Big Technology Podcast - Facebook vs. Clubhouse vs. Spotify vs. Apple: Casey Newton Returns

Episode Date: April 21, 2021

Platformer's Casey Newton returns to Big Technology Podcast to discuss the intensifying battle among Facebook, Clubhouse, Spotify, Apple, and Twitter in the new, social audio space. Fresh off a conversation with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Newton discusses Facebook's plans, Clubhouse's potential for longevity, and what empowering the individual vs. the institution really means. Plus we discuss this week's big Apple release event.

Casey Newton. Good to see you again. Nice to be here. Am I the first two-time guest on this podcast? No, Kevin Ruse beat you to that, but he did write a book. But you're officially a friend of the pod right now. So this is hallowed status. We appreciate you doing it. Well, I'm glad to have reached friend of the pod status. Nice to be back. Okay, here we go. Hello and welcome to the big technology podcast, a show for cool-headed, nuanced conversation of the tech world and beyond. Our guest today is the editor of Platformer, a substack publication he founded soon after joining us here at the big technology podcast as we launched the podcast last August. Casey Newton is one of my favorite people to talk tech with, and he's fresh off an interview with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on his new Discord server, SyChannel, or as I like to call it, Sychan. Casey, welcome to the show.

Hey, Alex, thanks for having me back. Yeah, it's great having you back. Congratulations on the launch of Sidechan. It's getting a lot of buzz. People are saying good things about it. And I'm excited to speak with you about it and everything going on in the tech world. Yeah, it's been a really busy week for me personally, but just sort of the wider world of tech, lots going on. Yeah, this is definitely one of those weeks where it was like, all right, let me speak with someone who really understands like all the moving pieces among the big tech companies because they're all at work.

with each other. They're releasing a ton of products. And I couldn't imagine a better guest. So, thanks for coming on. Sure. Last time we talked a lot about fixing journalism. The good news is since then, journalism's been fixed. So now we can talk about tech. Thanks in no small part to your effort. So thank you for that. That's right. Yeah, we take the credit here. Take it. Okay. So let's get with the news first. So Apple had their big event. They released new multicolored computers, a rip-off of tile, which helps you find stuff you lose, and a purple iPhone. Is this impressive? Like, should we be impressed with Apple? Because I was watching the reactions flow by the Twitter timeline. And it was like typical, like, oh, Apple has raised it to the next level. And I'm like, look in there

and I'm like, okay, they made the Macs a little faster. They're now different colors and the iPhone's purple. What am I missing here? I don't think you're missing anything. Apple has a pretty familiar playbook, they make things sort of faster, sleeker, shinier, and they did that again. But look, I will say, as somebody who has a seven-year-old IMac, who I love very much, I have been looking for an excuse to replace it. And when those M1 laptops came out last year, reviewers lost their minds. Like the, you know, laptop reviews were not the chip. The chip. M1 is the faster chip that Apple's made. Yeah. Right. And like before last year, like laptop reviewers you know they might like one laptop a little bit more than the next one but that was a very like stable mature industry then all of a sudden these new chips came out and people were saying like you know this laptop lasts for two days uh it's like the biggest advanced of laptops we've seen in forever so i'm excited to read the reviews of these new imax um i probably won't buy this one because this is like sort of the junior model i think i'm gonna want the like the thick boy um but it's uh it's a it's a move in the nice direction and i really like the colors particularly because

There's now going to be a purple iMac and a purple iPhone. And it really is pretty close to the platform or brand colors. So you have to respect that. Sorry, you're going to go with that and match. Yeah. One thing I was thinking about is like it's actually perfect time for Apple because we're all going to start at some point within the next year, hopefully fingers crossed, spending time in each other's homes again.

And it's like the ultimate status symbol. Oh, you got the green Mac. I can't believe it. Let me take a look. And that stuff is just going to explode. Because Apple's all about status, you know, in terms of people buying these products. When I was in journalism school a long time ago, I walked into the newsroom at the Daily Northwestern, and it was just this candy-colored swirl of IMAX, like the original like Bondi-blue IMAX,

and, you know, there was orange and green and red and all of it. And it really is just like kind of a fond memory from my history of computing. So I think it's cool that Apple moved back there. Although it is weird to think that this is just a cycle where it's like some years, the computers are in color and some years they're not and we'll just endlessly swing that pendulum back and forth it's so weird a couple years ago they released like the these new iPhones with the different color uh facts that you could get and they had like space black and then just like matt black and i think it was charlie warzel who is who's now a member of your side channel

community was a colleague of mine at buzzfeed and he's like only apple could convince us that they've given like two names to the color black and people are going to go buy them like crazy and turns out they did so that company knows out of market that's for sure yeah they do i i guess like i'm waiting to see what they're doing with ar and self-driving um but i just can't imagine maybe maybe you know time will prove me wrong here but i can't imagine anytime with the next 10 20 years people are going to really take to wearing air glasses in public we yeah i just don't think in 20 years they can figure that out i i you know i think that the creepy factor that they had with Google Glass is still pretty, pretty present. So I don't want somebody who I'm hanging out

with, you know, looking at me and their glasses telling them like everything about me, pulling up like the latest Google search. But maybe I'm wrong. And maybe it's not going to be, you know, person to person. Maybe it will be, you use it outside. That would be interesting. Well, that's kind of where Snap started with this, right? Like, we'll build it into sunglasses because the presumption is you're outdoors. There's already a reduced expectation of privacy. I think that was, smart. I think there are a lot of good principled reasons to not want AR glasses that have surveillance tech and facial recognition tech and all that. And I just think we are 100% going to lose that bite. Okay. So you think it's inevitable. One of the interesting things, we spoke with

the person who founded Google Glass or was running Google X on the Land of the Giants podcast with Recode for our Moonshots episode. And he goes, our main mistake was doing this stuff outside. We should have just, sorry, marketing it inside. We should have marketed it outside because as soon as people started wearing them into bars and stuff like that, people freaked out. And maybe because it was Google and Apple has been doing this big privacy push and getting you to trust them. And that might be a way for them to set the ground, you know, in order to be able to release AR glasses that people won't have a backlash. Again, certainly it'll be easier for them than Facebook. But I guess time will tell.

And they haven't released anything yet. They've been working on it for like forever. I mean, I've, like, talked to the executives who are working on this stuff, and they just sort of say, like, the technology isn't there yet. Like, we're just sort of at the bleeding edge of what this stuff can do, and they need more battery power than they have. They need better display technology than they have. They have a lot of user interface things to figure out. So there's just kind of a lot to do, and I think it's definitely going to take another probably three to five years before we have something that feels like a decent, one or two point no product all right well we'll have you back on hopefully before them but definitely

three to five years from now and we'll see if you show up wearing the glasses because we'll be doing these in person so another thing that apple released uh it seems like they've finally rediscovered the fact that they have a podcast app you know i know that most of our listeners uh listen to this show on the apple podcast app and for a long time you know it was like well what are they doing with this thing and i personally have switched over i use a combination of overcast and Spotify, but Apple all of a sudden thinks that podcasting is important. And I like to know from your perspective, what's going on here, Casey, because you have Apple getting into this.

You have Facebook getting into this. He just had that conversation with Zuckerberg. You have Spotify, obviously, all in, although they're big investment in Joe Rogan seems to have had diminishing returns because his apparently interest in his stuff is going down. You have Clubhouse, you have Twitter, and everybody's into this now. So what are these companies seeing in podcast? casting. It's been around for a hell of a long time. Apple basically invented it and then neglected it for a long while. So what's going on? Yeah. I mean, I think that there's like a really

long answer to that question that accounts for many different trends. I do think that one, this is just a media format that took a long time to become a habit in the lives of people. I still think something like 40% of Americans do not regularly listen to podcasts or maybe have never heard a podcast. So it's one of those things where it's very big, but there is still a lot of market share to go grab, which is always really exciting if you are a tech behemoth that is already saturated, you know, whatever market you were born into. And then I think there's a technological piece of this sort of AirPods generation, right? Like there was a, amazing survey of teenagers that came out a couple of weeks ago that said something like 70 or

80% of American teenagers have AirPods. The penetration is just insane. And of course, they become a status symbol. And if you're Apple, you want to be feeding that beast. All of these companies do, you know, whether it's Facebook or Clubhouse or whoever else. So that's, I think, sort of the hardware piece on the tech side. And then there's a software piece on the tech side, which You know, Zuckerberg has this theory, which I think is interesting. He first sat out on Clubhouse, and he repeated it to me yesterday. He was sort of like, when you sort of like think of the fundamental building blocks of social products, so like text, video, audio, is like there's an intersection between that and then every audience size,

and there's a product to build there. And so, you know, Clubhouse is like at the intersection of like massive audience, live audio. But then there also probably be products for like short form audio, you know, with massive audience, which like Facebook is going to go now build. So, you know, these folks are always just looking for blue oceans to go, you know, find and build stuff in. And audio is having a moment. Yeah, it's really interesting. I didn't pick up on that, that there's 40% of people that haven't listened to podcasts. I guess they're doing this old school thing radio for the time being.

Can you imagine? Maybe the days are numbered. So once in a while, you know, because I have, in the car, I have like one of these Bluetooth things that plugs into the cigarette lighter old school like that. And then like there'll be some usually faith-based radio station that's inhabiting the frequency. And so I can't listen to music anymore. So I just turn on the radio. I'm like, man, this is a pretty joyous experience. Yeah.

This is nice. I mean, when there's when the radio is playing the song you want to hear, there are a few things better in life. Yeah. And then the AirPods thing is also interesting. I don't know how Apple turned those into something that was so cool. They had so much potential to be nerdy, but they're definitely, I mean, do you think, okay, there were all these beams of how AirPods were like the shit, you know, if you were wearing AirPods, you were cool.

And someone proposed to, you know, did a fake proposal to somebody and opened up the AirPods case and there were the AirPods and all the friends went nuts. Was that a plant by Apple marketing or do you think that was organic? I don't remember this video. Oh, it's amazing. Yeah, a guy gets down on one knee. opens up his AirPods case and there are two shiny AirPods in their holsters and he's proposing to the person standing up next to him. I don't know if she said yes or not. I mean, that sounds like

a wonderful love story to me. Yeah. And let's talk a little bit about Apple's offering in particular. Maybe this is just me being grumpy about Apple Day, which is I guess something we do often on the podcast here. But what Apple wants podcasters to do is provide an excellent. exclusive feed of content to people who use Apple's podcast app. And then they, you know, you get, uh, if you're a podcaster, you pay Apple a fee, you pay them a cut. And it seems a little ludicrous to me. Like we have, you know, we have, I think the majority of listeners of this podcast that are listening on Apple. But we also have people listening on Spotify, a real good chunk of people listening on Spotify. We got overcast. We have Stitcher. Sometimes people listen on the desktop.

And if I'm going to create an exclusive offering of folks, I want to make that available to everyone. And I think that if you're just making it available to people listening on Apple devices, then you're really limiting, you know, what you might be able to do and the people you might be able to reach. So how does this have any chance of working? So two chances. One, as you know, Apple is the biggest podcast app, right? So like the fact that most of your listeners are on Apple Podcasts is not an accident. Like, that's just the fun. fault for where everyone has the most listeners, right? And, you know, I think a e-marketer predicts that this year Apple is going to have 28 million monthly users of the podcast app. So that's not a bad

market for you to go after, right? And if Apple can go find you many more customers than the next brand, then maybe it would be worth the cut to you. The second way that they're hoping to get you is just that payments are so seamless, right? Like your Apple account, you basically can't use an iPhone unless you plug in the debit card. And so you're going to have essentially one tap access to paid content, which is a lot easier than, you know, some of these like crazy workarounds and rigmarole with the other podcasts and patrons and podcast players have implemented. So, you know, between those two things, I do think they're going to see some decent amount to pick up or at least people trying out paid subscriptions right that like look into the phone get

the face ID thing do the double click you're paying for a podcast you like that could be appealing okay I'll give it a chance to work I think it's going to work now a lot of this stuff seems to have been something that emerged like the excitement around audio seems to be something that emerged after clubhouse came out and all of a sudden there are all these dynamic live conversations happening on clubhouse and you know people are calling it the cure to loneliness during the pandemic. And then Twitter's like, oh, we're going to copy that. Facebook's like now saying, we're going to copy that.

You and I have done the Twitter Spaces version. I actually think it's awesome. I really enjoyed it. But I also wonder about the future of these things. Clubhouse in particular, it has all these big competitors now coming in on its territory, Facebook, Twitter, maybe Spotify at some point. There's another one that's built, you know, specifically for sports. What's it called?

Locker room. room, right? It just got acquired. And we're seeing right now the data that Clubhouse downloads are down significantly. I've done some channel checks, as they say, in the business. And it seems like usage is down on Clubhouse? And people are like, is this an everyday thing? Is this a one every three day thing? And I do wonder what's going to happen when we all start going to dinner again and whether we're going to really want to sit and listen to Mark Andreessen, talk about the good old days for our Wednesday or Thursday night activity. Yeah. So do you think that this thing is going to, You know, we know it will survive.

It's got all this funding, it has energy. Does it have a chance of, does it still have a chance of thriving? Or do you have like some pulled back expectations given what we've seen recently with Clubhouse? Like anything can work. I've been wrong about social apps before. I thought TikTok was going to die after a year. Like Clubhouse is now valued at $4 billion. They have a lot of money in the bank.

That just means they can take more swings, right? Like if Clubhouse is circling the drain, they can try to pull another. rabbit out of the hat, right? So, like, I will just sort of stipulate all that up front. That said, like, I share most of your feelings about this. I started doing my stuff over on Twitter, too, because everyone who follows me on Twitter is on Twitter. Twitter is on Android. Why am I rebuilding my following on Clubhouse? You know what I mean? Yeah, totally. Conversations on Twitter spaces sound identical to conversations on Club. It's not like they have some cool features over there that I'm missing out on.

You know, they have started like a creator payments program, but that's like kind of still in the early test phase. So, you know, but there are like a million problems with Clubhouse. There are a lot of really great Twitter threads about sort of everything that's going wrong. And yeah, I sort of, I don't know how you feel about stunts on your podcast, but I honestly want to just open up Clubhouse right now and see what the top conversation like recommends to me is. And we can just see whether I feel great about stunts. Let's do it. All right. We're doing this stunt right now.

So I'm just opening up my phone and we're going to see what is the top recommendations. Clubhouse conversation for me to join right now. And so I've opened it up. And it's, okay, we have the future of climate journalism. We have Boss Talk M&A edition, which is... I'm seeing that too. That's an Andresen, like, show, I guess. Talking about the Chauvin verdict, which is, you know, definitely relevant.

And then something called Art is dope, which, you know, who can disagree with that? So, you know, like I would say that's not a bad mix of things. There have been other times when I've opened up the app and the number one recommendation was in Mandarin, a language that I don't speak. You know, I mostly just kind of see a lot of generic business wisdom style podcasts, which have no appeal to me. I keep calling them podcasts. I don't know.

What should we call them rooms, shows, clubhouses, whatever. Yep. So, you know, the content isn't great, you know, and they need to, I, I mean, it seems like that's something they should work on, but I don't know that it would actually fix their problems. Right. And yeah, at the end of the day, like, if you're sitting at home and that's your only thing to do, talk to maybe talk to people, get on stage, build followers, extremely exciting. When you have a chance to go see friends, go see a show, go to a sports game, you know, kick back with a friend and watch some TV or watch a movie. Clubhouse just seems so boring. And once in a while, it's going to be great.

Like, I watch this one conversation with Bologi and Zanep, you know, debating. about East Coast, West Coast and the future of all this stuff. And I thought it was unbelievable. On an appointment basis, yes, awesome. But as something that I just kind of open up, because that's the app that I want to hang out in right now, definitely not interested. I think it's going to get, I really think it's going to suffer in a big way once we really get back. Yes. And, you know, you say that.

Can I brag for one second? Yes. I'm getting my, that's what we're here for. I'm getting my first vaccine shot on Friday and I'm like thrilled out of my mind. yeah it's um this stuff is moving fast here in the u.s yeah not as fast elsewhere unfortunately yeah um but it you know it's so it was interesting uh at first it seemed like israel was way ahead and then um we seemed you know doing like we were doing terrible and the folks were saying we're four to six weeks behind and we're literally like four to six weeks behind what they're up to and

you know we've been mass producing this stuff obviously more investment needs to have happen in terms of, you know, the way that these vaccines operate. But this is going to go global super, super fast. Yep. Well, I mean, I certainly hope that that's the case. Like, it seems like there's a lot of, you know, struggling developing countries that we could probably ship some vaccines to. But, but I definitely share your hope. So last part of this segment, the Facebook pitch. You know, it's interesting because we're seeing that this stuff, I think you and I seem to share an agreement that the whole clubhouse thing, you know, might not take off in the way that a lot people anticipated. Like all those, I remember the early days when like Elon Musk was on there and

people were like, this is the end of media. There's no more journalism. It's all about Mark Andresen and Sri Ram interviewing people. You know, obviously that's that's not going to be the case. We're going to still have like journalism, we'll still have media. And it just seems like, okay, Facebook, one of, okay, one of my perspectives was Zuckerberg stopped by clubhouse one day and then said, oh, this is cool. You guys go ahead and copy that. And like they're already like they're, they're on their way to copying it and it might be on the decline and it just seemed uh the set of audio features that facebook wants to launch which you talked about with Zuckerberg uh they they seem very uninspiring to me it's basically like clubhouse clone okay well not very bullish on that

little audio clips that come to you in a ranked feed i think a company called anchor used to do that And I just found it exceptionally painful to like hop into different audio clips and be like, okay, who is this? What are they talking? Because the audio really stuff is really about relationships. And then they're going to do some sort of podcast recommendation service, which I'm personally excited about. But I don't think it's really a game changer. So what do you think about Facebook's effort here? Am I underestimating what they're going to roll out? Maybe. I mean, I think the thing that has the most potential is that feed of short form audio clips. Could you build an audio TikTok? And I think about a couple of reasons why maybe that would be the case. Pandora has comedy stations that are just clips of like five or six minutes of audio that are very popular. Why couldn't you just create that? But instead of like licensing clips from Patton Oswald, you just get users to create stuff and then, you know, let them monetize somehow. They're also going to build a lot. lot of creative tools for that, by the way, right? Like, one of the reasons TikTok work was they lowered

the barriers for creation. What can Facebook do in that regard? So I'm willing to give that one a shot, right? Like, I always think you're on shaking around when you're evaluating products that you've never seen. So that's where I sort of think they have the most potential. And like, by the way, it would be such a huge morale booster for them if they could create a product like that, because, you know, obviously the conventional wisdom about Facebook is they don't invent anything. So if they could, you know, make this happen in the United States, that would be huge for them. You know, the other stuff, I'm basically on the same page with you. It would be great if they could, you know, help a lot of podcasters grow their audiences

and that sort of thing. What was happy to see? Yeah, I respect the strategy. Like, so many of the things that they do don't work, right? The dating thing never really took off as far as I know. Maybe it's popular. No, I'm famously still single. Yeah.

So, well, I don't know if a dating app will help that case. You know, you could be right. You were just named as one of the most eligible bachelors in San Francisco. I know. Congratulations. I got like two DMs on Instagram and that shows you the power of the traditional media these days. Yeah. Well, anyway, well, I think we talked about Tinder last time also.

Yeah, suffice to say, it's always on my mind. So did those DMs turn into anything? No, but it's okay. I have some new DMs going on on Tinder. Okay. There are once again irons in the fire. Yeah, okay, that's great. And now that will be back in person.

will be on the way. So dating didn't work. What else have they done recently? I don't know. Their whole push into into video. I know Mark Zuckerberg was telling you that, oh, it's worked out, you know, extremely well. I don't see it. They're pushing to, you know, doing their own news tab also seems to be kind of flat. Marketplace has worked, though. And, you know, I think, and stories has worked. So it only takes a few hits for them to really, you know, dramatically improve what they're doing on, on that platform. So also just like the core. Our business is doing great, and they get tons of usage for, you know, all of their core products. They're desperate to be seen as an innovative company, though, and so that's why this stuff is so important to them.

Yeah, and now that they've banned QAnon, they have to find some new engagement plan. Yes, exactly. Did you watch that kid, sorry, this is non-sequit, or did you watch that Q&N documentary on HBO? No, one of my favorite, like, extremism writers gave it like a pan, and I was like, no, thanks then i think it's just the extremist writers are jealous like they've been you know the only one seeing this for a long time and now they're like watching this documentary guy parachute in and get amazing access to like the people that created a chan and i you know it was called cue into the storm but it really felt like an eight chan documentary to me i learned so much from it i thought it was

really interesting uh for what it's worth my landlord keros wistler also really loved it okay yeah so we'll have to get care on to talk about it so yeah She would love to. Yeah, her partner in crime, Scott Galloway, will be on sometime next month. So maybe we can get care on as well. Okay, let's take a break. After the break, when we come back, I want to talk a little bit more about your conversation with Zuckerberg, specifically why they're courting folks who are writing newsletters and podcasts and whether we can trust them. So let's discuss that right after the break here on the big technology podcast. Hey everyone, let me tell you about The Hustle Daily Show, a podcast filled with business, tech news, and original stories to keep you in the loop on what's trending. More than 2 million professionals read The Hustle's daily email for its irreverent and informative takes on business and tech news. Now, they have a daily podcast called The Hustle Daily Show, where their team of writers break down the biggest business headlines in 15 minutes or less and explain why you should care about them. So, search for The Hustle Daily Show and your favorite podcast app. like the one you're using right now.

And we're back here for the second half of the big technology podcast with a friend of the pod. Casey Newton. Hey, Casey. Nice to be back. It's great to have you back. So the first half we talked a lot about, you know, this big podcast war or audio war between Facebook and Spotify and Apple and Clubhouse and Twitter.

So let's zoom in on Facebook because you did just sit with Zuckerberg or you discorded with Zuckerberg. and talked a little bit about this. So, you know, actually, let's start here. You know, one of the interesting things I found about your conversation with Zuckerberg was how enthusiastic he was about the individual versus the institution. What did you make of that?

Basically, he was saying that power in this world is moving from institutions, you know, read between the lines, stuff like the Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, two individuals, people like you. So what did you make of that? And is that good? I mean, it's good for some people. It's bad for some people. It enabled my business. It enabled your business. On the flip side, all the institutions of democracy are under attack all around the world. And Facebook probably plays some role in accelerating the attacks on that. So, you know, there is no one simple answer to all of these questions. But I think it's worth highlighting that empowering individuals over institutions is Facebook's business model. is what hyper-targeted personal advertising allows them to do because it means that really small businesses can find their exact specific customers. And, you know, Facebook then has this

incredible impenetrable business. So, you know, I do think, yeah. So I do think, you know, that Mark believes all this stuff very strongly. And, you know, if you listen, like, he has a pretty measured answer to that question. But I just also think that like all CEOs ultimately wind up arguing in favor of the business model and like all principles flow from there yeah and that's what it was interesting to me to hear that mark said something like uh all optimistic views of the future involve empowering individuals and i'm like thinking about this and i'm like okay great i'm an individual i'm not in a publication this is awesome and then i was like uh someone wrote a tweet that was like well you know facebook's wanted to empower individuals for a long time and it hasn't really

worked out well. And actually it has worked out really well, but those individuals are cute or whoever it is behind that. Right. It's Ben Shapiro and Dan Bongino. Right. Exactly. So I'm curious, like, okay, you know, this individual thing sounds good, but then you start to think about it. Is there a way that it turns out? You know, I mean, obviously like the individuals that need that Facebook empowers don't need to be ideologically aligned with me. But I also think that this has sort of been questionably successful, the whole empower the individual thing. Is that close-minded to me? It's weird because we're not publications.

So we're not like old-school journalists standing up on the hill and being like, everybody must read our editorial page. That's the only way they'll be informed. But on the other hand, it seems fraught. Well, yes, it is. You know, I think if you have 10 million Instagram followers and you make a lot of brand deals, you probably feel like the shift to individuals has worked out really great for you because the thing you're doing wasn't actually a job.

before Instagram and now you're rich right so that's like a pretty good outcome for your life um you know but again uh we do see all of these other trends which you know just from my perspective have mostly to do with the the rise of right wing extremism fascism authoritarianism around the world um and that does seem to go hand in hand with the the arrival of the internet and it's spread uh so you know i like i feel like every question about Facebook is on some level trying to weigh morally the good that it does versus the bad that it does. And I just think the human mind is like very poorly suited to this task because the thing itself is so big that we don't really have any mechanism for processing that. Yeah, you asked

Zuckerberg about that at the end of your conversation. Can you just summarize what his remark was and whether you found it credible or optimistic from your perspective? Yeah. I mean, what he said was. You were basically like, how do you sleep at night? I mean, some form of that. Not my words, but I did ask him. It was a good question. I did ask him how he makes the case to himself that Facebook is good for the world. Because I know he makes it to his employees and I've heard him make the case to his employees.

And it's not so much that I thought that he makes a different case to himself and he makes to his employees. I just wanted to phrase it that way to introduce a hint of like the personal. to it. And what he said was that essentially social networks do good and they do bad, but the bad that they do is largely to institutions and the story of this time is being written by the losing institutions. And because of that, we have a distorted perspective on what is happening. And then if you were to ask, you know, the small businesses that are thriving on Facebook, if you were to ask you or me who are thriving in this new world, maybe we would tell a different story.

And that was basically the answer that he gave. Yeah, it is interesting. Seeing there has been this huge institutional backlash or size institutional backlash to things like substack. And I can sit there, you know, writing substack newsletter and I'm like, are you sure that this is really the target here? I mean, you know, American newsrooms lost something like 16,000 jobs last year, according to the New Yorker.

And then substack comes along and probably create. like 300 new jobs in journalism, and the American press is like, is this the end of journalism? It's just like, what? What? What? Come on. Yeah, I know. But it is interesting because some of the folks that are carrying the banner happen to be

extremely antagonistic to the mainstream media, quote-unquote. I think it's good to have individuals to check the power of these institutions because we've been in them. They can have group think. They can, you know, pick up narratives. They can create environments where people don't feel comfortable sharing the fact that they think everybody's thinking about an issue wrong. And so they never really engage with that. But like, I wish there was a way, and maybe this is me having wishful thinking, but I wish there was a way where the individual could check these bigger institutions and it ends up being a constructive dialogue as opposed to a war because it often ends up in this war situation.

Yeah, I mean, like, you will never catch me on Twitter complaining about the New York Times or Washington Post. Like, I do not think that it is worth my time to do that because even if you're right about your criticism, you're just sort of giving ammo to the worst people in the world, you know, which sort of sounds like, you know, there's some sort of journalist code of silence. I just think it's better to go out and make the journalism that you want to see in the world, right? It is so easy to criticize, say that you would have done the story differently. You would have interviewed different people. You would have written a different headline. Like, we're journalists. We can actually just go do that. So that is the thing that we should do

rather than go on Twitter and be like, oh, the New York Times has done it again, right? Like there is actually not a lot of positive benefit to society that comes from doing that. Totally. And I noticed you didn't, as far as I know, you didn't really weigh in on like this, the big substack controversy over the past few months. I don't. And candidly, it's because I have no desire in being closely associated with substack. It's not a secret that I am on substack. I enjoy substack. The founders are, have been great to me. I really enjoy talking with them. I'm very grateful for the services that they built. But I see myself as somebody who's building a business that I want to transcend a substack. It may not always be on substack. So, you know, when people start throwing blows at substack, you know, for me to get on Twitter and start carrying water for them, it's like, you know, substack is, substack is, yeah, what's the neat, exactly? Yeah. And for listeners, just the context here is that substack has been paying some folks advances in order to write newsletters on their site and they don't disclose and some people have been upset about that because of who they might be funding. I don't have funding from substack.

Casey, do you, you have like a small subsidy from them? I get a small health care subsidy for them, which is guaranteed for the next few months. Like, basically it could expire in October. We'll see. And then I'm part of their legal defender program. Although, interestingly, that's really more of a gentleman's agreement than anything else. Like, I haven't, like, signed paperwork with them that says they'll definitely defend me if I get sued. So, but yeah.

And I disclose all that, like, on my ethics system. Right. And your subscription revenue, they're taking 10%. So I'm sure it more than pays for that type of stuff. And yeah, I go into the group chats with my friend and my friends and being like, oh, I got to weigh in on this. And they say the same thing you do, which is like let the journalism that you do speak for itself and don't get involved in these fights, which I think is the right move. So I'm grateful to friends. So I guess as we close the podcast, as the round third basin head home, baseball seasons, you know, I mean, you know I love a sports for four hours.

I know. I'm just doing it for you, Casey. So now Facebook seems like it's interested in getting in on this whole movement. It wants to do newsletters. Zuckerberg talked about that with you. It wants to do podcasts. We know that Facebook traditionally has sucked content creators in only to pull the rug out from under their feet. So the question around Facebook is always, you know, why should we trust Facebook? Do you have any?

Let me make the case for them. What would compel anyone to trust them to go join this product suite? Well, I mean, the thing that they've said that is really interesting to me is that they are now pro-data portability. So if you start one of these Facebook newsletters, you're going to be able to take your list with you if you want to go, which is the same deal that Substack offers. But it's like a pretty radical shift for Facebook in particular, right? Like you cannot take your Instagram followers with you. You cannot take your Facebook page followers with you. But if you have newsletter followers, you will be able to take it.

them with you. So that I think is interesting. The second thing that they're saying, although they have not disclosed the details, is basically they're going to take a smaller cut of your revenue than subsec is. So substack charges us 10%. I think there's a chance that Facebook charges 0%. Maybe it'll be 3 or 5%, but it's going to be less. I think it's likely zero. Yeah. So let's say that it's zero. You know, if you're making six figures on substack, that could be meaningful revenue that you would rather keep. And if Facebook makes a pretty good, seamless product, you know, that could be appealing. Yeah.

And the reason why I think it's going to be zero is because Facebook's best ad product is custom audiences where you can upload an email list and then they can find people that look like those people and you pay to advertise to them. And if Facebook could show using our ad product, you get a conversion rate that gives you a return on your investment. that's profitable to you, there would be no reason for the folks that are doing this not to go bananas and spend money like crazy on Facebook's ad platform. So they're going to make way more money on the ad product than they will charging us a percentage.

And when you do charge 0%, you're much more compelling in terms of a place to go in a substack. And Zuckerberg was also like, he's like, we're focusing way more on the creator than the consumer, which was interesting to me. And I think that's why, because he wants that ad money. I love it.

this is a great take. I'm just here to applaud it. Thank you, Casey. I have not thought about this, by the way. This is breaking news for me, but I think you're totally right. Yeah, we'll see how it plays out. So would you, would you ever think of moving there? You know what I like to say is there's a lot I'll do for $10 million. So, you know, is that you're saying? Yeah, that's my mantra. Yeah. And the phone lines are open. But I mean, look, Facebook is like kind of my core beat company. I write about platforms, broadly speaking, but Facebook, I think, will sort of always be my home base. It's just kind of what I do. You know, so if I had some sort of financial arrangement with Facebook, like, immediately,

I think I alienate a huge percentage of my customers. So I think it's probably better for me personally to maintain my distance. Like, you know, as I said to Mark yesterday, the whole reason I started a newsletter was to become less dependent on platforms rather than more. Exactly. Yeah, I thought that's the same thing. I was like, the whole idea behind newsletters and podcasts is you build this direct relationship. And you don't want to get back in the feed wars, number one.

And number two, like, one thing that annoys me is like there's been all this energy to build towards it. And like now you have Facebook and Apple coming in and taking their cut. Right. I mean, I understand they can help accelerate and, you know, move things. But I also like thinking even about Clubhouse or Twitter spaces, like this is yet another case where people who create things end up having the value sucked up by platforms and become disintermediated in some way from their audience.

even if the emails are portable, even if you're making a ton of money through Apple's podcasting thing, hypothetically. So yesterday, so we're doing this thing. Side channel, it's a shared Discord server. Yeah, yeah. Before you get into the story, why don't you pitch side channel,

then we'll. Yeah, yeah. Because now that you mention it, let's get into it. So, you know, I have a paid newsletter. We have a paid newsletter. I think you think about a lot is like, how do I make this more valuable to people over time, right?

Like I charge you a price and, you know, what I'm selling you for that price to start with is four emails a week, right? It's free. It's one email a week. Maybe you don't find the idea of more emails from me all that compelling. So what can I do to get you a little bit more interested? And so I reached out to some folks who I knew who also had paid newsletters. And I said, what if we started a Discord server where we each created channels related to our beats?

And then if anyone subscribed any one of our newsletters, They could have access to all of those channels. So we could create a community. And I went out to people who I thought were sort of on beats adjacent to mine. So we have, you know, Anne Helen Peterson who focuses on culture and remote work. Charlie Worsal focuses on the attention economy. Nick Kwaa focuses on podcasting, Delia Kye, focuses on media, Kim Zetter, cybersecurity, Eric Newcomber, startups and venture capital.

So we have these folks who are sort of like adjacent to the realm that I care about in interesting ways. And so, like, so are their communities. And so now we have this Discord server. It open on Monday. And people come in. You can check on all those channels. We have some shared channels, like jobs. We have a lounge.

We have a news channel. We have just talk with the news. But then we also, like, for a platformer, we have a channel where you can talk about, like, basically today in platform news. I have a channel where you can just share good tweets. And then I have a member's only room. So if you just want to talk with other platform readers,

like we have that room too. Love it. So, you know, we kick that off. a day ago, and on day one, we had 2,500 people walking through the door. And what's so cool about it is not only do we have a place to do text chat, but we have this stage where any of the co-hosts at any time can hop up on that stage and talk about current events, which gets me to the point that I was about to make to you. Great. I'm glad that you're able to bring it full circle, but I wanted to get the side channel plug in, but yes, go. Totally. So basically, at the

end of the day, Eric Newcomer, my co-host, had me up onto the stage and was just asking me about the Zuckerberg interview, how did it come about, various things about it. And then we just took questions from readers. And we had this one awesome reader, you know, not a person who I knew, but he just said that he was basically so galled by what Facebook is doing here because he was like, Casey, like, you did everything you could. After platforms really eroded the value of the open web to get away from the platforms. And then here, Facebook comes back and they says, we're going to take that thing too. And that was super galling to him. And I feel that a little bit myself, you know, but I'm also just a realist about the basic

forces of the market, which is somebody's always coming to eat your lunch, you know? And so, like, yes, it sucks that so few of us have stable jobs that we feel like we can count on. But I'm 20 years into a media career, man. Like, I've just accepted the fact. that nothing is ever going to be stable for any period of time. Yeah, I agree. It always feels a little bit like surfing to me where like you just get up on the board and you try to have fun while you can and eventually you're going to either wipe out or hit the shore, but enjoy the ride while you can.

Yeah, you know what story you never see is a journalist has retirement party. And you know why? It's because they either got laid off or canceled. Those are the only two ways to leave this business. True, or buyout, basically the same idea. Yeah, exactly. That's true. Journalist has retirement party. No, the story's never, it's never been written. You can look it up.

Yeah. Great. Well, this has been great. Did we miss anything? No, I mean, look, I just want to say, like, I think Side Channel is a super interesting idea. I hope other folks try it. Like, if you have a paid product and you have other people who are sort of doing similar work, I think there are so many interesting ways to collaborate that are still yet to be invented. And I've just been feeling really pumped about that lately. Yeah, I'm excited about it. I'm obviously my podcast and newsletter are totally free. We're ad-supported.

In fact, when this podcast goes live Wednesday, there's going to be some more news about our advertising program. So obviously not a candidate to join Side Channel, but it made me want to turn on paid subscription so I could get my listeners and readers in. So maybe we can talk about that sometime down the road. We'd love to find a way to turn that on and get people in. Well, and look, I mean, you're welcome in the server,

and we can always have you up on stage and just, you know, talk about tech. Would be great. I would love to join you one day on that. And I want to say thank you very much for joining part two, part two of our conversation, hopefully two of many. Well, I mean, if you thought this was good, wait until I, what to have to say in part three, because it is, I'm not even sure I'm allowed to say it, but I'm going to check with lawyers and hopefully I'll be able to by the time we get to it.

Oh, part three, I think we foreshadowed it well, vaccinated Casey. That's right. Makes good on the DMs. Vaccinated. and Tinder, like there's going to be some sort of connection there. Yeah. I'm ready. I'm ready. It'll be fun.

Thanks again, Casey. If you, if you haven't subscribed yet, go subscribe to his newsletter. It's platformer dot news. That's right. It doesn't sound like it's a real URL, but it is. It's legit. Yeah, I have to do one of those for big technology. I still do the substack URL.

And then if they want to find you on Twitter, other places. So I'm at Casey Newton. And if Side Tunnel sounds interesting. to you. If you subscribe to platformer, your welcome email will include instructions for how to join the server. So, yeah, just a lot of fun stuff going on here in the media

biz. Sure is. Okay, last thing I'll say. I feel like it's the most dynamic moment in consumer social that I've seen in a long time. Dude, in this Discord today, like my community organized itself into an Apple Live blog. We all did live commentary together

and I'm staring at this thing like Like, I cannot remember the last time I felt like I was living the future of media and I felt it today in Discord. Yeah, I think it's awesome. The Discord stuff, even though I don't have a lot of hope for Clubhouse, I think Clubhouse space is very interesting, new application of stuff. And we've danced around it a little bit today, but I'm kind of obsessed with TikTok. I know there's some questions about security there that, you know, you have to mention disclaimer. But that thing is unbelievable. And even like during the pandemic, I think it's gotten even.

better all these people making these extremely creative videos and that algorithm is just insane it's so good so so um not banned so no it survives trump like like you and i that's right we made it through and uh fingers crossed maybe soon we can say the same about covid can't wait how sweet it is okay well let's do an official wrap up thank you casey for joining uh platformer dot news is the website side channel is the discord server get him on twitter it's always fun to watch his tweets. DMs apparently are open. Thank you for listening. I want to say thank you to Nate Gwattany, who's turning this around in a shorter timeline than usual. I feel like I say that at the end of every episode, but we wanted to get newsy this week. So appreciate

you, Nate. Thank you for doing this. Thanks to Red Circle for selling and hosting, selling ads, hosting the podcast. And thanks again to you all for listening. We'll be back next Wednesday with another repeat guest, Ron John Roy, and John Durek from Margin's great newsletter about financial system. We'll be talking about Dogecoin and anything else related to how crazy our economy has been. So I hope to see you there. Thanks again to Casey and have a great week.