonna, they're gonna support it and keep on making money at it. But there's, that's not, that's not what Microsoft, that's not why Microsoft bought Activision and Blizzard.

Leo Laporte (00:56:50):
They acquired Xeni Max because Sony had done an exclusive deal for two big Xeni Max games, death Loop and Ghost Wear. And they were very concerned about Starfield, which is now, by the way, there's a lot of buzz about, it's about to come out when we heard this is against Spencer, when we heard that Starfield was potentially also gonna skip Xbox. We can't be in a position as a third place console where we fall farther behind on content ownership. We bought Zenax to stay viable in the business. They thought about buying Zynga to get into mobile. Good thing they didn't, but they thought about it. I think this is one, I hope the judge, it's up to this administrative judge. I hope the judge is hearing this and says, yeah, no Sony, no. This was just an anti-competitive measure. Even your own country, Japan has, has approved the, the acquisition. Let it go through. I, I mean, I don't have an opinion. I don't care whether Microsoft gets Activision or not, but just thought it was, it's kind of, don't commit it to writing if you don't want it to show up in discovery. I, I tell Lisa that all the time. <Laugh>. No, I don't.

Jason Del Rey (00:58:00):
<Laugh>.

Leo Laporte (00:58:04):
All right. I think we can we can move on. From the Federal Trade Commission, prime Day's coming up July 11th and 12th, how important is Prime Day to to Amazon? Jason?

Jason Del Rey (00:58:19):
It's huge. To the company's top line. I mean Christmas in what month is it in this year? July. She keeps changing. Yeah. July. July again. Okay. They had it, they moved it to October during the pandemic at some point. Now there's another event in October. I mean, it's important. It's a revenue booster. I think this year might be the first year that third party. That's right. Sellers who have the Buy with Prime button can, can now offer deals on their own site. That, I mean, this is an aside, but the, you know, that little side battle between Amazon and Shopify, which ums all

Leo Laporte (00:59:01):
These. Yeah. It's interesting. So somebody asked you, cuz you talk, you were talking about the competitive space, and like, nobody's a winner forever. Walmart, nobody thought Walmart would beat Beat, but they did get beat by Amazon. And so somebody asked you, I thought a good question, who's gonna beat Amazon? And I was surprised to, to hear you say Shopify, possibly.

Jason Del Rey (00:59:19):
Well, you, I, I look at the landscape and for a couple years I thought maybe, maybe Instacart really moves aggressively outside of groceries. And they come at it from the last mile and then work backwards, and then <laugh>. We'll see. But Shopify's one, I think in the software realm that, that has been interesting to me. Now, they thought they would become a logistics company as well, and they bought a robotics company and a warehouse, a warehousing company, and they just offloaded all of that at a loss. Interesting. So that didn't really work, but yeah. Smart folks, and they have a lot of allies in the small, medium sized, you know online retailing community. But, but that was, yeah, that was just one. And, and, and TikTok, TikTok was another one as they

Leo Laporte (01:00:07):
Tiktok this week launched their buy with TikTok. That's really interesting. They, in fact, we were at VidCon and that they were pushing that, that you could sell stuff on TikTok. Like you saw a video on TikTok. Alex, you've said this for years. I remember you saying this 15 years ago, that it was just a matter of time before companies started making their own videos. Yeah. And banding,

Alex Lindsay (01:00:29):
We would test r and d Yeah. To, to make it interactive, to see we were doing r and d in, I don't know, 2002, 2003 to do, to, basically you're watching a video and you could click on multiple things theoretically and order any of them and not have, and have it be completely seamless. I think that the challenge right now is the seamless part is that you see something like that. I see a lot of things I have to admit, I get a lot of ads on Twitter that are related to, Hey, look at this cool thing. And a couple of them are pretty tempting. Lisa. I'm like, Lisa, Lisa, I can't order No, but the thing is here, but here's, here's the Amazon lock. I look at it and go, oh, I'm not gonna buy that if I can't buy it on Amazon. So a lot of times what I do is I look for that item on Amazon. Me too. I do that too. And then I buy it through Amazon and it comes down to the, it just comes down to I don't want to give my credit card to somebody else, and I wanna know I can return it. Have you seen any? And I wanna, you know, like the

Leo Laporte (01:01:14):
Ad

Alex Lindsay (01:01:15):
That's, that's the challenge

Leo Laporte (01:01:16):
On Twitter for that. Basically it's a police baton that extends out and they say it's great for

Alex Lindsay (01:01:22):
Camping at least once a day. Yeah. At least once a day at Lisa wants to buy. One's been around for a long time, she doesn't

Leo Laporte (01:01:26):
Need that. But

Alex Lindsay (01:01:28):
They, there's been around for, I don't know, since I was a kid. It's a police.

Leo Laporte (01:01:32):
It's an extendable thing that you can, it's not a police

Alex Lindsay (01:01:34):
Beat people with. Yeah. Yeah. They have 'em. Police put 'em on their, on their thing. They're on the back. Yeah. These ones, I don't, I doubt are quite as robust, but they you could

Leo Laporte (01:01:41):
Drive a truck on it. I know I saw it on Twitter.

Alex Lindsay (01:01:44):
I don't know if that would really work with that one, but it would be interesting to see. Thank you. They're, they're highly effective. But, but the, but the but what I would say though is that, is that the, you go in and the, and again, that's a great example of they figured out, what I will say is that the Twitter ones have figured out how to really just show you how a product works, which I think that is genius. Yes. So I watch a lot of them, mostly to go in five seconds research. I understand in five seconds, I understand what that product is. I understand what the solve is. I understand what it does, and it does it better than almost anything I've ever seen. So from an education research like education these are

Leo Laporte (01:02:19):
Tiktok videos basically on Twitter. Right.

Alex Lindsay (01:02:21):
These super powerful. Yeah. They're, they're super powerful. And, and everyone who does education should watch these ads. Because I look at 'em and I go look at, look at how the edits are perfect, you know, to show how this works.

Leo Laporte (01:02:30):
These are all, I think Chinese, I never ordered.

Alex Lindsay (01:02:32):
I never buy any of 'em.

Leo Laporte (01:02:33):
And, and I've started, somebody told me last week, I think Ashley Eske, I said, I don't wanna see that ad for the airplane that you can't break ever again. Just block it. Oh my gosh. Just block it. But then you look at the name

Alex Lindsay (01:02:44):
That comes out as

Leo Laporte (01:02:45):
Southern Name. This one is from PSO of the Day. And I know that that's a made up AI generated name, that if I block this one, I'm gonna see the same damn ad again. Right.

Alex Lindsay (01:02:57):
See? And I enjoy them. I'm just like, I'm always like, you're weird at it. Look at that, Eric. Look at such a weird look at how they did that.

Denise Howell (01:03:02):
<Laugh> TikTok absolutely had to do this to compete with Instagram. And I guess Twitter. I mean, I don't, I you guys are talking about Twitter ads, like you enjoy them. I I don't, I blocked them for no

Leo Laporte (01:03:14):
Fun. No. I blocked them. Yes, I do. I block them.

Alex Lindsay (01:03:16):
Block I block. If they're not those video ads, I block 'em all. I watch the video ads. Cause I think that they're interesting. But I, from a technical perspective,

Leo Laporte (01:03:23):
He's, yeah, he's unique. Everything else, I just block block, block block s. Right. He's a unique, right, right,

Denise Howell (01:03:26):
Right. Yeah. I, but in Instagram has been doing this for, for a while now. Where, where you can buy direct on their platform.

Leo Laporte (01:03:33):
Oh my God. They work. I'm wearing Instagram underwear. I've got in <laugh>, I've got it all. Everything. I, I am such a sucker except that Instagram's made a mistake. They've decided once I cross 65, that the only ads I'm gonna see are for erectile dysfunction ads. So that's all I see now. Like every other ad I do is all I see. I

Denise Howell (01:03:52):
Certainly hope that doesn't happen to me when that time comes.

Leo Laporte (01:03:54):
<Laugh>, I don't know what you're gonna get. I don't know. You're probably gonna get ads for adult diapers or something. I, it's very insulting, I have to say. It's extremely insulting. But,

Denise Howell (01:04:04):
But do you ever click the thing where you tell it? That's not relevant to me.

Leo Laporte (01:04:08):
Oh, see, I don't know about this <laugh> I dunno about this

Alex Lindsay (01:04:11):
Stuff. Would that be, yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:04:14):
I don't know. So, yeah, dude, here's one. Do that every third, every third thing on Instagram is an ad. Now, it used to be every 10th picture. Now it's every third

Alex Lindsay (01:04:22):
Picture. Yeah. I, the, I, I don't have Instagram on my phone. I, and I find it very cumbersome on the web. So I, I don't see a lot of ads on Instagram.

Leo Laporte (01:04:28):
Benefits of testosterone. I don't see Instagram, increased energy, improved focus, reduced fat, stronger drive. Oh, that's what I need more testosterone.

Denise Howell (01:04:38):
I tell you though, the existence of platforms like PayPal and Apple Pay countermand, that Amazon Lockin problem.

Leo Laporte (01:04:47):
I, well, and I, that's, that's the answer to the question that you were answering, Jason. Yeah. Maybe Shopify, but maybe TikTok, I mean, is smart of TikTok to do this, right, Denise? I mean, this is,

Denise Howell (01:04:58):
Oh, this is brilliant.

Leo Laporte (01:04:59):
Oh, yeah. They have to, they call it Project S they're experimenting with, but this is the, the twist selling their own products. They wanna become like Shein. Right. They wanna sell their own. And why not? Right? UK users have begun to see, this is from Financial Times, a new shopping feature within the TikTok app called Trendy Beat

Alex Lindsay (01:05:22):
<Laugh>.

Leo Laporte (01:05:24):
You can tell a Chinese person wrote that. Right? I mean, a section offering items that have proven popular on videos, such as tools to extract ear wax or brush pet hair off clothing.

Alex Lindsay (01:05:35):
Have you seen the, the pictures of the, of Chinese influencers under a bridge on the side of the road? Oh,

Leo Laporte (01:05:41):
Isn't that

Alex Lindsay (01:05:41):
Wild? Hundreds of them. You know, this is a big business. We, when we think about like people doing these streams and selling things in China, it is at a whole level that is hard to completely,

Jason Del Rey (01:05:52):
Completely normal shopping behavior. And, and yeah. Talk's parent company. I think the, the, the app there that is essentially TikTok, the original, I think is selling something like 10 billion, 10 billion items in, in a year. And a lot of it, as you're saying, through live streaming commerce, right. And there's been a big bet that this is going to take off here eventually. You know, Amazon's made a, you know, trying their hand at it in different forms. And I keep hearing venture capitalists tell me it's gonna happen here as well. But yeah, it's huge. I guess that's, that's what's showing right now.

Alex Lindsay (01:06:30):
Although I will say that Amazon has largely been, I I think Amazon Live has not been very successful. No. Anyone, everybody I've talked to has said has been kind of a dumpster fire for them.

Jason Del Rey (01:06:39):
It is. They're, you know, to me at least Amazon's a buying platform, not a shopping platform. You're transacting. You're not, you're not, you know, that's

Leo Laporte (01:06:48):
A good distinction. Maybe that makes sense. Maybe a

Jason Del Rey (01:06:50):
Lot of people browse, but I don't, I'm in and out minus the deceptive patterns or trying to avoid the dark, dark matter. I'm mixing, I'm mixing up all my terms here, but that's fine.

Denise Howell (01:07:02):
I re I remember, Leo, you and I talked about this the last time I was on Twit. I'm with Jason. I'm a, I'm a in and out on Amazon mostly. And you've said you're the opposite. Well,

Leo Laporte (01:07:12):
When you go, okay. So Denise, when you go, when you walking down down Abbott Kinney do you, will you go, which is the great sh beautiful, cool shopping street in Santa Monica, or Venice, right? Venice. You go down Abbott. Kenny, do you go into the stores and browse, or do you walk by and walk by and walk by?

Denise Howell (01:07:34):
Oh, I mean, physical shopping is very different Yeah. For me than online shopping.

Leo Laporte (01:07:39):
Yeah. You're a browser and that, yeah. Physic.

Denise Howell (01:07:41):
Yeah,

Leo Laporte (01:07:41):
I'm a browser. Why? Yeah. Is it, why is that, why do you do that At Lisa's kind of, Lisa's kind of half and half. She'll duck into stores, look around and see if there's anything that catches her eye and then duck out. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. But why do you, why do you do that in physical space, but not on Amazon?

Denise Howell (01:07:58):
For fun and recreation, I guess. <Laugh>. Okay. And you're out, you know, a lot of, we have a lot of beautiful shopping malls in Southern California.

Leo Laporte (01:08:05):
I think Amazon's missing a bet, because I think Amazon doesn't make it browse friendly. Right.

Jason Del Rey (01:08:10):
They've, they've tried for years and years, and then they figured, well, we can't do it online. So then they experimented with these four star stores. I don't know if you've ever been in one of them.

Leo Laporte (01:08:20):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jason Del Rey (01:08:21):
It's basically like, kind of a bizarre gift store with, you know, four star items from appliances to, I mean, like <laugh>, I feel like there was like a, a blender and then some other gifts. And that was one of their physical store experiments

Leo Laporte (01:08:37):
Idea was failed. Their idea was that, that all of these are four star ratings. Right. So they're closing them, correct. Up, by the way, <laugh> 16 of

Jason Del Rey (01:08:46):
'Em. Yeah. I think they're, I think, yeah, I think they're done. Well, there was a mix that in the bookstores.

Leo Laporte (01:08:50):
Oh, that was the bookstores too. It was, yeah.

Alex Lindsay (01:08:52):
It felt really odd. Like, I, I, there was one in cord Madera, I think there's still there. It might still be there or whatever, but it always, you walked in and it was, I think they tried to create that apple, like, Hey, there's a bunch of space between all the objects. But it was kind of like this weird, like, I don't understand why I'm here. I, I tried. I was like, I was interested, but it, it just, it did feel like, it was like an odd selection of things that I don't know why I would buy.

Leo Laporte (01:09:14):
Yeah. And

Jason Del Rey (01:09:14):
They don't

Leo Laporte (01:09:15):
Listen. They don't go together either. I mean, it's like it's like a hodge, it's more of a hodgepodge, right?

Alex Lindsay (01:09:22):
Yeah.

Jason Del Rey (01:09:23):
Yeah. They're, they're gone now. But you know, and maybe they don't, I mean, maybe they don't need to <laugh> create a shopping experience that's, I don't know what some would call inspiring or, you know the window shopping effect. You know, there are, you know, it, it's not Pinterest or, you know. Yeah. I don't have

Alex Lindsay (01:09:43):
It. I get the,

Leo Laporte (01:09:44):
I get the feeling they have teams almost in competition saying, alright, you guys are in charge of making us browsable. You're in ch you know, like, I, I kind of feel like that's how, maybe it's, cuz I've read the Brad Stone books. I feel like that's how they figured out how to kind of incentivize internally people innovating with new ideas. I mean, I'm looking at the front page of Amazon right now. This is, this is kind of their idea of what a browse this is like a four star store, right? It's browsing pick up where you left off. Buy again, keep shopping for top deal prep for prime day deals on free. But this is based on what I've already purchased, which is one of the problems. And which is I already own all that.

Alex Lindsay (01:10:27):
I love getting ads for ads for the next two months on things that I already bought. Like, I'm just kinda like, okay, I already bought that. Like,

Leo Laporte (01:10:32):
But that's an algorithm issue, right? That's,

Jason Del Rey (01:10:33):
That's happened since like 1999. It, it just, yeah. It's never been solved. Yeah, exactly.

Leo Laporte (01:10:39):
I probably shouldn't show, show this on the, on the screen cuz then people are gonna be able to figure out what's wrong with me. Right. Buy again, pork rind cru

Jason Del Rey (01:10:47):
Crumbs. I was waiting, I was waiting for something really embarrassing. <Laugh>

Leo Laporte (01:10:52):
Right after the pork rind crumbs. You're gonna need high absorption magnesium <laugh> to purge the pork rind crumbs, drums, <laugh>. Yeah, don't look at what I buy. Does Walmart, lemme go to Walmart. Does Walmart try to do this too? Is there, I mean, Walmart at least has a retail experience, mu you know, a real presence there.

Jason Del Rey (01:11:14):
They do. Although, you know, we, we, we are Walmart shoppers in, in our home too, out in New Jersey. And as we already know, and Alex embarrassed me or poked fun at me for Trader Joe's shoppers as well. <Laugh>. but, but we, we, we are almost exclusively Walmart pickup, pickup in the parking lot. Right. shoppers.

Leo Laporte (01:11:36):
I'm looking, here's Walmart's homepage. This looks, you know, similar in some ways to Amazon. They don't have the data about what I buy cuz I don't buy from them. So they don't Right. You know, they think I might want a pink bicycle with a basket. I

Denise Howell (01:11:51):
Realize as you're showing these homepages, including the Amazon one, I almost

Jason Del Rey (01:11:55):
Never, you never go to a home.

Leo Laporte (01:11:57):
No, never see it. Never see it never,

Denise Howell (01:11:58):
Never. And on on any other site like Walmart or anywhere else, I might be shopping. I go straight to search. Yeah. Because that's, I know what I'm looking

Leo Laporte (01:12:06):
For. Or you do, like Alex did and said, well, I see this thing on Twitter. How much can I get it for at Amazon and you and pay? I do

Alex Lindsay (01:12:12):
That all the time. Like, if I'm interested in something that I see somewhere else, I come back to Amazon almost all the time. The only place I don't do that is bookstores of all places. Mm. So if I'm in a bookstore, I will buy the book there because I'm like, if I don't buy the book here, the bookstore won't be here when I get, you know, that's exactly. Someday, right? Yeah. So that behavior will kill that bookstore. And so the one place that I is like, which is I find the irony thick in the fact that Amazon started as a book, a book thing. And it's the one thing if I'm at a bookstore, I'm like, I'm going to buy this book from this, from this reseller. Because I, I like the fact, like Denise was talking about, I like going into book a great bookstore.

(01:12:45):
Like the best bookstore in California as far as I'm concerned is Builder's bookstore in Berkeley. It's all design or design and architecture and everything else. And, you know, gardens and stuff like that. I love going in there because it's so well curated. And I think this is where companies have to figure out where they're gonna be in that area. Yeah. That it, I have a relation, you know, I, I know the owner. I've seen him for the last 25 years. I, I buy one book when I come in. Like, I know I'm gonna buy a book <laugh>, and I'm, I'm

Leo Laporte (01:13:11):
Guessing that one book every three weeks is not keeping them afloat. I hate to tell you. No, but,

Alex Lindsay (01:13:16):
But a lot of us are. But, but but's the thing is

Leo Laporte (01:13:18):
That That's right. No, I do the

Alex Lindsay (01:13:19):
Thing people, you know, but I

Leo Laporte (01:13:21):
Get, get frustrated cause I go in and they don't have the book. They say, we can order it for you. We'll have it in five days. And I say, or I can order it and I'll have it tomorrow.

Alex Lindsay (01:13:28):
But the distinction is, is I don't know what I'm going to buy. I go into that store to find something that I, I I'm going into that. And this is what, this is what we got back to is with Amazon, I go and I'm looking for a book. Right. With Builder's bookstore. I, I am going to browse. Yeah, that's right. I'm going to wander around and I'm going to find an interesting book that I never knew existed and I'm gonna buy it. Like, you know. Right. And that's, are you

Jason Del Rey (01:13:50):
Also taking recommendations from, from someone working there? Or are you usually just browsing on your own? So that's another piece

Alex Lindsay (01:13:56):
Of it. It's, it's an, it's an, it's not a very big bookstore. It's like, it's like the size of my living room. You know, like, like it's, it's a very small bookstore and it just has all the perfect things, you know? And so the, I could buy

Leo Laporte (01:14:09):
Lucky book. You're

Alex Lindsay (01:14:10):
Very lucky. Yeah, no, it's, it's a incredible, if you're a designer, that's story. It's incredible. Story book, story story. Yeah. There's, there's a whole section on topography. Like, just

Leo Laporte (01:14:19):
So, like, there's like book after book after

Alex Lindsay (01:14:21):
Book won't, you know, be shopping.

Leo Laporte (01:14:22):
I won't man, but, okay, good. But, but, but,

Alex Lindsay (01:14:24):
But what I would say is that, is that there's, there, what's interesting about that is that is that, I think that's where companies who are trying to be successful have to figure out what's, how can I have a niche that I just own? You know, not, not, how do I do how, how do I have every book out there that's not like tattered cover in Denver is not, I don't think I gotta

Leo Laporte (01:14:45):
Show you. I gotta take a break, but I gotta show you this Jason cuz I'm on the Walmart page and I'm kind of one of those nerds that goes to the bottom of the page. And there's this thing hashtag I I Y W Y K. And I go, oh, I wonder what that is. It turns out that there's social feed. It says shop. Oh yeah, our social feed. Do you see anything on the social feed? No. <laugh>. Oh no, I don't. I don't. Apparently nobody's using hashtag I Y W Y K.

Alex Lindsay (01:15:15):
Ooh, that's

Leo Laporte (01:15:15):
Sad. Which I'm guessing is happens all the time. If you Walmart, you'll know. I'm guessing. I don't know

Jason Del Rey (01:15:21):
If you want

Alex Lindsay (01:15:22):
I

Jason Del Rey (01:15:24):
That did not come up in my book research. Maybe that's why. <Laugh>,

Leo Laporte (01:15:28):
Here's one more great feature. Walmart's social feed, which is absolutely empty.

Alex Lindsay (01:15:35):
Yek Yek.

Leo Laporte (01:15:36):
All right, let me take a little break. And I love this panel and we're so way behind now. I don't know what's gonna happen, but I'm having too much fun with Denise Howell. So wonderful to see you as always. Look for her new podcast@hearsayculture.com. She's my internet lawyer. I just wanna say, every time I do something, Denise goes, I, I opened our Mastodon instance. She said, well, you know, you should know <laugh>. I thank you, Denise. If it weren't for you, I'd probably do a lot of stupid things. Also, Alex Lindsay from Mac Break Weekly, always a pleasure. Office Hours is an amazing achievement. I'm trying to be more like you. In fact, I, I've gone to the team and I've said, if we were gonna start TWIT today, how do we do it differently? Because really we've done it kinda old school, right? That was 2005, like a, like a little mini internet radio or TV station. If we were gonna start it today, how would we do it? And inevitably, the offer, the answer is Office hours.global. That's how you do it.

Alex Lindsay (01:16:38):
Well, I, I have a huge q and a engine You're welcome to have for me.

Leo Laporte (01:16:41):
I, yeah, I mean, it's just the whole Operation Mind block.

Alex Lindsay (01:16:46):
Really powerful. Yeah. What

Leo Laporte (01:16:48):
You've in done, incredible group of people done. Incredible. well, and as always, it's community, isn't it? That's what makes a difference. Yeah. Jason Del Ray, so great to have you. His new book which came out like a couple of days ago, right?

Jason Del Rey (01:17:02):
Yeah. I want to say you're getting the sharpest Jason Delray. You could, but that would be a lie because it came out on Tuesday and I've just been

Leo Laporte (01:17:09):
Oh, can imagine. How many interviews, how many

Jason Del Rey (01:17:12):
I've well, for the last three weeks combined, I'm probably up to about 30 to 35, something like that.

Leo Laporte (01:17:20):
But see, that's great.

Jason Del Rey (01:17:22):
And this is number one

Leo Laporte (01:17:23):
When Yes, of course, as all of them are. This is the author of the new Harper Collins book, winner Sells All. Jason, for years, I did a radio show in San Francisco on K N B R, where I would interview all the authors on tour. And because we were on the West Coast, it was always the end of a 30 City tour. Let me tell you. I know Sharp Authors <laugh>. They, they'd come in and of course, as you, as you might know, I don't know, they don't think they do this anymore. They, the Harper Collins would put a piece of paper in the book with the questions you should ask.

Jason Del Rey (01:17:59):
Ah, those, my publicist May yeah, may have, may have put together a sheet

Leo Laporte (01:18:05):
Of I I'm sure they did. Questions. Most interviewers, if you're in Good Morning, Milwaukee, they're not gonna read the book. They don't know what you're talking about. So they're gonna ask the 10 questions, which means you get the same question over and over and over and over and over and over and over. At least you don't have to travel anymore, which is probably a good thing. This is a book you should read. In fact, the best thing you, you, you, you, you did is the excerpts, the excerpt and fortune really makes you want to read the book. It's like, oh, I gotta, I gotta get more. That's really cool. Yeah.

Jason Del Rey (01:18:35):
Thank you.

Leo Laporte (01:18:36):
Winner sells all. It's really about Walmart and Amazon. But there's stuff in here about Walmart. I had no idea. It's fascinating. It's really fascinating. Our show today brought to you by Ag One, by Athletic Greens. I, this is a tradition. Whenever I have the Athletic Greens ad, I don't eat my vi I don't eat my athletic Greens in the morning. I have my athletic Greens in the afternoon. Athletic Greens is awesome. Like many of you, I'm sure I wanted to support my health. I was taking literally a fist full of pills every morning. I am late to the game. Everybody's heard of G one. I think it was Fatted in 2010 when I started asking around people said, oh yeah, aunt Pru said, what are you talking about? I've been using that for years. It's been a part of millions of routines since 2010.

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(01:20:50):
Will TikTok. Will TikTok be, I think Alex this is what you were talking about all those years ago with videos that have, have products in them, right? That you watch the video for the entertainment, but then you say, but I want that tent.

Alex Lindsay (01:21:05):
It's, it's some of it. I mean, I think that what, what we were really, you know, doing on our end was to build applicable items within a movie. So that if you're watching a movie and you see something, you would get into the habit of I can just push a button down and I can select Brad Pitt shirt <laugh>. So like, like

Leo Laporte (01:21:22):
What is that? So the con it's content first, but then there's an opportunity to buy. Well,

Alex Lindsay (01:21:27):
And the idea is it's totally passive. You don't, it doesn't run into you. It just is. You just get to a point where you know it. And I think that Amazon is actually really close to this working. So they have X-ray inside of Amazon Prime where you can see all the actors. What they haven't added there is it'll show you all the actors in the scene. Well, it wouldn't take very much for them to add all the items in the scene, you know, like, you know, so these are, these are all the, oh yeah, these are all the relevant items on

Leo Laporte (01:21:50):
Amazon. Oh yeah. Xray, maybe that's the whole purpose.

Alex Lindsay (01:21:53):
It might be what they're kind of getting towards is figuring that model out. And it wouldn't take them very, it, it, it's a little bit

Leo Laporte (01:21:58):
Of work. Interesting.

Alex Lindsay (01:21:59):
Yeah. But when you talk about product placing, product placement gets really competitive when the idea is is do I have a product that's in there? But not only that, I want it to make sure that it's in Amazon so that you can select it. You can just hit, and, and what'll happen is, the idea is, is that it leaves it as a passive experience. Someone doesn't have to do anything. And if it was successful enough, you'd end up with a situation where I never have to run ads because there's enough sales, there's enough C T R to there's a high enough C T R to, to make that work. You know, click through rate, where you have basically you have all these hot, these hot items. And you know, you sell a thousand shirts cuz Brad Pitt was wearing it. You know, or, and that, that's what we, that's what we started working on 20 years ago. And no one's done it yet, or partially cause Apple gutted out the QuickTime

Leo Laporte (01:22:44):
In the case of Chris Evans sweater in Knives Out.

Alex Lindsay (01:22:49):
Exactly. They

Leo Laporte (01:22:50):
Could have sold a lot of these, right? Oh yeah. They

Alex Lindsay (01:22:52):
Would've sold millions. They would've sold, they would've made more money on that sweater. Than, than than the movie. Than the movie. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:22:58):
So, or lots of sweaters like

Alex Lindsay (01:23:01):
It, depending

Leo Laporte (01:23:02):
On how expensive it Well, problem it's an Aaron, it's an errand sweater. You can get 'em from a lot of different places, I guess. But

Denise Howell (01:23:07):
There are at least two HBO shows where, I can't fathom why they're not already doing this. Uhhuh Succession is one. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Yes. because people are fascinated by the wardrobe in that show show, until

Leo Laporte (01:23:20):
You find out how much China lost.

Denise Howell (01:23:22):
That was what I was gonna say. The $600 baseball cap is more of sort of a novelty item than something that everyone's

Leo Laporte (01:23:29):
Gonna go off and lemme guess what the other one is. Is it and just Throne like that?

Denise Howell (01:23:33):
Well, that and Sex and the City, the whole franchise. Yeah. I mean, you have no, I, if you looked on the socials, there are so many accounts that exist only to tell you exactly what all the characters are wearing. And the whole costume department of and just like that has its own Instagram account. <Laugh>.

Leo Laporte (01:23:57):
No, and by the way, Carrie has her own store in New York City, which I'm dying to go to. Did you know that? Yes.

Denise Howell (01:24:05):
That would be Sarah Jessica Parker. Yes,

Leo Laporte (01:24:07):
Yes, yes. Why does Sarah Jessica Parker, who probably has more money than God for some reason, has decided to open a retail outlet, selling shoes in

Denise Howell (01:24:17):
She's been selling shoes for a while, that's, she thinks she's a good shoe designer. And, you know, she does design shoes, much like the ones her characters where

Leo Laporte (01:24:27):
S j

Denise Howell (01:24:28):
Been on TV

Leo Laporte (01:24:29):
New arrivals for the Color Lovers Shop now. So how long before Amazon buys this? Maybe that's her plan, right?

Denise Howell (01:24:41):
I don't know. I mean, I think she's doing fine. I not, she looked at revenues, et cetera,

Leo Laporte (01:24:45):
But she, you

Jason Del Rey (01:24:46):
Know, I'll tell you, there, there would've been a day a couple years ago when Mark Lori was still at Walmart, that they were on this, they thought they were gonna buy all these up and coming brands and different, different type of customer coming into Walmart. And he would've been a prime. I'm sure he would've went and talked to her about buying that thing. I don't think she's, I don't think she needs

Leo Laporte (01:25:07):
This. I think she does it for fun. There was, I just read a profile of her, I can't remember where it was in New Yorker somewhere, where they talk about going in and she loves selling shoes to people who come in. Yeah. And, and of course the people are going, wait a minute, Carrie Bradshaw is selling me the shoes. Okay, I'll take five. Thank you very much. It apparently is a, but I don't think she does it. I can't imagine she does it for money. That is just a, that's a wild story. So they're

Denise Howell (01:25:35):
Not cheap.

Leo Laporte (01:25:37):
No. 500 bucks

Denise Howell (01:25:38):
Up. So if she's, she's selling at volume at all. She's

Jason Del Rey (01:25:41):
Doing it for the money <laugh>. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:25:43):
She's not under a bridge with a ring light doing videos for her. So what's the story, Alex, you brought this up before the break. Yeah,

Alex Lindsay (01:25:52):
So the, the, the story is, is that for I, and I I'm not sure which platform, but basically it is the, the, the sorting of where the stream starts sorts into that community. So in, in China, so it's regional, it's a regional stream. And so what they're doing is they want to be in the region where there's a lot of potential buyers. So they may not live there,

Leo Laporte (01:26:14):
But they need to be somewhere where they're

Alex Lindsay (01:26:16):
Near stream with their phone. They're near, near, the way that the algorithm works is that it's, it's, it's trying to only show them in that region. So they go to the regions and they're like under a, you know, they're somewhere under the highway <laugh>, but in the region that they need to be in so that they can reach the, the, the buyers for that specific

Leo Laporte (01:26:31):
Vertical. So they're trying to game basic money, basically game the, the

Alex Lindsay (01:26:33):
System. They're gaming the system. Yeah, yeah. Where they're attempting to. Yeah, absolutely. That is. And so

Leo Laporte (01:26:38):
It's, it's amazing.

Alex Lindsay (01:26:39):
But the scale, the scale of, of yeah, the scale is kind of unbelievable. In, in China there must

Leo Laporte (01:26:47):
Be a hundred.

Alex Lindsay (01:26:48):
That's why everyone's interested in, they can't figure out how to do it in the United States. Yep. and it, and it may have to do, I think with the re the quality of the retail outlets in China or not, as, you know, they're just not the same level. It's harder to find the things that you need necessarily of, of that are specific verticals. And so because of that, there's more friction in being able to get them that the online streaming might make more sense. But it's, it's a, it's, it's an in, like, as a, as a live streamer, we, we watch live streaming in China all the time. Like, we watch the trends because we're, everyone's trying to figure out how to crack that. Cuz that's like the, a very big golden egg <laugh>. Like, everyone's sitting out looking

Leo Laporte (01:27:24):
At like, what, what's interesting is

Alex Lindsay (01:27:25):
It doesn't exist here

Leo Laporte (01:27:25):
Is how misinterpreted this was. Some people said, oh, they're homeless. They have to do that under a bridge. Cuz they don't. No, it's because as, as you said, they're gaming the algorithm. They're in ung in the Hannan province, and

Alex Lindsay (01:27:39):
Some of them are making a lot of money. Like they, you know, this is where they start and then they end up with their own little studio somewhere, and then they make up, I mean, some of these influencers are, you know, they're making influencer money, you know.

Leo Laporte (01:27:49):
Well, having, you know, the other reason we were down your way Denise's that VidCon was being held at the Anaheim Convention Center. And that is a fascinating place to go. Originally started by the Greens it was acquired by Viacom, which tells you something the, the key sponsor has been almost every year YouTube last year it was TikTok, it was YouTube again this year. And it's not, you don't see Mr. Beast there anymore, right? You don't see the established YouTubers. You see the up and coming the hungry streamers there. But there are long lines with you. You go into the conference, there's a whole bunch of conferences, you know, seminars going on. But on the main conference floor, there's two large stage areas, 500 people, and they're two com going on at the same time, two different presentations. One was some Ghost Hunters YouTube video. I don't remember what the other was. The, the, the audience is filled with screaming fans. And I, I was watching the Ghost Hunters one. They said, well, we got our video, we're gonna put it up in a couple of days. You wanna see it now. And the fans are, but what's really clear is that these are all very narrow niches that have this very strong fan base, and there's probably hundreds of them. Yeah, it's amazing.

Denise Howell (01:29:14):
A long tail lives

Leo Laporte (01:29:15):
<Laugh>. Yeah, it is the, I mean, we're the, we're the long tail, right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, I mean, we don't, when we started there was nobody hardly doing podcasting. So it was easy to get a big audience. Now there's a lot more shows and you know, we still have a large audience relative to 90% of the other podcasts out there. But it's, it's definitely sliced up more. But if you wanna, if you want a podcast about tech news, there's only a handful. So we're in, you know, we're in that niche. It's just, to me it's fascinating and it's, and it's, I imagine it's the future. Yes.

Alex Lindsay (01:29:50):
Yeah. I mean, I, I probably, well over half of my viewing is now YouTube <laugh>. Like, it's not, not even YouTube tv, every, you know, I mean, it's

Leo Laporte (01:29:57):
Mostly everybody there is under 25, but everybody under 25, that's, they're watching YouTube, right? Your 10 year old. Yeah. My Jason is not, my is not watching Network television

Alex Lindsay (01:30:06):
<Laugh>, when my, when my, my daughter learns, she's learning guitar and bass and stuff like that. She doesn't go, she doesn't take lessons. She literally just goes, I, I'm sure that that song's on YouTube and, and, and there's somebody doing, it's not that the song is on YouTube. There is almost any song you can imagine. There is somebody that will show you how to play it on the guitar, <laugh> like it, and, you know, and, and sit there and, and has, you know listeners that are, are viewers enough viewers? That's probably their only business.

Denise Howell (01:30:30):
Right. TikTok too. Very useful in that way. This the VidCon show, which I think would be really interesting to go to one year. But I haven't been, it sounds almost more like Comic-Con where it's not an industry event, but fans come.

Leo Laporte (01:30:43):
Yeah, it's

Alex Lindsay (01:30:44):
Both. Yeah. VidCon is, there's an, it's both. There's another one, there's, there is a creator track there. I've spoken to Creative

Leo Laporte (01:30:49):
Track. There's creative track and an industry track. So you go upstairs and there's real serious business going on. But on the ground floor, they got cost players just like you would at a comic-con. Yeah. You have fans, you have screaming teenagers, <laugh>

Alex Lindsay (01:31:04):
Down there.

Denise Howell (01:31:05):
Oh, go ahead. Can I fondly reminisce for one second about the fact that the first time I ever met Alex Lindsay in person, maybe the first time that I met you in person, Leo was at the podcast and new media expo Yes. In Ontario, California. Absolute, yes. In 2007, <laugh>.

Alex Lindsay (01:31:21):
Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:31:22):
Absolutely. There was nobody screaming at that. I can tell you right now. No screaming teenagers.

Alex Lindsay (01:31:27):
Wasn't that the beginning of the Hile mics? I think that was the

Leo Laporte (01:31:30):
It is. I won I won podcast of, of the year award or whatever, and the prize was this microphone <laugh>. Yeah. Yeah. And I fell in love with it. Yeah. And used it ever since. <Laugh>.

Denise Howell (01:31:40):
Alex, you had a Zoom.

Leo Laporte (01:31:41):
Oh my. You were showing off your Zoom. I had a,

Alex Lindsay (01:31:44):
Oh my God. I had a, I was like, I was excited that I had a, that I had the, the new thing and you did mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. I never used it. Like I, I, I tried, but I never,

Leo Laporte (01:31:53):
That's where I met Chris Marquardt, our photo guy. And he interviewed me on a Nokia camera called the, I think it was the P 90. It was a video. It was a smart smartphone. Yeah, I remember that. That looked like a camcorder. <Laugh>.

Alex Lindsay (01:32:08):
Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:32:09):
And it was like, wow. Very modern <laugh>. I remember,

Alex Lindsay (01:32:12):
I remember I met, I mean, we went to a party and it was Kent Nichols from Asco Nja as oh, ninja Kent. And, and in the airport I met Dr. Kiki you know, Kiki Sanford. And so it was, it was, that was a great, that was a, a moment, you know, that thousand seven, that one podcast. Here's

Leo Laporte (01:32:28):
The lesson. Nobody's ever heard any, anybody, you know, I mean, ask Ninja, which was tip was number one, right? I mean, I know Kent, he's done very well as a consultant since, but that's what happens, right? I

Alex Lindsay (01:32:40):
Wonder how Brother Love has

Leo Laporte (01:32:42):
Done. Exactly. You know? Right. I mean

Alex Lindsay (01:32:44):
I'm doing a lot of Googling right now. <Laugh>. Yeah,

Leo Laporte (01:32:48):
Exactly. Brian, Brian Abbots Abbott is still doing cover V. Right? So there are a lot of podcasts that are still around. We're still around

Alex Lindsay (01:32:55):
Z Frank, Zay Frank was like a, was like a ze

Leo Laporte (01:32:57):
Frank

Alex Lindsay (01:32:58):
Rockstar at that Z Frank,

Leo Laporte (01:33:00):
He invented.

Alex Lindsay (01:33:01):
He's, well, he's

Leo Laporte (01:33:01):
Done well, this video, right? Yeah. He's done very well. He went on to do what was it, taste? He did a, a cooking. So he invented the top-down recipe video, which nobody, you know, you don't get royalties for, but, but you get the claim to fame. Anyway, his,

Alex Lindsay (01:33:19):
His short, his short on procrastination is like one of the best videos ever made. <Laugh>. Like, it's just, it's so good. Oh God. We feel

Leo Laporte (01:33:26):
Like old, old timers here. Nostalgically remember, remember

Alex Lindsay (01:33:31):
When, remember interviewing the guys who made 4 0 5 the movie? Oh, God. About, about how they put that, remember 4 0 5 you see it now we're really showing our age. 4 0 5. The movie was like, that was like one of the first like

Leo Laporte (01:33:44):
Now Jason and I are both googling this one. All right? Yeah.

Alex Lindsay (01:33:47):
4 0 5. The movie was like the 2001, 2002, I think. The

Leo Laporte (01:33:51):
First viral, viral video video of the internet

Alex Lindsay (01:33:54):
Age. It really was. It was, it was it was really great. A lot of us were like, oh, this is really,

Leo Laporte (01:34:00):
Here we go. And now you can watch it if you go to 4 0 5, the movie.com. Is it the 4 0 5? Is it the highway? And in LA it's

Alex Lindsay (01:34:08):
About the 4 0 5. Yeah, it's about the 4 0 5. I mean, it's only a couple minutes long. It's, it's it's,

Leo Laporte (01:34:13):
This is it kids.

Alex Lindsay (01:34:14):
It's the fact that they shot it like in, out, in their backyard. Like it was the, you know, that's the part that, you know, was, was great. Jason,

Leo Laporte (01:34:20):
If you, if you told your 10 year old <laugh> that the first viral video was, was video of people going down the 4 0 5,

Alex Lindsay (01:34:28):
You know what, he'd, he'd get a i he get a kick outta of it. Watch. You just have to watch it. See there's an airliner.

Leo Laporte (01:34:35):
Oh, is it gonna land on it? Land on the 4 0 5.

Alex Lindsay (01:34:38):
Ah,

Leo Laporte (01:34:40):
You can tell it's CGI though, right? It looks too good compared to the rest of the video. Oh. Oh,

Alex Lindsay (01:34:47):
This is 25 years ago.

Leo Laporte (01:34:49):
It feels like 75 years ago. It really does. It's a couple of decades ago. But this was when, you know, in 2000, how did you stream video? I don't, was

Alex Lindsay (01:35:00):
It? No, it was just on somebody's website, you know. And did you have to

Leo Laporte (01:35:03):
Do a real player?

Alex Lindsay (01:35:06):
No. No. I think it was on, like you could do a, you could upload a QuickTime. So it was just like a QuickTime. You just run into it.

Leo Laporte (01:35:13):
Wow. Actually this is quite good. Show this to your 10 year old and say, this is, this is the jazz singer. This is Al Jolson's, the jazz singer for the internet age. This is when talkies started. It's an amazing thing. Oh my God, this actually is quite good. It says before, five years before YouTube, 4 0 5 msed, hundreds of millions of views.

Alex Lindsay (01:35:36):
Well, like, you know, and it was before YouTube, but there was lots of little, like I, my I did a, some silly video about how the new iPhone was going to be all, you know, video is gonna be big. It was the second iPhone, or the new iPhone that had video. And I built a rig for it that afternoon when I bought it, <laugh>. And I did a little video about it, like, this is gonna be the, you know, we're gonna be shooting videos and movies and all kinds of stuff on our iPhone. And this was like, I don't know, 2008 or something like that. And it got like 2 million views, which is why I had to pay a lot for the server because Wow. Because wired picked it up, you know, and it was one of those things that wow. But that back then, that's when you learned, like, don't, that's why YouTube was so powerful, is that if someone picked it up, you didn't have to write a check. <Laugh>.

Leo Laporte (01:36:15):
So the number one video today on YouTube, 12 billion views, that's more than there are people on the planet.

Alex Lindsay (01:36:25):
I think that's impressive. But I, what I really think is impressive, if we watch someone like Mr. Beast, where it's not that he has one big movie, it, it's that everything he puts out gets 30 million or more views is kind of a thing. Like, it, like that is a, like, he has a model that, that actually works over and over and over again. It's

Leo Laporte (01:36:43):
Interesting. But, but it's, so see this, no, so you talk about succession, which is great writing, great dramaturgy, great acting direction. Everything. So much energy and thought goes into even the smallest prop and you create a masterpiece. But the number of views of succession is infinitesimal compared to Mr. Beast. you know, getting a thousand deaf people to hear for the first time, 89 million views or ages one to 100, fight for half a million dollars, 140, you're pretty cool. Three a hundred forty three, three, that was a pretty cool video.

Alex Lindsay (01:37:22):
Million. You

Leo Laporte (01:37:23):
Should watch that video. More people saw that 10 times more people saw that than saw succession. And, but, but I don't know if I want media to become Mr. Beast. Why would you make succession if you said, well, why am I doing, why am I working for peanuts here? I paid a real assassin to try to kill me. 157 million views.

Alex Lindsay (01:37:45):
Well, and again, but I mean, if succession's making money, then that's great. I think that the challenge really is, is can we keep on making as much narrative? Will the market support as much narrative as coming out? A succession is not the problem. It's for all the little things below that, that it, it's unclear whether those become viable. Yeah,

Leo Laporte (01:38:05):
I I was reading the review of the new Indiana Jones movie I think it was in the New Yorker. And he quoted Pauline Kale's review of the original Indiana Jones, which was when, 1981, something like that. It's called Whipped, which is by the way, the s e o on this title is Wow, God awful. <Laugh> God awful. And yet it is a brilliant title for a review of a movie about Indiana Jones. Right? But in it, she says something that I think is very interesting. I've already told you this, Alex, on Mac Break Weekly, but I'm gonna mention it again. This is the lead. The marketing executives are the new high priests of the movie business. Her thesis is, you can't make a movie. This is 1981. If you don't go first to the marketing, people say, can you market this? And if they say no, you don't make it. So she says right now, the easier product a project looks to market, the easier it is to finance, which means, and this is in 1981, all you're gonna see is horror movies and fantasy films. And it's the end, she says, for prestige pictures, you know, that offer middle class group therapy, like ordinary people in the Four Seasons. Do you remember the Four Seasons? No, you don't <laugh> with Alan Alda. No, you don't. But do you remember Indiana Jones in the Temple of Tomb? Absolutely.

Alex Lindsay (01:39:41):
But I would argue though, I mean this is, this is a little bit of arr, Hollywood arrogance for today, cuz they all talk about this. And the fact that streaming now has, has created a huge market for things that would traditionally fail at the movie theater. And we can actually watch it. You know, and, and because those, that, because it doesn't have to make money directly. So there, there's a downside to not making money directly, which is that this is why the writers are on strike, is because they want to get paid for how many views and how many people watch it and everything else. But the upside is, is that you can, there is a, it's a distributed risk across the media production pipeline. So you're the, the, the streamers are not losing, you know, unless they, they mess up on everything, you know, as long as they keep on, as long as Disney keeps on putting out something like Mandalorian every eight weeks, all the other stuff that they're experimenting with is, is all kind of like, just kind of filling those, those things in and making sure you have something new to watch.

(01:40:33):
We're seeing more behind the scenes. I love behind the scenes, we're seen more behind the scenes now than we've ever seen before because Disney has decided that that's a product. And so they're putting up that, that, cuz that just adds to the value of your membership, you know? And so now we get all these be behind the scenes, but we get

Leo Laporte (01:40:46):
What, what Disney decides it can make money on. Right. We had behind the scenes with DVDs money at everything, they had to fill space on the dv. Yeah. But I just don't know if, well, I guess you're right. I mean, it has to, it has to pay for itself. I understand that, but I, the reason I just worry that you're only gonna get blockbusters that everything's gonna be a Marvel MCU movie. I don't,

Alex Lindsay (01:41:10):
I don't think that that's, I mean I think that again, for feature films, you're, you're a hundred percent right. The problem is, is that, you know, so features are, I mean, you know, the bus, because

Leo Laporte (01:41:19):
They're so expensive to make, like

Alex Lindsay (01:41:20):
The theater, the theater business Yeah. Is in all kinds of trouble. Definitely. Yeah. Like the house is on fire, you know, and it's because the, the the, they've kind of, the only thing they have left is action films. And people are getting tired of those. Like, if you look at what happened to flash, like people aren't automatically going to one of the, you know, the, the MCU or whatever, you know, they're not doing that automatically anymore because they, and not, not DC comics or DC Universe, but the, they're not automatically going to these things because they're, they're worn out. They're worn out of these, of these effects, effects heavy films. Whether they say they're effects or not, there's a lot of effects in all these films and they're getting worn out of, of these high pressure films. And so they're going to the movies, you know, they, they, you know, it did well after Covid because everyone missed it, but it's not gonna keep going that way, you know? And, and so that, cuz you know, it's all, it's a, it's a mono mono supply. You know, there's not, there's not any, all the other stuff is going to streaming. Like, that's where you put things. Now if it, if it's got heartstrings, you put it in streaming, you know,

Leo Laporte (01:42:22):
And of course, and you still

Alex Lindsay (01:42:23):
Got a budget for it.

Leo Laporte (01:42:24):
The reason I'm very aware of this is cuz I, this, this week I was at VidCon and Disneyland <laugh>, which are opposite, right. Vid con's, long tail. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> Niche. Disney's interested in how many toys can we make based on this property? How many rides can we make? And I, and you go to Disney and it's, and it's, I mean, the kid may get a $250 lightsaber, $250, but,

Alex Lindsay (01:42:51):
But I think on the other side of that, like the interest, like for instance, I love this show called Chef's Table. Like it's just an incredible

Leo Laporte (01:42:57):
Shows. I've watched it because of you. Yeah. That's on Netflix

Alex Lindsay (01:42:59):
And yeah, it's a great show. It would never be made for tv. Like that would never, never have an audience, you know, on tv, Netflix, it makes sense for them to do it. The, but also when you go to YouTube and you look at Veritasium or Tom Scott or Rick Bto or Amazing. Yeah, yeah. You know, these are all verticals that, that don't exist in the real, you know, they don't exist in the broadcast world that are, that bring a lot of value a lot. Mark Rober. So should, so,

Leo Laporte (01:43:23):
So are you saying that those kinds things both exist and both should continue to exist and this is because of it a vital and growing market?

Alex Lindsay (01:43:30):
I think it's gonna get harder and harder for Hollywood to make films that make a difference. I think that there's a, I

Leo Laporte (01:43:34):
Just don't wanna see all Mr. Beast all the time.

Alex Lindsay (01:43:38):
No, I don't think, I don't think that's what you're gonna see in YouTube, because I mean, I, most people I talk to, he has all those followers. Most people I talk to in the real world don't know who he

Leo Laporte (01:43:47):
Is. I know. It's amazing, isn't it?

Alex Lindsay (01:43:48):
Like that's how, like, so, you know, like you gotta get, like, he has all these viewers and all this, this backing and most people don't know, even know that, that he's around, you know? And so the thing is, if I talk to my parents about it, they're like, who's Mr. Beast? You know? And so, but that's how, how vast that that group is now, what I will say is that it's gonna get harder and harder because I think that we're about to go into hyperinflation when it comes to content. You know, content is gonna become less and less valuable on its own. The the community is more important than the content at this point. And, you know, and, and which is, you know, it's just a, it's a commodity that ha is now the ability to produce it is going to, you know, with ai, with all the tools becoming easy with everybody in the, everybody making podcasts like us there's, there, the value of it is gonna be very challenging. And, you know, it's, it's a, that's gonna be the biggest problem for Hollywood is, is how do you keep rationalizing the, the, the big costs for really expensive productions.

Benito (01:44:41):
Hi, this is Benito by the way.

Leo Laporte (01:44:42):
Benito our technical director. Hello Benito. I

Benito (01:44:45):
Just wanted to mention a 24, the production company. This is one of the bright spots in this here that's making Yeah. Those original kinds of films.

Leo Laporte (01:44:52):
I love a I know it's a, it's a good brand. That really is. Yeah. and they're completely, and they come

Alex Lindsay (01:45:00):
Well, like if I see, if I see something that I think remotely looks like it's going to be good and it's Keno Lober or a 24, I'm gonna like, I'm gonna watch it <laugh>. Like, I'm gonna, I'm like, like if I think it might be good from the trailer, and I see those lo those those brands, I go, oh, it's gonna be, this is gonna be really interesting and I'll take a chance on it. So

Benito (01:45:19):
Like, that's a company that I think is doing the right thing in terms of how to market and create truly the original content.

Leo Laporte (01:45:25):
Did they, it's funny that their latest movie is never coming to a theater near you is the name of their latest <laugh> latest movie. Yeah. Interesting. But are they profitable? Are they, are they are are they a model for success? Yeah. Everything.

Alex Lindsay (01:45:40):
Every, all it's one. Bought them

Leo Laporte (01:45:41):
Everything everywhere. All at once. Best picture of the year.

Denise Howell (01:45:44):
Yeah. I, I have noticed that my YouTube feed, what, what it suggests that I watch has altered a bit. I never, I guess my, my long tail interests are substantial enough that it has, has enough to feed me without trying to make me a terrorist <laugh>. So I never see videos that, that I think are problematic in, in any way, really. In, in my YouTube feed.

Leo Laporte (01:46:14):
It's very hopeful, really, that we're all gonna get served. Right. And that there is money to be made. Maybe not as much. So I think of the music industry as a good example because in the music industry, the multi-platinum acts made the most money. And those guys got infinitely rich. And there was really no long tail. It was, it was like, those guys are nothing. And, and now there are many, many artists who can make a good living. It's harder to become a multi-platinum artist. There are fewer of those because the labels aren't as powerful. You don't have radio, but there are a lot of people can make a good living. Is it gonna be kind of like that Denise, that that many a thousand flowers will bloom?

Denise Howell (01:47:02):
I, I guess that's what I was getting at, is that I've noticed there's a definite high quality degree of content I've never heard of that shows up in my YouTube feed that I go, Hmm, I watched that and I learned something. So, you know, I have, I have hope about that. You're talking more I think, sort of music and narrative which is harder and requires writing and creativity. So, you know, I can only hope that that also pans out there. I wanted to ask you all, since we're talking about Mr. Beast, and we've referenced him a few times, any of you ever watch a Ed Chamberlain video?

Leo Laporte (01:47:44):
No. What is, you

Denise Howell (01:47:46):
Don't know who Emma Chamberlain

Leo Laporte (01:47:47):
Is. How, how much money does he give away?

Denise Howell (01:47:49):
Emma. Emma. She's a, she. How,

Leo Laporte (01:47:51):
How much money does she give away? <Laugh>.

Denise Howell (01:47:54):
She's, she's just an incredibly successful YouTuber. And she's, is

Leo Laporte (01:47:58):
She a makeup YouTuber? What is she No,

Denise Howell (01:48:01):
No, no, no, no. She's the opposite of that. She, she she does style and beauty. She's 21 years old. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no, not really. No. You're, you're putting her in a niche she doesn't belong in. Oh, she started out at age. She literally dropped out of high school at age 16 to do her videos, which were much more first of all, she's a talented videographer and editor, and she sh her editing style is responsible for a lot of what you see on YouTube now. Interesting. Cause she's been emulated so many times. Oh yeah. You should look into her. She's 21 years old. Well,

Leo Laporte (01:48:35):
My son, brilliant. My son follows her. Brilliant.

Denise Howell (01:48:37):
That like, very relatable, very

Leo Laporte (01:48:40):
16 million followers on Insta, so that's good. Yeah.

Denise Howell (01:48:43):
No, no, she's, she's, she's a force and I, I raise her because again, like people haven't heard of Mr. Beast, I think you'd find a lot more people who have heard of Emma Chamberlain, like out in the non-tech lay people of the world.

Alex Lindsay (01:48:59):
And I think that that's the thing that's amazing. Yeah. Is that you have people that have a really large following and they're making a good living doing what they're doing. And there's a whole lot of people that don't know, who don't Yeah. Look

Leo Laporte (01:49:12):
At this. 3.9 million views one month ago, 3.1 million views, 3.7 million views. Yeah, yeah. No kidding. 5.9 million views. She doesn't have a single video that's below a million. They're all in the three, four, and 5 million. Some are even higher.

Alex Lindsay (01:49:28):
And, and, and I think that one of the things that's incredible when you get to know some of these YouTubers is just the level of work that they do. And, and they, you know, Marcus Brownley talked about it at one point where someone asked, you know, how to be successful. He's like, we gotta do a hundred, a hundred videos. Right. You know, from scratch. And know that they're all gonna fail. And then they'll start to pick up. And, and many of these folks started when they were young, you know, they were, they were, they had the extra time. They weren't trying to make money, and they just, they didn't give up quickly. They just went, well, I'm just gonna keep just making videos.

Leo Laporte (01:49:57):
Is it a problem though, that you have to exist on platforms that you don't control, like YouTube and TikTok?

Alex Lindsay (01:50:04):
I think it's somewhat of a problem. I mean, the hard part for them is that they don't, it's very hard to get a, it's very hard to move your audience from one platform to another. Yeah. So if you decide those platforms spend a lot of, like if I post a YouTube link in Twitter, I know that I'm gonna be penalized for the next week. Like my Twitter. Yeah. The number of people who see my Twitter in the For You page is gonna drop. They don't want you to move people percent. You just get really penalized by it. And so so I think that, you know, so sending people off the, you know, off the system is very you know, complicated there. And so, and that happens in Facebook. That happens in, and so, and, and the problem is like, Facebook is one of the worst because you, you get a huge following and now you have to pay to even get ahold of the people that follow you.

(01:50:49):
Like that is just, I mean, and, and they have you locked in. There's no way to get ahold of them. There's no, you know, and you can't even get to the mall anymore. So it's, it's a really dark hole for creators that are on Facebook and Instagram, I think. But the, you know, Twitter's a little bit more fluid and I think YouTube is probably the best for them because it doesn't make an attempt to, to contact most of their followers when it, when they put out another video. But it still, that is a problem where they don't have a solid, I don't think that they actually need everybody's email. They don't think they want it with gdpr. I don't think that they actually, I think they think they want it, but managing that is gonna be really complicated. So you want someone to hold onto that without you having access to it. But what you do wanna do is say, I want to email everybody and know that it will go to everybody <laugh>, you know, and, and everyone will know. And I think that's something that's missing right now.

Leo Laporte (01:51:36):
It's a very interesting world. We we live in. And I feel like Pauline Cale in 1981 kind of foresaw what was gonna happen in movies. I wonder what we see today, a lot of talk about it in 2023, about what is gonna happen with the media landscape cuz it's changing so rapidly, so dramatically.

Denise Howell (01:51:54):
Well, yeah. What, who would've ever thought that YouTube was gonna be the place that you went for your NFL games?

Leo Laporte (01:52:01):
Right.

Alex Lindsay (01:52:02):
Google. I mean, Google thought

Leo Laporte (01:52:03):
That, Google thought that a long

Alex Lindsay (01:52:04):
Time ago, like in 2004 or 2007,

Leo Laporte (01:52:07):
Whatever they spent, spent a lot of money to make sure that that happened.

Alex Lindsay (01:52:11):
Well, and that's been, you know, that's been all the work that's been done by the YouTube, YouTube team to get that off the ground. I mean, that is no minor thing to put that many streams out. Youtube TV successfully. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:52:21):
Yeah. Youtube

Alex Lindsay (01:52:21):
TV did not work when it came out. Like they put football games up and you're like, Ooh, that's not gonna work. <Laugh>. And you know, like, you know, like it was painful. Cuz I've been a subscriber almost since day one. And so the early days of YouTube tv, you could never watch NFL games on because it'd break up. It was low res,

Leo Laporte (01:52:38):
It's come else a long

Alex Lindsay (01:52:40):
Way. It really come a long way. Yeah.

Denise Howell (01:52:42):
Ha. Have we closed the digital divide enough such that YouTube TV is gonna reach all of the NFL's audience in an effective way?

Leo Laporte (01:52:50):
Isn't that interest

Alex Lindsay (01:52:51):
Interesting? It doesn't affect the broadcast. It doesn't affect the broadcast. So

Leo Laporte (01:52:53):
Still, yeah, I was wondering. So Thur, but, so Thursday night Football moved to Amazon, you don't

Alex Lindsay (01:52:58):
Get mm-hmm.

Leo Laporte (01:52:59):
<Affirmative>

Alex Lindsay (01:52:59):
Last year. You won't get that on YouTube, I don't think. And

Leo Laporte (01:53:01):
You don't get it anywhere. Right? I don't know what's gonna happen with the Sun, with the Sunday ticket, but thirst, cuz that's just Sunday, but Thursday Amazon owned. And I was really wondering maybe, you know, something about this Jason, because it looked like the NFL was giving up a lot going from broadcast TV to streaming. But I, my sense was it was actually a great success, right? It's just the, the,

Alex Lindsay (01:53:29):
The, the N F NFL doesn't get money from those advertising. They get money from someone who says, I want the rights to that. So the NFL sells rights. And so I'm sure that they made just as much money or more money, probably more, probably a lot more for Thursday night to be only on, on Amazon.

Leo Laporte (01:53:43):
Yeah. And a lot of the ads were Amazon properties, weren't they?

Jason Del Rey (01:53:47):
And the Thursday night games typically

Alex Lindsay (01:53:49):
Were

Leo Laporte (01:53:49):
Crap <laugh>,

Alex Lindsay (01:53:53):
But Yes. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:53:53):
It's the money. But they spent money, they got, it's all, it's, they got Al Michaels to, you know, and, and Kirk Herb Street to do it money. Right. So they spent a lot of money on the best talent. You don't think Al Michaels is any good? Come on now. Don't get in a fight. He's good.

Alex Lindsay (01:54:06):
Get a fight with him. He's great. I'm saying they, they gave him the money to do it. My Al Michaels is incredible at it. I i I just wish they would've pulled Chris Collinsworth with him.

Leo Laporte (01:54:14):
I'm not a big fan fan of Chris Collinsworth, but that's only cuz he doesn't like the 49ers and he's always sand bad things. There you

Alex Lindsay (01:54:20):
Go.

Leo Laporte (01:54:21):
The, the was this, so was this success for Amazon, they're doing it again this year, right? <Laugh> was this success, success for them? I'm trying to

Alex Lindsay (01:54:28):
Remember what, I'm trying

Jason Del Rey (01:54:29):
To remember how many years the deal was maybe remember

Alex Lindsay (01:54:32):
Out. Well the, I think this was last year was the first year or the second, I think last year was the first year that they had exclusive rights to it. And they pulled the, I mean the, the team that does Thursday night football, I think is the old Monday night football team. Yeah. So they, so they really pulled so they brought, not only do they bring a great announcer, they brought the production team that's gonna make it actually work. Or maybe it's the Sunday. Is that a Sunday night football game? I think it's actually Sunday. The Sunday night football team came to the Thursday night football team you know, to the production team. You know, kind of took it over. So cuz Monday night football has not really been a thing. ESPN kind of, it's like a little ESPN toy at this point. But the Sunday night football has been the big one. Like, that's been the state of the art. This is as good as live video gets. A lot of us watch that as the ultimate live experience.

Leo Laporte (01:55:18):
Right? Right. Now Amazon has exclusive rights through 2033.

Alex Lindsay (01:55:24):
They

Leo Laporte (01:55:24):
Bought

Alex Lindsay (01:55:25):
10 years. Well, and that's the, I mean, and those, that's kind of how those deals happen. You know, you don't, they don't, they don't wanna keep on negotiating 'em. So they're like five or 10 years Yeah. Is kind of the, the, the standard, standard fair. But what it does allow them to do by not doing any broadcast, it doesn't limit them to broadcast. And, and, and what I mean by that is the broadcast pipeline, the, I mean, as someone who does this a lot, the broadcast pipeline is so limited, you know, by, you know, the frame rates, the, the resolutions, the all the, all the production is really, really limited when you go into, into broadcast. Just because they don't have the money to upgrade as fast as you can do bits. And so you just, you, you can make the bits better all the time.

(01:56:02):
And so we're seeing if you have a 4K TV with, you know, the stuff you're gonna keep on seeing it get better and better and better off of your, you know, device, your Apple TV or whatever you're gonna watch it on, it's gonna keep on getting better. Because they can evolve only the truck. They don't have to involve, they don't have to improve the entire pipeline to get to your tv. And that gives them a huge advantage. And that's why Apple like MLS is gonna make a ton of sense for Apple as, as the headset comes in, is cause they're gonna be able to integrate it. And they don't have to argue with any broadcasters of, oh, we need to have 10 I and

Leo Laporte (01:56:34):
Well, and, but MLS was a much weaker league than N nfl. N F L has a lot, but

Alex Lindsay (01:56:40):
Amazon got only got one. Yeah. But Amazon only got one night. Apple got all the, all

Leo Laporte (01:56:44):
Everything <laugh>, all the nights <laugh>, like all the, the, so that's

Alex Lindsay (01:56:48):
And, and innovation.

Leo Laporte (01:56:48):
Here's numbers, performances, here's some numbers. 2022 season 46% drop in viewership. But Amazon was of the opinion that was because they were crappy games. So they demanded better games starting this year. Teams are not required to have a Thursday game following a Sunday. While teams could play up to two Thursday games following a Sunday game per season. They, in other words, they got more flexible, which is, and they probably lobby the NFL players for better, a better schedule so bad. Amazon also raised, according to rumors anyway, advertising rates 20% higher than previous. But CBS was the previous and Fox the previous broadcaster. But Amazon will not allow advertising that encourages glamorizes or depicts except excessive consumption of alcohol. So there's no beer ads,

Alex Lindsay (01:57:45):
Well, excessive amount of alcohol. <Laugh>

Leo Laporte (01:57:46):
No, no, there's no beer ads. I noticed there's no, there's no Clydesdale's marching through Thursday night football. Right. the league can apparently sell some slots, so maybe the the league will and local broadcasters too. So it's very, it's interesting. I mean, I, I obviously this is what the other landscapes that's changed previously broadcasters who were bidding for things like this, expensive things like this had to make it make sense financially. Amazon, it's a little more fungible. Well, this is the more flexible,

Alex Lindsay (01:58:18):
Right? This is both, both Amazon and Apple have the advantage. And to some degree, YouTube have the advantage of what, what I would call the Kaiser associated model, which is that they, they can make money and like, you know, you always get paid more than the job is worth. You know, and they can always, they can do a bunch of things that are, you know, that they, they can make money in so many different ways with the same product or even just the association with the product or just, you know, there's so many places for them to

Leo Laporte (01:58:40):
Carve it up. No, and really, I mean, all I saw it's very hard for the other media companies promotions for, you know, the rings of power and Amazon Prime Day mm-hmm. <Affirmative> and I'm sure that's what we'll see again this season.

Jason Del Rey (01:58:50):
Have you seen how many ads are on Amazon today? 40, 40 billion worth? Like,

Leo Laporte (01:58:56):
There're an ad. This is something I think a lot of people don't realize. I didn't realize until I read your book. Amazon is an ad business as much as anything else.

Jason Del Rey (01:59:04):
I mean, increasingly so when Walmart for better or worse looks at that and says too we can be an ad business too, too <laugh>. Yeah. And went ahead and actually hired a for longtime former Amazon ad leader who between stops went to Instacart and Red ran revenue there and now is running their loyalty program, Walmart Plus and ad business. And I mean, the question is right, is at least on the product search, you know, on the shopping side of Amazon, is it, you know, they'll make an argument. It somehow help small brands be noticed and can improve the experience. But to some, some sellers it just seems like an extra tax, another Amazon tax because they can. But yes, they are an abyss, they're a tremendous, tremendous ad business and increasingly so in video too.

Leo Laporte (01:59:58):
And of course Cory Borough wrote about this in his fame now world famous in in stratification article that you know, this is, this is when Amazon starts to screw everybody in order tore increase profits. Did you, when you read that, did you, did that ring a bell for you, Jason? Or did you feel like that was an inaccurate representation of Amazon's strategy?

Jason Del Rey (02:00:20):
Listen, I think this, this feels like an inflection point at the company or at least has. Yes. You have the jazzy transition, you have the layoffs, you have the cost cutting and, and investment areas like previous investment areas like Alexa. I think it's, I think it's unclear to me how far they'll go down this path. But, but you know, I was talking, talking about this recently with a former executive Amazon executive and he was described, you know, he was saying people go, people, a lot of most people go to that site. They're in and out and the experience actually for a lot of people is they're still finding exactly what they want because they're not browsing. They're going in and out. But yeah, you look at that site today and not pleasant, right? <Laugh>. And so, so I think there's an argument to be made that, that there, there's some stuff they're doing including in the ad business because they can. And you know, we'll, we'll, I, I, you know, I, I'm very interested to see what the next year under Andy Jassy is like, because he, he's gone through this cost cutting exercise over the past year, and now he has a chance to show what, what Amazon, under Andy Jassi looks like. And beyond cost cutting if he doesn't want to just be remembered for that.

Leo Laporte (02:01:37):
How much when Tim Cook took over at Apple, you know, the practically Steve Jobs dying breath is, don't ask what I would do, do what you would do. How much of of that hap did Andy Jassi did Jeff Bezos say to Andy Jassi not with his dying breath, obviously, because he's fitter than ever, obviously.

Jason Del Rey (02:01:59):
Yeah. You know, it is very interesting because there was, there was an article in the Wall Street Journal may maybe six or nine months ago about jazzy cutting costs and really examining overspending and lack of discipline. And there was an Amazon board member quoted in the piece, you know, saying like, and this is, you know, we're behind Andy. And it just felt very

Leo Laporte (02:02:22):
Stage managed <laugh>.

Jason Del Rey (02:02:24):
Yeah. <laugh>, yes. And that perhaps, you know, perhaps the easy man to blame, you know, with the undisciplined spending and the over expansion of, of, you know, the Warehouse network was, was the CEO is no longer in charge. And you know, it doesn't seem like something like that could, could make Bezos unhappy these days when he's off on a 500 million yacht and, and doing all the other things he's doing in his life. So I think Jazzy had, you know, he came in and some executives left because he went into the weeds on businesses where Bezos had long just what, what these lieutenants do doing they have free do what they want. Yeah. And so I, I do believe this is this, he is not, you know, this is not, you know, he's not a puppet. You know, this is, this is his company now. And so we'll see how long that lasts. But that's what it feels like to me right now. And what best, as I can tell that all that said, like, morale is not good inside the company, really. No, I mean, layoffs are one thing, but

Leo Laporte (02:03:32):
Has it ever been

Jason Del Rey (02:03:34):
I would ar you know, I

Leo Laporte (02:03:35):
Heard the stories about executives crying at their desks, but <laugh> that is fine.

Jason Del Rey (02:03:40):
Sure, no, sure. Like it's a cult. It, it absolutely is a tough culture. But you, you would talk to, I've talked to tons of people over the years who do well there and they take the pros and the cons of the work culture, you know, sort of in stride. And, and I would say, yeah, during, during years where early years of Alexa or early years of Prime, they, there were people really excited about their job every day they try to avoid Jeff Bezos and his question mark emails. But <laugh>, I'd say in in large swats of the company, I, I don't know that morale has been worse. And I think beyond the layoffs, I think hasn't,

Leo Laporte (02:04:20):
Hasn't gone any worse. There we go. <Laugh>.

Jason Del Rey (02:04:22):
I mean, I think the communi the communication, what, what I talk, I talked to some people there and there are people who like working there. And I talked to some folks when the layoffs happen and they said, it's not even that we had layoffs, like we weren't gonna grow forever unchecked, but just the terrible communication and lack of communication, just the execution of it was just atrocious. And just so I, I dunno. Exactly.

Alex Lindsay (02:04:48):
It always sounds like it when I talk to, I have a bunch of friends that work at Amazon. Yeah. Always sounds like such a grind. And it always just seems like they're just tired. Like, you know, and they, and they you know, they don't, there's not a lot of, for my friends, there's not a lot of other places to go. They, they, what they do there is pretty specialized. And so they, you know, like they don't have, that skillset doesn't necessarily copy, but there's this kind of steady flow of them into other companies when they can find something else. And, and it, and it's always the, the fact that it's just so, it feels so micromanaged I think is what, what a lot of people feel like, you know, you're always grinding up against the, the margin and the process and how much everything costs and everything's penny pitching and it's fine.

(02:05:24):
It's just that, it's just like no one that I know of was bought by Amazon. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and thought life got better. Yeah. Like, you know, like nobody that's fair says I got bought, we had a great company culture and then we were bought by Amazon and then it got even better. That's no said, never. No one ever. You know, like, you know, like, they're like, we got into Amazon and we got ground into a little, you know, pulp, you know, and now they take, Amazon's got this thing where they, they rotate your, I, you know, I work with, they rotate your salespeople all the time. Like they just, so you never know who you're, like, you'll get embedded and someone understands how your business works and you're talking to them every week and then like six months into it, they're like, oh, there's a new salesperson. And it's like, some, and I'm like, what happened? And, and, and it, and it just, and then I just stopped having meetings with them cuz I was like, I'm tired of that. Like, I don't wanna, why talk to a salesperson if I, if, if you're gonna keep on changing <laugh>, like, you know, like I'll just tell you when I need something. You know, it just,

Leo Laporte (02:06:15):
Yeah. We have the same, same exact experience with the ad agencies, but that's another story for another day. Yeah. let me take a break. Great panel again too. Good. The conversation which has allowed me to get way behind. So I'm gonna get a couple ads in here and we will have more with Alex. Lindsay, it's great to have you on the big show on the, at the grownup table. It's good

Alex Lindsay (02:06:40):
To have a wider, you know, like we're always on my, my Yeah. We always

Leo Laporte (02:06:43):
Have to talk about Apple, the little box. This is much more interesting. Yeah, exactly. Jason Delray expert on Amazon and Walmart. How's this morale at Walmart? I mean, are people happy to be there?

Jason Del Rey (02:06:52):
I think it's, it's better than it's been. If, if you care about the future of the company outside of the walls of a store, you care about digital. I think, I think it probably hasn't been better. Now is that saying a lot when you look at their history in e-commerce? Maybe not, but I think

Leo Laporte (02:07:11):
They're bullish about the future though.

Jason Del Rey (02:07:13):
I think. I, I think so. I think so. Interesting. A lot of people I talk to

Leo Laporte (02:07:17):
That's really interesting. The book Winner Sells All just came out available on all platforms, including Audible. Did you read the Audible version?

Jason Del Rey (02:07:27):
Thank goodness for everyone who listens to that. I did not <laugh>. But I have a, there's a fabulous narrator who he, I I realized looking through his portfolio beyond some great business books some romance novels as well, <laugh>. So you've got a really different kind of reading

Leo Laporte (02:07:46):
Roger Wayne knows how, how to put the lust back into Walmart and the Amazon. All right.

Jason Del Rey (02:07:51):
I mean, I highly recommend the audio version Rod with Roger,

Denise Howell (02:07:56):
The lever's quarrel version

Jason Del Rey (02:07:57):
With two questions

Leo Laporte (02:07:58):
Of his own. Did you just ask me what I was wearing? He dead pant. Wow. It sounds like a romance novel. <Laugh> Can't wait. Winner Sells All at find Your bookstores everywhere. And the wonderful Denise Howell. Did you just ask me what I was wearing? I'm wearing

Denise Howell (02:08:17):
No, no I did not. Oh. Too bad wearing,

Jason Del Rey (02:08:19):
That was me and Jeff. That was me and Jeff Bezos by the way. But we can, everyone can listen to that. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (02:08:24):
Yeah. That's the sample on Audible. Actually you should cuz this was a former sponsor Taylor store designed this, so. Ooh.

Denise Howell (02:08:31):
Yeah. I still have all my Scott Vest stuff.

Leo Laporte (02:08:33):
Yes. Basically sponsors Dress us. Denise has a new podcast coming soon@hearsayculture.com too. New podcasts. Our show today brought to you by Will you see it all the time? Our studio sponsor ACI Learning. You might say, who are they? Well, you know, it pro IT Pro's been with us since they started almost an entire decade providing engaging and entertaining IT training for all of you and know member. Many of you are members of the IT Pro community now as part of the ACI learning family, IT pro's capabilities expand in such a great way with bingeable short form video content now over 7,000 hours and counting of on demand. Incredible content full of, full of information, but also entertaining and engaging, which is great. You know, 30% of ACI learners are MSPs. Did you know that? Managed service providers, ACI Learning is dedicated to supporting your MSP team through any challenge.

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They've got training for teams from two to a thousand people. And of course, very good discounts starting at just five seats. Learn more about ACI learning's, premium training options across audit IT and cybersecurity readiness. Again, the address go dot aci learning.com/twit. Just fill out that form. Go dot aci learning.com/twit. You'll get more information, a free two week training trial for your team. And if you're an individual or you just wanna try before you buy, don't forget that Offer Code TWIT 30 for 30% off a standard or premium individual IT pro membership. It is a great way to learn. Go dot aci learning.com/twit. We thank 'em so much for their support. Don't know what this means. Gannet, the publishers of USA Today are suing Google. This is, you know, Google's in trouble with the eu with the ftc and now apparently you, you like the idea of of suing Alex Lindsay, the publisher of USA Today says Google legally monopolizes the advertising technology market. This is kind of similar to what the d OJ is, is already saying.

Alex Lindsay (02:13:34):
They have the right, the right to a day in court. Yeah, I don't know how you fix the, I don't, I don't know how you fixed the problem, but I definitely think they have the right to figure it out, <laugh> to hash it out with them. I I, I'd rather see it done in court than necessarily, than trying to have the FTC or the EU try to figure out how to fix it. I think that I think that the chances of winning are pretty low. But I think that that it it's interesting. I I just don't know how to unwrap the, the media industry is so entwined with the advert Google advertising that I get that they don't like it and they, they're frustrated by it. But if Google stops linking to them <laugh>, like, you know, that Facebook is what Facebook and possibly Google is talking about in Canada, they'll die.

(02:14:17):
Oh. Like, that'll be the end. Like it's not, you know, if they say, Hey, we're not gonna pay for this, we're just gonna cut you off. They'll just, they'll all, you know, the governments will have to come in and pay for everything because they're, there won't be any more money. So, so I think that it's, it's complicated. It's a really complicated thing. I will say that the ad app, I don't know how to unwrap what's going on, but, you know, I've been in a lot of meetings w around advertising with Google and Facebook and understanding how their algorithm works is like looking into the sun. Like it is an incredible amount of, well, I power, like, it's just,

Leo Laporte (02:14:47):
It's, and the other complaint is that they own both sides of the equation, right? They said they, they run the market. They also are a buyer, they're also a seller. I mean, right? It's, it's as entwined and messed up as possible. And I think anybody who looks at it says, yeah, this is not a competitive situation. But you're right. I don't know how you unwind it. You mentioned Canada. Canada passed a link tax. This is, this is one of Jeff Jarvis's, you know, hated like Chung Correct. Or whatever he calls it. The link tax. Canada has passed C 18 and as a result, <laugh> Facebook is saying, okay, fine. You don't want, you don't want news. We'll see you later. That's one, that's one way to do it. The, the premise is,

Alex Lindsay (02:15:37):
And they did that in Australia too.

Leo Laporte (02:15:38):
Yeah. The premise is that's how it started. Oh, geez. Meta you're making money off of our content. Meta's I think quite reasonable response is, well if that's how you feel about it, we don't have to send you any more traffic. And what in inevitably happens is that these news media suffer as a result. Right. So this is another one where, I don't know what the answer is, but clearly C 18 was not the answer.

Denise Howell (02:16:03):
Yeah. In a world where people don't have print publications delivered to their doors anymore. Except books. <Laugh> except books.

Leo Laporte (02:16:13):
Yes. And the wonderful book. Yes. I'm having have to go,

Alex Lindsay (02:16:17):
Sorry

Denise Howell (02:16:17):
Denise, go ahead. Yeah, no, and actually some people do have print publications delivered to their doors. Some people really enjoy that, you know, feeling of the newspaper in their hand. But the people

Leo Laporte (02:16:29):
Love think I love holding a hardcover Yeah. Book of something like winner Sells All <laugh> in my hands and, and reading it. Actually, I got the Kindle, as you can see. I got the Kindle version of it cuz I was in a hurry. Right. I will listen to the audio book version that's easier for me.

Denise Howell (02:16:47):
I think you Yeah, I tend to do do the audibles and that narrator sounded intriguing. So <laugh>, I

Leo Laporte (02:16:52):
Love, I love that line they used. That was great. Yeah. What are you marrying?

Denise Howell (02:16:55):
Right? But I'm, I'm saying, you know, the way, the way I find that the New York Times, or the Washington Post, or the Boston Herald has done a story on something that I'm interested in is because someone has linked to it. That's

Leo Laporte (02:17:07):
Right. Yeah. And that's what everybody learned. That's what they learned in Spain when Google pulled the news. It's what I'm sure they'll learn in Australia, and I'm sure Canada's gonna be next.

Alex Lindsay (02:17:17):
Well, in Australia they worked it. I mean, I think they worked it out where they, they turned it off and then they went back and negotiated with everyone. Yeah. So they don't quite fit into that, you know, so it took a couple weeks of a little bit of a, of a thing. We're willing to talk to you, but we're, you're not gonna make any money until you, until you until we figure this out. So I think it, I think that they, they were able to kind of find a middle ground that the government couldn't find you know, in that, in that area. So I think that, that maybe the government forced that forward. I don't know who got the better

Leo Laporte (02:17:42):
In, in, in the case of Australia, it was Rupert Murdoch, you know, he, he didn't, he wanted money, a little money outta Google and Google bristled. And I think that he got a little money outta Google is what I think the final result was. Maybe not as much as he was hoping for.

Alex Lindsay (02:18:00):
I, I think that one of the things that the, that the publishers really missed the boat on this one. I mean, there were, I did a talk in 20, in 2002 of like, you should move all your subscribers, all your current subscribers online. And literally was laughed at by hundreds of publishers. Like you could hear them chuckling about, you know, talking about this little thing. And the only company that came up to me after my talk was the New York Times. Like, you know, like they, and, and they were way ahead of me. They were, they, they had thought been thinking about this for a while. They were, it's not like I told them something they didn't know. They, and they, you know, they're making a lot of money <laugh>, you know, like they're, you know, this is an a and, and the publishers really, you know, this. I think it's an incredible lesson in taking your current situation and making sure that you're leveraging it into your, into your future. Mm. And most of these publishers did not do it at all, or did not do it very effectively and didn't really care about it until it was already too late.

Leo Laporte (02:18:53):
One of the things that happened when we first checked into Disneyland, we showed our barcode, which was on our Disney app, which I have immediately deleted as soon as I left. I did not buy the Magic Genie Band, which apparently does GPS tracking of your position in the park. Of course my phone was doing that while I had the app on. But I scammed my ticket and then they said, okay, smile. And they took a picture of me. Turns out Disney's been using face recognition at Disneyland and Disney World and other Disney parks. I'm not sure exactly. They say it's to understand guest behavior. There are also cameras all over the park now that they know what you look like. They know exactly where you are and what you're doing and whether you're smiling.

Alex Lindsay (02:19:41):
A lot of that also has to do with predator deflection.

Jason Del Rey (02:19:46):
You know, so they,

Leo Laporte (02:19:47):
They, when you walk in, I remember Taylor Swift turning away a stalker because she uses face recognition at her concerts. I thought that wasn't a bad thing. And then I remember the owner of a Madison Square Garden,

Jason Del Rey (02:20:02):
Oof, <laugh>, sorry. A long time suffering Knicks fan here. <Laugh>,

Leo Laporte (02:20:06):
Just the words make you feel bad. But the the, was it the Dorans own it, right? Dolan Dolan Dolans, that's it.

Jason Del Rey (02:20:13):
James James

Leo Laporte (02:20:14):
Dolan. James Dolan who was mad that MSG was being sued by some attorneys decided to turn away an attorney that they recognized from a Knicks game. He's known for being Petty, says Vanity Fair. So

Jason Del Rey (02:20:35):
There's, I mean, that is the nicest thing that anyone has ever said about James Dahlin <laugh>.

Leo Laporte (02:20:40):
There. He's

Jason Del Rey (02:20:41):
Not, he will ban me. I have like a small ticket package, so I better just,

Leo Laporte (02:20:45):
No, he's a wonderful fella. And and you love your Knick's tickets. Oh,

Jason Del Rey (02:20:50):
Man.

Leo Laporte (02:20:51):
According to Rolling Stone Tom Morello and Zach de La Rucha and Boots Riley three apparently performing artists, I don't, I don't know, but they, I'm told are among a hundred other performers calling for Ban a ban on face recognition at live events. Morelo Ade laroche and Boots Riley say, we're not gonna perform at venues. Rage Against the Machine is Tom Morelos band. And Zach laroche boots Riley, speedy Ortiz say they will not perform at those venues, which is gonna really, I think, limit their, you know, Billy Joel's not leaving Madison Square Garden. I'm just gonna say. But there are smaller independent concert venues who have pledged not to use face recognition. And at the same time though, I feel like, you know, that was a boon for Taylor Swift. So I'm, I have mixed feelings again about this one.

Denise Howell (02:21:51):
I have mixed feelings about it too. Obviously, you know, the more privacy, the better. And the more that we can hold this off, the longer we can hold this off, probably the better. But I do think it's inevitable where we're gonna go through the world. And you've

Leo Laporte (02:22:05):
Known you, you gotta regulate it though. I mean, James Dolan shouldn't be able to ban an attorney from Brandi Carlisle concert cuz her firm was suing msg. So that's clearly over the top. But if it's a security thing at Disney or at a Taylor Swift concert to prevent stalking and harassment, that seems like a good usage. I guess there's also the issue of false positives.

Alex Lindsay (02:22:33):
There are, I mean, I, large venues are really dangerous place. Like, just so you know, like from a security perspective,

Leo Laporte (02:22:40):
Super thrilled. Like supers in order to get close to Disneyland, not even to enter it, but in order to go to downtown Disney, you have to go through a metal detector and they search your bags. And you know what? I was thrilled. I don't like

Alex Lindsay (02:22:54):
Big public venue, anything venues anymore. I, I, you know, I was talking to someone at I where I was doing an event at Disneyland and I was talking to someone there about it and they, I said, oh, I've never broughten my kids here. Like I've never gone to Disneyland. And I did after this, after this conversation, cuz he said, why would you not not take your kids to

Leo Laporte (02:23:10):
Disneyland? Not only the happiest, it's the most secure place on earth.

Alex Lindsay (02:23:13):
Well, he said, he said, I said, I'm afraid I'm gonna lose them. And he goes, oh. He goes, they never get lost. They just get misplaced for a little while. <Laugh>. And, and, and he said, and and, and he said, because it's a billion dollar problem for Disney. I mean, like, we think about this all the time. Oh yeah. And he said, what? You know, and he said, we usually we can reunite you with, with as soon as your child knows. As soon as you know, and sometimes before you know that you're, you've been separated, we've already found your child. There's people watching on these cameras. There's city hall. So basically Yeah. Other than the bathrooms and, and the eat some of the eatery places, everything's under camera. And when they, when they see, when they see a child who is lost who's crying and can't find them, the every character there descends is trained.

(02:23:53):
<Laugh> is No, they're just all trained to, to make it. And their goal is to make it a better experience for the child that they got lost. There are five Mickeys I don't understand, Andy. And they have, they have fun and they talk to them. Yeah. But what they do in the video is they, they, they watch the kid go back, they back up the video backwards. Oh wow. Until they're with their, their parents. And then they go forward with the parents until they, until they know where their parents are. And they close that gap and they do it. And, and I said, well, how many, this is like, this is incredible. I said, how many times do you do that a day? And he goes, oh, like 150, 160 times a day. Like, you know, like, like, you know, like it's, it's, it's like, it's not even like, it's just like, you know. And, but, but he said, this is the safest place in the world for kids. I guess a fish

Denise Howell (02:24:31):
Recognition and the app, they could let you know on your phone, Hey, we've

Alex Lindsay (02:24:35):
Got your kid. Eventually the,

Denise Howell (02:24:36):
And that would be in a non-threatening, we've got your kid.

Alex Lindsay (02:24:39):
We did discuss your kid facial. Yeah, we did text. I don't wanna get discuss facial recogni. Yeah. We did talk about facial recognition. And, and that was, at least at the time, it was all about child predators. And so the thing is, you don't make it, you don't make it to the turnstiles. Like, you know, like, like they will, they're that's appropriate Now. That's why they ask you when you get to the turnstile, that's why they ask you to take your hat off. Yeah. So that their facial recognition will work. That's completely appropriate. You know? Yeah. And so, but they, they're like that, that's a big problem for us. Like, we can't have that happen and we'll do anything. And frankly,

Leo Laporte (02:25:08):
It's great to have metal detectors. I don't, you know, let's not have handguns in Disney World.

Alex Lindsay (02:25:14):
I don't think that's a bad

Leo Laporte (02:25:16):
Thing. Well,

Alex Lindsay (02:25:17):
So I think that, and I'm usually not the security, like the heavy, like we should allow all this stuff as, as you see in Mac Break, I'm usually against most of those things. Yeah. But I will say that if you, when you understand how porous these, these large venues are Mm. And and how easy it would be to do horrible things there. Yeah. I mean, I, I have a hard time going to those things knowing I don't want to be where the crowd is. I work in a lot of these events and I stay behind stage all the whole time. And with the notion that, and we have protocols of like, what will happen if something happens and we have to talk through those on every single show. Yeah. You know, and like, where do we go? What's our egress, what's our, you know, I, what's the, I was standing safe word all cause I,

Leo Laporte (02:25:52):
All those I was waiting for. I did not ride the Matterhorn. So I'm standing, there's one place where the people come down at the end of the Matterhorn. I was the one I rode.

Alex Lindsay (02:26:00):
That was it. That was a Mad horn or

Leo Laporte (02:26:02):
Her bus. How do you feel now? Huh?

Alex Lindsay (02:26:04):
Alive.

Leo Laporte (02:26:05):
Lisa, Lisa said her back still hurts

Alex Lindsay (02:26:08):
<Laugh>. Yeah. My son, when my son was five, it was the, I, I took him on and I didn't want him to jump off behind me. So I said, oh, just go in front of me. They put him in the first car. Oh, that's the worst. And he's like five years old and all, he just, he loved it. He hung onto that thing and all I could hear is him yelling, I'm not scared, <laugh>,

Leo Laporte (02:26:25):
I'm OK daddy.

(02:26:28):
Well anyway, so I'm standing there crush with my camera cause I want to get a picture of them coming down. And I noticed within a less than a minute that a security guy is standing across from me, just not hostilely or anything, just standing there looking at me. And I noticed that. And then I, I went and sat down and he went on with his way. They are very good. I didn't, that didn't bother me. I thought that's appropriate. That's appropriate. So this is why I'm torn on this. Hey, if your band's name is Rage Against the Machine, you probably should be against face recognition venues. I understand <laugh>. But, but I'm thinking if I'm Taylor Swift, I want that protection. I think that's a good thing.

Alex Lindsay (02:27:15):
And I think that we also underestimate how much facial recognition. I mean, someone says, oh, they're doing facial recognition at the event as if, as if they're not doing facial recognition on all the streets that lead up to the event. They're doing it everywhere and all the other things that are happening. I mean, like, it's like, not like they, they found a lot when, when the, when the Boston Bombers, you know, Boston Marathon bombing, they knew who they were pretty quickly <laugh> like, you know, like it was, it was, they, they, they were able to suck that data out pretty, pretty fast. So it's, you know, this, there's a lot there already.

Leo Laporte (02:27:43):
Yeah.

Denise Howell (02:27:45):
The Madison Square Garden thing always cracked me up because it events such a misunderstanding of how large petty law firms actually petty work. It's so petty. Yeah. I mean, large law firms don't know all the disputes that they are handling. Not, not every member of the firm knows exactly all the litigation they're involved in.

Leo Laporte (02:28:03):
Yeah. And because one attorney Katko see Brandy Carlisle or a Nick's game, they're not gonna, oh, well we better drop the lawsuit against the Dolans. That's not gonna happen either. It's just petty Petty's the right word for it. It's bs

Alex Lindsay (02:28:18):
It, I will say, you know, with everything, it's not a matter of, oh, we're gonna drop the lawsuit. It does add a little friction to the, and this is why you shouldn't, he shouldn't be allowed to do this. It does add friction to the next case. Like the next case is like, well this better be good because, you know, we're next games <laugh>. You know, like, like, so, so like, like, and it doesn't mean that they're not gonna take the case if it's a good case, but it does mean that if it's not a really good case, they're like, is it really worth this? You know, like, or should we just send this? How aware

Leo Laporte (02:28:43):
Of this are you when you go into Madison Square Garden, Jason, to see your, your team?

Jason Del Rey (02:28:49):
I'm usually pretty distracted by some turmoil or a fist fight. They've been, they've been, they've placed on me. I would've had a lot better, more seen upbringing if my dad never took me to a next game. I mean, Aw. And now I'm doing the same thing to my 10 year old son and seven year old daughter. So Hey Alex, I wanted to ask Alex. We were talking about, just, we're talking about facial recognition. You're talking about Whole Foods earlier. Are you, do you pay with your Palm? Are you letting them connect your credit card with your palm with your biometrics?

Alex Lindsay (02:29:27):
They, what, what did they do? They did something with that. No, I, I use my, my Apple Pay. Okay. I, I just use my watch, you know, most of the time when I'm at Whole Foods.

Leo Laporte (02:29:37):
Yeah. You know, that's a really good solution because, so

Alex Lindsay (02:29:39):
Easy

Leo Laporte (02:29:40):
Apple's protecting your privacy is still very

Alex Lindsay (02:29:43):
Convenient. It's best that they do. I mean, the bottom line is, is I use the little thing that potentially will save me 20 cents. Like, it never gets me any money for whatever I buy. Never gets me, I I never buy things that are on sale, evidently. And so, so it never gets me any money. But it knows, like, the one thing is if I go to, if I wanna buy food online, it's like, here's all the things you've bought at Whole Foods for the last 10 year. Is it good? Or for years?

Leo Laporte (02:30:06):
Is that

Alex Lindsay (02:30:06):
A feature? I don't know. I don't, I don't, I use it as a fee. I will say that it is a little bit of a feature if I'm trying, if I'm trying to order something from Whole Foods

Leo Laporte (02:30:13):
Scan. You scan your Whole Foods code every time. Yeah. Way. If you wanna steal my hose foods code, go ahead. Use it.

Alex Lindsay (02:30:19):
<Laugh>. It changes. It changes all the time. It changes all the time. Oh yeah. So it's, so the cuz it, it'll be like, oh, it's too old if I don't put it up after I turned it on, or, or whatever.

Leo Laporte (02:30:28):
Oh yeah, it does change. Oh,

Alex Lindsay (02:30:28):
Look at that. I don't, you know, I, I think that I used to, I mean, I was the kind of guy that was like, I would burn, like, Colorado has this, you have to give your thumbprints and I would literally put my thumb thumbs on a hot plate before I went there and just burn 'em off just to be difficult, you know? And so that's how much I was anti, like, do not follow me around. I don't wanna give you any permission that I have to. But at the same time, and I would grow like a, I would grow a beard and I would do all kinds of weird things cuz I was just angry that they were asking for that. After you learn how deep it is, you're kind of like, you gave up rather gonna go, you're gonna go to a cabin and use cash, or you're gonna kind of just know that that's the <laugh> that's the nature of it because it's really, you give up. It's really hard to, hard to avoid. Yeah.

Denise Howell (02:31:13):
So just statistically, so, you know there are 11 states right now considering enacting their own biometric privacy laws

Leo Laporte (02:31:21):
Like Illinois has.

Denise Howell (02:31:23):
Yeah. Illinois has one and many other states bundle biometric information, including California as in this group, as a form of sensitive information under their privacy laws. So, but it is all part of the patchwork that we live with every day. And it doesn't, you have to check in what state, what law applies, because we don't have a national standard on these things. Yeah.

Alex Lindsay (02:31:47):
Lemme the problem will be, the, the problem will be is when there's a terrorist act in one of those states there, the law enforcement and the FBI will blame the fact that we can't use these, this data. Like someone's gonna get thrown under the bus. That's why everyone's careful about it is because it, I mean, it, it is, we can decide whether we want it to happen or not, but it is effective, you know, not as effective as metadata, which is the most effective thing. But

Leo Laporte (02:32:09):
That's the problem. They've got all the metadata anyway. So I think that's really effective. I think really the answer to this is these are powerful, useful technologies in the right hands. There needs to be limits and regulations on how they can be used. And unfortunately I don't feel like we can really count on our government for doing any of that. At least not in a timely fashion. Lemme take a quick break. I wanna talk about our sponsor, Miro. We've been using Miro. Miro is so cool. We have an asked the tech guy board. I don't, the problem really in doing an ad for Miro is, I just don't know how to describe it. I, I, you know, I don't wanna say it's a whiteboard. It's so much more than that. Go to miro.com. Actually go to miro.com/podcast so we get credit for it.

(02:32:57):
And then look at, you'll see on the left here the Miro verse, cuz this is, these are templates designed by actual Miro users to use Miro. So what's the idea here? Well if you've got a team, especially these days with teams that are distributed in different time zones, different locations, you know, it's very complicated to keep that team on the same page. It's not just different places and time zones, it's different tools. You use a little bit of Figma, a little bit of Google's pages, a little bit of Zoom, and pretty soon you've got all these tabs open, you've got these. And every time you context shift, trust me, you're forgetting stuff. You're losing stuff. It's like when you go through a door and you can't remember why you entered that room. Miro solves this as a collaborative visual platform that brings all your great work together, no matter where your team is, no matter what tools your team uses, it's all in one place.

(02:33:54):
So you have a single source of truth. You can zoom into the details if you wanna know exactly how something works. Zoom out to the 30,000 foot level if you wanna see an overview. Miro is, is is a great way to bring in the entire team, get input from everyone, democratize collaboration, and still stay on the same page. Miros, infinite shared give product teams a perpetual space. You can just drag and drop insights in great for mood boards, but they have all sorts of tools like timers for your Zoom meeting icebreakers. Nothing is lost, nothing is forgotten. Miro is whatever you need it to be, and that's why it's hard for me to describe it. The good news is if you go to miro.com/podcast, your first three boards are free forever. So you can try it, you can start playing with it. Use your with your team.

(02:34:46):
You can build out your product vision on a Miro board by brainstorming with sticky notes or comments. You can have live reactions. There's a voting tool, a timer. If you've got a time constraints, you can express yourself in creative ways. Bring the whole group together around one idea. It integrates with all the tools you are already using. So it's very simple to move Tam Miro and bring everything in. You can use a wire frame draw with the pen tool, put images and mock-ups. I mean, I can go on and on. We use it with Zapier to integrate a bunch of stuff in automatically. Miro users say they save, get this 80 hours per user per year. That's like two weeks of extra time just by streamlining conversations and cutting down meetings. Miro, m i r o gives your team the chance to always stay connected to real time information, gives product managers and product leads, a, a, a bird's eye view of the whole project to ensure nothing slips through the cracks.

(02:35:44):
I'm, I guess it's not a surprise when I tell you more than a million users. 1 million people use Miro every month. Get your first three boards free. Start working better. Miro, m i rro.com/podcast miro.com/podcast. Best way to, to, to, to understand what it is is try it and you'll be blown away. And do check the Miro verse for a lot of great ideas on on how you can use Miro for, for pretty much anything. Let's see. Back to the show. We go, oh, before I do that though, you know, I wasn't here for most of the week and so they've made a little briefing book for me. I want to take it home with me and, and study it. But for your benefit, we'll play it right now.

Leo Laporte (02:38:11):
You never know. You never know. Jeff Jarvis on this week in Google, I am back and I'll be here all week. We're gonna have a lot of fun. I hope you'll join us for all the shows. Of course, if you're a member of Club Twi, you see all those shows. Ad free seven bucks a month also gets you access to special shows. We only do in the club. Jason's working on a show for us in the club. Aunt Pruitt's working on stuff for us in the club. Of course, Micah Sergeant's got HandsOn Macintosh. We've got Hands on Windows with Paul Thora, the Linux Show and Club GIZ Wisdom a whole lot more and access to the Discord, which is always so much fun. Club twit, seven bucks a month, and you also get to visit with Lilly. I hear her right now, twit TV slash glo twit.

(02:38:56):
She says, join, join. Please join. Okay, time for some good news. Hacker responsible for the 2020 Twitter breach going to jail seven years. Ooh, this is the guy. Remember this, when all the famous people on Twitter, like Joe Biden tweeted, I'm giving back to the community. All Bitcoin sent to the address below will be sent back, doubled <laugh>. You know, honestly, this guy really deserves seven years. This was such a lame scam. He didn't apparently make any money out of it. Although he agreed to forfeit $794,000 to the victims of his crime. So maybe, maybe he did. He's a citizen of the uk was extradited from Spain earlier this year. He'll serve probably half of his sentence after spending more than two years in pretrial custody. This has been a while, right? He faced up to 77 years, however, so according to prosecutors, this is, this is typical.

(02:40:02):
The hacker used his sophisticated technical abilities for malicious purposes, conducting a complex sim swap attack to steal large amounts of cryptocurrency hacking, conducting computer intrusions to take over social media accounts, even cyber stalking. Two victims including a minor victim. And maybe that's why he got seven years. I'm not gonna, you know, anyway, was it dumb thing to do? Let's put it that way. I'm not sure he really deserves seven years. And Twitter probably deserves a little pain for how weak and lax their security was. Youtube is testing an online games offering playable. We saw this at VidCon. I don't know. Is this, I don't know why they're doing this. Youtube's doing just, everybody's

Alex Lindsay (02:40:56):
Getting the games, so the games are good. You know, turns out ports and games are good, are good content on

Leo Laporte (02:41:02):
The heels, so of dumping stadia, it's like, okay

Alex Lindsay (02:41:06):
It's two different teams. Like the Stadia team and the YouTube team are two different worlds. And they, they, and I think Google likes it that way. Ah,

Leo Laporte (02:41:12):
I have to say it's really hard for me these days to take anything Google does too seriously.

Alex Lindsay (02:41:22):
They just, I will say that I would, I would, I would keep on really, you know, Google is in Mountain View and, and YouTube's in Bruno, San Bruno, and they really operate, I mean, they, they definitely leverage each other's

Leo Laporte (02:41:32):
Value YouTube, right? Youtube seems, but YouTube is a very different, a little better run than Google itself.

Alex Lindsay (02:41:37):
It just, it just, it's, it's a big machine. It takes a lot longer for it to do things. Yeah. You know, but it does them in this kind of methodical, mechanical way of just slowly rolling things out and slowly putting things out. It's not a new feature. It's, you know, it's adding these features. It rare. I rarely see YouTube backup up, you know, like, like they just, they just, they're, you know, they'll, they'll, they're just slowly making adjustments and they're in a lot of interaction with their users and, and they're looking a lot of data and trying to, you know, and dealing with a lot of really complicated things. But I don't see you, I see, I agree with you that Google is like, oh, you never know what's gonna happen. You know, like anything's been released after

Leo Laporte (02:42:12):
They killed stadia and then killed Google Domains. I feel like, you know, if they announce a new product, not YouTube. You're right. If Google announced a new product, I'm gonna be slow to adopt. Let's put it that way.

Alex Lindsay (02:42:23):
And that's the problem that they had was that even back, you know, 10 years ago, the big problem was people wanted to see Google hang onto something for two years before they jumped into it. And now when you talk to people, you're not sure if they'll ever trust that they should go down that path. That's right. You know, and so that's the, that's, and that's really, they, they've gone from, I have to see it for a while. And with Apple, that that's why a lot of people jump on things pretty quickly with Apple is because, you know, that Apple took a long time to think about it. And whether it's a good idea or not a good idea, they're gonna do it for the next five to 10 years. <Laugh>, you know, like, they're not gonna, they're not gonna vary. You know, once they start going down the path, they're not gonna change direction. Whether you like it or not is the question where

Leo Laporte (02:43:00):
Just a few weeks off from meta launching, its Twitter clone mid-July, according to rumors, this is from Forbes. There is already on the me on the fedi verse a whole petition saying if, if if meta puts, they call it threads. Apparently if meta puts threads on the on the Fedi verse, we will block it from our instances. I don't know. I think it could be a good thing

Denise Howell (02:43:34):
That seems very unfit.

Leo Laporte (02:43:36):
I know I'm not, I didn't sign that petition. Yeah. <laugh> our twit social, which you are know, are very active on Denise, and I appreciate it. We will wait and see. I think there, there's a fear that there'll be an onslaught of meta users on the metaverse. Well, fine. So what doesn't hurt anything?

Alex Lindsay (02:43:57):
It'll be, see, it'll be interesting to see how they innovate. I mean, I think that they can, obviously Twitter has its own issues, and so they're trying to capitalize on that. That's been an area that they've been outside of. It'll be interesting to see what they do differently. That that the Twitter hasn't

Leo Laporte (02:44:11):
Haven't done. I mean, they're apparently actively going after, you know, celebrities to get 'em on there. You know, they want, they want to launch with some big names, which makes sense in this, in this creator, creator universe, creator driven universe. I, yeah,

Denise Howell (02:44:28):
I mean, their timing's good. People aren't liking their Twitter experience.

Leo Laporte (02:44:32):
Twitter is getting worse and worse, right?

Jason Del Rey (02:44:34):
Yeah. I am, I am curious whether they want to go after current Twitter users and, and heavy users versus everyone else in my personal life who <laugh> has tried Twitter in the past and just never got it, you know, outside of the media tech or politics set. And I guess you start where you have people who, who appreciate the type of platform but just seems like a huge open opportunity for folks who just, you know, never got Twitter, but maybe there's something a little more straightforward or I don't know what, but

Alex Lindsay (02:45:12):
I think everybody that I know jumps on everything and puts the get, make sure that they, they get their name.

Leo Laporte (02:45:16):
Get your name. I, it's what I'll do that's always is like, get your name. I'll

Alex Lindsay (02:45:19):
Get my name

Leo Laporte (02:45:20):
And and then we'll, and then wait and see. I'm on Blue Sky, I'm on Noster, I'm on, I'm on on t2, I'm on all of them. None of them has replaced Twitter unfor, which is sad. It's hard. It's sad. Meta has been, it's reaching out according to the Verge to unnamed big celebrities we're being pitched on Threads as a sanely run quote platform. <Laugh>

Denise Howell (02:45:45):
Sanity

Leo Laporte (02:45:47):
<Laugh>. Does this have any, it's

Denise Howell (02:45:48):
Now a marketing point.

Leo Laporte (02:45:49):
You know, I, I realize I buried the number one story of the week. Does this have anything to do with the proposed cage match between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg?

Alex Lindsay (02:45:59):
So, yes. Yes, it

Leo Laporte (02:46:00):
Does. <Laugh>. It's

Jason Del Rey (02:46:03):
Those Twitter the, the batons being advertised on Twitter might come in handy for,

Leo Laporte (02:46:09):
Elon's gonna have to bring it, because honestly, I think Mark Zuckerberg is in a little bit better shape. He's also about, what, 10 years younger, 15

Alex Lindsay (02:46:18):
Years? I think he does a lot of training. I think he's doing Mark large training.

Jason Del Rey (02:46:20):
He's ju jiu-jitsu. Yeah. I've, I have a good friend who actually wrote an article today or yesterday for the Wall Street Journal. He, he practices juujitsu, I don't know if that's what you say, practice, train, do juujitsu. Anyway. And he talked to some trainers and like I, I put my money on Zuck unless hell yeah. Ilan has the baton

Leo Laporte (02:46:40):
<Laugh>. There was a good article. Go ahead.

Alex Lindsay (02:46:45):
That one who spends a lot of time in Juujitsu. I think I'd probably still <laugh>, you know, give them the advantage. There

Leo Laporte (02:46:51):
Was a good, I, first of all, this cage match is never gonna happen no matter what anybody says. You'd be insane to get in the cage with Mark Zuckerberg Ilana, just get his ass kicked. To be blunt, but there's an, it's

Denise Howell (02:47:07):
Kind of funny how this all developed.

Jason Del Rey (02:47:09):
Oh my gosh, where's Bezos in his muscles in this Not nowhere to be seen.

Leo Laporte (02:47:14):
Oh yeah, he could, you know what I, that I'd like to see Jeff and Zuck now. That'd be a good battle. He could be

Alex Lindsay (02:47:20):
Just like, he just like, I'm, I'm, I'm now, I'm, I'm just a shareholder now. Like he's, yeah, he's kinda retired,

Leo Laporte (02:47:25):
Right? Yeah. He doesn't care. I guess this, I don't know where this all started did well, I

Denise Howell (02:47:32):
Think Zuck was being sort of subtweet in a thread on Twitter. And at, at some point Elon said,

Leo Laporte (02:47:46):
I'm up for a cage match if he's lol.

Denise Howell (02:47:50):
Whoops. Right? And rather than engage on Twitter, because why would you, if you're Mark Zuckerberg, he posts on his Instagram to his stories worries send me the location or words to that effect. So, wow. He's, that's how he let people know

Leo Laporte (02:48:06):
He was in. And then people at UFC who obviously have would love to see this happen at the Octagon in Vegas, have said, oh no, it's real. It is not real. Excuse me. Pardon me. There's no way these two billionaires are going to brutally beat on each other. There's just nothing to be gained. But there was a good article that said, this is all part of a larger effort by Meta's marketing to position mark as a heman, not as some sort of weird robotic leader. And that makes a lot of sense to me that there has been an effort. We talked about this Mark saying, I just completed the Murph's challenge, or whatever it was, which is running and, and lifting and pull like a thousand pull-ups and all this stuff. Yeah, I think Mark is in a lot better shape, but I also think this is part of a concerted plan to polish mark's image and to make meta seem like something besides kind of a, a, a tech weenies attempt to get into your personal cheese or something. So,

Denise Howell (02:49:21):
Not, not that this is probably passable under the applicable state's right. Of publicity laws, but people are already selling t-shirts and

Leo Laporte (02:49:31):
Merch. Oh my God. <Laugh> my, look, if, if Elon is foolish enough to get in the octagon with Mark Zuckerberg, he deserves whatever he he gets. Yes. anyway, I don't, there's no, there's just no way that's gonna happen. Let's see. Oh, and finally, and I ask you this Alex Lindsay, cuz I know you're a massive mid journey fan, version 5.2 comes out, which you gives you ability to zoom out.

Alex Lindsay (02:50:05):
It's amazing. It's amazing. Have you played with it? You know? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. For hours <laugh>. So it's, yeah, it's, it's great. So there's a couple things about it. The, the, just the overall quality of, of 5.2 is, is much higher. There is an ability. So the zoom out is probably, that's part of what's interesting about 5.2. So what you can do is you can say, I want a closeup, and then you can, wow. Then you can have, say, build something that's got a wider shot to it and then build it to a wider shot. So, and what it's doing is reproducing that center part. Interestingly enough, not always verbatim <laugh>, like it'll match up, but it's, it's still redoing something, but it looks almost identical. But zoomed out. And so it'll, you can do a zoom out, you can do a lot of zoom out or a little bit of zoom out. Now, one thing you'll notice is some of the shots, the ways mid journey drew, it was with a wide angle lens. And so it looks really fisheye sometimes when you pull back out again. But overall it is it's a, it's a really cool feature. That has been something that a lot of us, you know, wanted for a while is to be able to build bigger shots with that, with that in it. And so it's, it's pretty cool. The it

Leo Laporte (02:51:13):
Gets a little creepy if you go out far enough, like it starts to hallucinate a certain

Alex Lindsay (02:51:17):
Point cause it doesn't know what to Yeah. It doesn't know what to do there. I mean, mid journey hallucinates often, I mean, that's kind of the nature of the business Yeah. Of what it's doing. So you get these things, like, you'll get three really normal things and then you'll be like, whoa, what happened there? You know, like it just flipped, you know, flipped a bit. And and so, so the but it also, the other thing that's really interesting is the new variables. So a variance. So when you, when you do a variance where you say, I want you to make, I like this image, I wanna make two, I wanna make it four more, you can do a lot or a little. So you can say, I just want it to vary just a little bit, or I want it to vary a lot. And you can make those decisions as you start to hit that you know, as you go through that to make it. And it's, it's really useful. Yes. You

Leo Laporte (02:51:59):
Are quite the mid Journey master. Do you think this is better than anything else? I'm

Alex Lindsay (02:52:03):
Not about Master,

Leo Laporte (02:52:03):
But,

Alex Lindsay (02:52:04):
Well, oh yeah. It's the best image image generator.

Leo Laporte (02:52:06):
It's quite amazing. The I mean they, you know, if you're worried about people mistaking AI generated images for real images, this is the place where you're gonna see that happen.

Alex Lindsay (02:52:16):
Oh, I, I make, I'm my, I, we talked about our Mac break. I make my lock screens all Yeah. You know, from from this and it looks so good.

Leo Laporte (02:52:25):
<Laugh>. Yeah. Just like, they just look

Alex Lindsay (02:52:26):
Like photos that I graded about things that I'm interested in. And yeah. So it's and I use, it's trippy man. This

Leo Laporte (02:52:34):
Is really trippy. Wow.

Alex Lindsay (02:52:35):
Because the number one use that I have for it is making funny images for my keynote documents when I do presentations, like, because the, the, the, the, the, the thing I ask for is over a plain white background so I can remove the background in Keynote. And, and, and so I have all these funny characters. And, and then the other thing that's funny is go in the style of, of Pixar. So I'll go, okay, I want, I want a guy who look, I want a geeky guy with glasses that looks confused, you know? And, and I also want a, a woman that has got glasses on, looks confused, and an African-American woman that has, you know, like in a, in a and a, you know, and I can set up all these things and ask for all these things if I want a little crowd that all looks confused and I say in the style of Pixar, and then I get all these little cartoon characters over a plain white background and I can stack 'em all on, on top of each other.

(02:53:19):
And there's a there is a new thing that we just started, we had a whole mid journey thing on our office hours, like on Monday. And one of the things that came up was another mid journey that now I'm gonna remember, forget the name unless I look at it here. But that basically builds Vector Files. Oh, trace Journey. Trace Journey is the, is the one that will build outlines. Ooh. So it'll take your mid journey image and then make, turn it into an SVG image. Like it'll just, and it looks a little posturized cuz it's, you know, now it's a vector, but it but you can do that as well. So yes, we, we won't got 5.2 is a big jump. We'll

Leo Laporte (02:53:54):
Definitely be talking more about this on Mac Break Weekly. We will see you on Tuesday. And you, I know we'll be talking about this and everything else under the sun@officehours.global. You talk about so much. I love this accessibility Saturdays you're doing now, which

Alex Lindsay (02:54:12):
We're, we're really excited about it. You know, we're basically going, it's, you know, every one of them, the first two have come out and they're just eye-opening, you know, so we're talking to you know, to different aspects of access accessibility. So last Saturday we were talking about languages. What does it take to actually take an event and do all the different languages that are required and, and all the, the technical things. But the other thing that's interesting is that it's not just that the show is talking about accessibility, it's actually, you know, we have a, we have a deaf panelist and we have Yeah. You know, ASL interpreters and the deaf panelist is interacting and talking to us, and we have you know, different, different accessibility issues. And we have panelists that are talking about those things from life experience, which is, is really it's really cool. So, so I think that we're really excited about the Saturday. These are Saturdays that we're gonna be talking about it all summer. And we're gonna kind of cover the gamut of accessibility issues. And each one of them has been a real, you know, just really understanding what the needs are and us trying to figure out how do we solve those with what we're doing.

Leo Laporte (02:55:11):
If you wanna see a laboratory for what is happening in new media, this is really one of the most exciting spaces out there. Office hours.global, it's free. You can just watch the videos on YouTube or on the website, but you can also join in because it's a Zoom call. And if you want to participate you can get an invitation by going to office hours.global and clicking the Join us button. Yep.

Alex Lindsay (02:55:33):
If you, you join us, you'll get an email every day that tells you what the, there's a new subject every single day, except for Sunday when we just talk about what we were talking about. <Laugh> Sunday, Sunday mornings less just messing around.

Leo Laporte (02:55:43):
Hire Alex Nine Zero Media. Thank you, Alex. I'm gonna see you Tuesday. Thank you, Denise. Thank you so much. Always great to see Denise. How you said you're, are you imminent launching the new podcasts?

Denise Howell (02:56:00):
Yeah, it should be within the next month or so. I believe I said This's the last time I was on twit, but they're trying to work out the backend issues and distribution. You don't have things explain

Leo Laporte (02:56:09):
Of the show. I know how hard that is. Yes.

Denise Howell (02:56:12):
Right. So the, I I think we are all but pulled the trigger on launching the new website and actually starting to publish shows. We've recorded quite a few. Oh

Leo Laporte (02:56:23):
Yeah. Nice. Yes. Mm. Here's to keep up on it and to know when she does launch hearsay culture com. Always a pleasure. Thank you so much, Denise. Really

Denise Howell (02:56:34):
Appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me.

Leo Laporte (02:56:35):
And Jason, I'm sorry to have kept you for three hours. Your 10 year old son says, I just got a text from him saying let my daddy go. So I'm gonna, yeah, I'm gonna let you go. <Laugh>. No,

Jason Del Rey (02:56:47):
My pleasure.

Leo Laporte (02:56:48):
The book is winner sells all from Harper Collins. It's available on Audible, Amazon probably can get it at Walmart, <laugh>, I would guess

Jason Del Rey (02:56:58):
Barnes. And no, I've gotten a bunch of photos from friends in Barnes and Noble stores across the

Leo Laporte (02:57:02):
Country. Nice. Congratulations.

Jason Del Rey (02:57:04):
That's great, thank you. And there is another excerpt, just if anyone wants another read at Business Insider. And that one has to do with Amazon Bookstore employees when they did have bookstores doing some shady things, signing up people for Prime, which seems to be a trend. Oh

Leo Laporte (02:57:22):
Golly.

Jason Del Rey (02:57:23):
FTC has not commented on that one yet.

Leo Laporte (02:57:26):
Shady Strategies. Hmm. Hmm. Yeah, cuz you know, people is different. It's harder to, to trap them than stuff that's online where you can get screenshots of it, but boy, that's very, oh yeah, that's very interesting. And where else can we see your stuff, Jason?

Jason Del Rey (02:57:45):
So, you know, I was at Recode for a really long time which is now part of vox.com. I am, I've been heads down on the book, so you could find me on Twitter, LinkedIn, and I have, I do have a stack called already Shipped which is mostly book focused right now, but may soon expand beyond that as I get through this this little

Leo Laporte (02:58:12):
Tour. Oh my God, these days. How much longer do you have to plug this this book?

Jason Del Rey (02:58:17):
You know, this week, this week I'll visit with my old boss Kara Swisher this week and

Leo Laporte (02:58:23):
Oh, nice.

Jason Del Rey (02:58:24):
And her co-host Scott Galloway. Give,

Leo Laporte (02:58:26):
Give Kira our regards. We, of course, she's a used to be a regular before she became a big shot on this show. Yeah.

Jason Del Rey (02:58:34):
So about another week or two of, of TV and pods.

Leo Laporte (02:58:38):
Nice. Well, thank you for spending three long hours with us. I really appreciate it.

Jason Del Rey (02:58:43):
I had a lot of fun

Leo Laporte (02:58:45):
Great book for, I haven't finished it, but I've been enjoying it. It's one of those things where the anecdotes come fast and furious and are fascinating if you've been following Walmart and Amazon and their battle winner sells all. Thank you. Jason Delray, thank you all. Thank you for being here. Thank you for joining us. What, yeah. A lot of fun. Great conversation. We do TWI on Sundays around 2:00 PM Pacific, 5:00 PM Eastern, 2100 U T C I only mentioned that cuz you can watch us do it live. There's a live stream audio or video at live twit tv. If you are watching live, there's an irc, a chat room at IRC twit tv. Open to all of course Club twit members. Get the stadium level club in our club. Twit Discord, which is always ludes of fun including animated gifts.

(02:59:38):
TWIT TV slash club twit. If you're not already a member after the fact ad free I mean sorry, ad supported versions of the show available as they always have been in our website, twit.tv. When you go there, you'll also find links to the YouTube channel dedicated to this week in tech. You'll also find links to various podcast players. Probably the best way to get the show. Just search for twit in your favorite podcast player and then subscribe to everything. Just get 'em all that way. You got 'em, you, you wanna listen. You always have 'em there. You never without a little bit of twit in your life. Thank you all for joining us. We'll see you next time. Another twit is in the can. Bye bye. Amazing.