Tech Brew Ride Home - Mon. 11/22 – Adele Says: Spotify, No Shuffling!

Episode Date: November 22, 2021

When Adele says jump, Spotify apparently says how high? Is Apple Watch slipping in market share? All the crypto miners who fled China have landed in Russia, Kazakhstan and… Texas? And an explanation for why buying bots will either ruin, or save your holiday gift buying. Sponsors: Betterhelp.com/ridehome Dataiku.com Links: Adele gets Spotify to take shuffle button off all album pages (BBC News) Meta delays encrypted messages on Facebook and Instagram to 2023 (The Guardian) Wear OS Share Surges on Samsung’s Highest Quarterly Smartwatch Shipments in Q3 2021 (CounterpointResearch) India’s Paytm Tumbles Another 13% After First-Day IPO Flop (Boomberg) China’s exiled crypto machines fuel global mining boom (Financial Times) Texas Plans to Become the Bitcoin Capital, Vulnerable Power Grid and All (Bloomberg) Desperate Parents Turn to Shopping Bots to Hunt for Hottest Christmas Gifts (WSJ) Sweden's Ericsson snaps up cloud firm Vonage in $6.2 bln deal (Reuters) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Tech meme right home for Monday, November 22nd, 2021. I'm Brian McCullough today. When Adele says jump, Spotify apparently says how high? Is Apple Watch slipping in market share? All the crypto miners who fled China have landed in Russia, Kazakhstan, and Texas, and an explanation for why buying bots will either ruin or save your holiday gift buying season. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. You want to know what it's like to have clout in an industry? Try this on for size. Spotify has removed shuffle play as the default option on albums if you're a premium user and you choose to click to listen to an album, so tracks play in the order that artists intended. And Spotify did this

apparently after Adele requested the change, quoting the BBC. The singer tweeted, we don't create albums with so much care and thought into our track listing for no reason. Our art tells a story and our stories should be listened to as we intended. Thank you, Spotify, for listening, end quote. The streaming service replied, anything for you? A statement later held their, quote, new premium feature to make play the default button on all albums, end quote. A Spotify spokesperson said they were excited to be rolling out the feature, which was, quote, long requested by both users and artists, end quote. The spokesperson said Spotify users could still choose to shuffle an album, but the system would default to playing tracks in the order chosen by the artist. As always, we will continue to

iterate our products and features to create the best experiences for both artists and their fans, the statement concluded. Adel's 30, her first album in six years, was available on Spotify from its release on Friday. This marked a change from her last album, 25, which could only be bought physically or downloaded when it was released in November 2015, end quote. Now, on the one hand, I personally think this is good. I hated shuffle as the default. I do like the idea that artists can put tracks in certain order to give albums a certain flow, and especially when you listen to albums you've loved for years. It can be jarring to hear tracks out of order. So I always hated it when it would accidentally default to shuffle on me, but having said that, I mean, shuffle buttons have been

around even before the iPod on CD players going back to the 90s, and heck, back with record players. You could always lift the needle and skip around if you wanted. You can still do your own playlists and listen to Adele Radio or whatever, and shuffle still there. So, I mean, preserving an album as intended kind of feels like the right way the world should work, at least by default, right? Remember how Meta is working to encrypt all of its stuff? Well, that's taking longer than they hoped, I guess. According to Meta's head of safety, quote,

we don't plan to finish the global rollout of end-to-end encryption by default across all our messaging services until sometime in 2023, end quote. Quoting The Guardian. The head of safety at Facebook and Instagram's parent company Meta announced that the encryption process would take place in 2023. The company had previously said the change would happen in 2022 at the earliest. We are taking our time to get this right, and we don't plan to finish the global rollout of end-to-end encryption by default across all our messaging services until sometime in 2023. And Tickany Davis wrote in the Sunday Telegraph. As a company that connects billions of people around the world and has built industry-leading technology,

were determined to protect people's private communications and keep people safe online, end quote. Meta already uses end-to-end encryption on its WhatsApp messaging service and had been planning to extend that to its Messenger and Instagram apps in 2022. It has already encrypted voice and video calls on Messenger. announcing the Privacy Drive in 2019, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, quote, people expect their private communications to be secure and to only be seen by the people they've sent them to, not hackers, criminals, overreaching governments, or even the people operating the services they're using. end quote. Davis said meta would be able to detect abuse under its encryption's plans by using non-encrypted data, account information, and reports from users. A similar approach has already

enabled WhatsApp to make reports to child safety authorities. Quote, our recent review of some historic cases showed that we would still have been able to provide critical information to the authorities, even if those services had been end-to-end encrypted, she said, end quote. This is somewhat surprising to me. According to Counterpoint Research, global smartwatch shipments in Q3 of 2021 saw Samsung's market share rise to 17% on the back of the Galaxy Watch 4 series launch, retaking the number two position behind Apple, whose market share actually dropped 10% year over year. Quote, thanks to the launch of the Galaxy Watch 4 series, Samsung achieved its highest

quarterly shipments, narrowing the gap with Apple and reclaiming second place from Huawei. From this smartwatch series, Samsung has expanded its app ecosystem by using Android-based wear OS instead of its Tysen. The brand has also broadened users' range of choice by launching two models, both classic and basic. The newly added body composition feature has also fetched a good response. Apple still held the number one spot in Q3, 2021, but its share fell 10% year-over-year as its watch series 7 launch was delayed to the fourth quarter. Amaze Fit ranked third due to its growing popularity in Europe. One of the highlights of this quarter was the rapid growth of Indian brands, noise and boat, which ranked first and second, respectively in the Indian smartwatch market,

shipped more than double the volume from the previous quarter. In Q3, 2021, there was also a significant change in OS market shares. Thanks to Samsung, which started using WearOS with the Galaxy Watch 4, Google saw good growth in the wearable OS market. In terms of OS, the smart watch market is fragmented, as many OEMs still use proprietary OS or RTOS. But with third-party app support becoming important for users, this situation is a expected to change steadily, end quote. Following up on a story from last week, remember how shares of Indian super app and all-around FinTech Paytm fell 27% on the first day of trading after its IPO? Well, they've continued

to fall subsequently down around another 13% bringing Paytm's market value down to around $12 billion. This has to be one of the worst debuts for a major tech company to public markets in several years. But I don't quite know why. Like the Indian market is hot. It's FinTech, which is hot. So what gives? If anyone knows, as ever, I'm all ears, but maybe some hints from this piece quoting Bloomberg. Paytm's parent company, 197 communications, raised a record IPO sum, but its disastrous trading debuts sparked criticism the company and its investment bankers had pushed too hard in the offering. Founder and chief executive officer Vijay Shakar Sharma had persistently made clear that he wanted Paytm to surpass the longstanding IPO record set by

Coal India in 2010. Over the weekend, Paytm released financial details for the month of October, which includes the critical period ahead of the Do Wally holiday. Gross merchandise value rose 131% to $832 billion or $11.2 billion for the month, the company said, loan dispersals, which analysts see as key to Paytm turning profitable, increased more than 400% to $6.27 billion. rupees. The stumble by India's largest digital payments provider may chill India's stock market boom, which had ranked among the world's most frenzied. The IPO had been touted by some as a symbol of the country's growing appeal as a destination for global capital, particularly for investors looking for alternatives to China. Critics have questioned Paytm's prospects in recent months, though.

While sales at its core payments and financial services arm rose 11% in the year ended in March, overall revenue dropped 10% amid intensifying competition, the company reported in July. Quote, considering PATEM's heavily cash-burning business model, no clear path to profitability, large regulatory risks to the business, and questionable corporate governments, we believe the company is overvalued at the upper end of price band of $2,150. A analyst Sharesh Gannopee and Param Suburanian wrote in the note, end quote. Following up on another story from recent times, remember when China banned crypto mining. Analysts from the Financial Times have found that 14 of the world's biggest

crypto mining companies moved around 2 million machines out of China following the country's ban in May, with a majority going to Russia. Quote, outside the U.S., Kazakhstan has become a leading mining center. FT data show the bulk of the machines going to Kazakhstan came from Chinese mining company Bitfufu, which shipped 80,000 machines to farms in Kazakhstan, and Bitmining, which shipped 7,800. 149 machines by August. Another beneficiary of China's ban was Russia. In the weeks following China's ban, Moscow-based infrastructure hosting company BitCluster received over 5,000 machines from China, while Russian crypto mining company BitRiver said it is hosting 200,000 machines from exiled Chinese miners, which are being shipped in batches, end quote. Yes, but, apparently, according to Bloomberg,

of the miners relocating to the United States, Texas is attracting crypto miners with incentives, cheap power, and lax regulation. But didn't we learn recently that Texas has a fairly fragile power grid, at least comparatively? Quote, Texas, already home to the most vulnerable power grid in the U.S. is about to be hit by a surge in demand for electricity. That's twice the size of the city of Austin's. An army of cryptocurrency miners heading to the state for its cheap power and laissez-faire regulation is forecast to send demand soaring by as much as 5,000 megawatts over the next two years. The crypto migration to Texas has been building for months, but the sheer volume of power those miners will need two times more than the capital city of almost one million people consumed in all of 2020 is only now becoming clear. Miners setting up shop in the Lone Star State can count on a 10-year tax abatement, sales tax credits, and workforce training from the state, depending on where they are located and how many jobs they add.

Even without formal incentives, the cheap power prices and the state's hands-off policy towards business is often enough of a lure. The pitch is working. The grid operator Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or Aircott, will account for about 20% of the Bitcoin network globally by the end of 2022, up from 8% to 10% today, according to Lee Bratcher, president of the Texas Blockchain Council. Right now, Aircott has somewhere between 500 and 1,000 megawatts of mining capacity out of about 2,000 nationwide. The state grid will add another 3,000 to 5,000 megawatts of mining demand by the end of 23, he said. While it's likely the grid will have enough total capacity to meet the surge in demand, the even bigger question at play is reliability and whether there will be enough power when demand

is at peaks and supply is vulnerable, according to Moody's analyst Toby Shea, end quote. If you've tried to buy a PlayStation or Xbox this year, then you probably already know this, but use of shopping bots that scour retail sites for hard-to-find items soared during the pandemic. One developer, for example, is currently selling. selling such bots for $40 plus a $30 a month fee. I've heard of ransomware as a service, but sniping as a service. So if you're not able to get all the goodies you want this holiday season, supply chains may be to blame, but so are the bots, quoting the Wall Street Journal. Craig Douglas wanted to get a PlayStation 5 for his two oldest children plus a Hot Wheels carwash

playset and a Kokomelon plushy for his two youngest. Last month, all three items were sold out online, and at every store he visited near his home in York, Maine. With Christmas fast approaching, the 34-year-old electrical engineer subscribed to a $99 a month shopping bot called Snail Bot that crawls Amazon and Walmart websites. He connected the bot to his accounts for both retail sites, selected the items he wanted, and a few weeks later they arrived at his doorstep. It's pretty much saved Christmas this year, said Mr. Douglas. The use of bots, or botting, was popularized a few years ago by sneaker enthusiasts looking to get their hands on high-end pairs released in limited quantity. The programs have since expanded to target different products and services, including appointments for COVID-19 vaccine shots and spots for workout classes when those were scarce.

Shopping bot developers say there has been an increase in people using their software to buy just a few items at a time. Traditionally, bots have been used to purchase dozens or hundreds of the same products to resell on platforms like eBay and Facebook Marketplace. Small volume purchases indicate users are acquiring items to keep for themselves, developers say. This holiday season, bot developers say their users are. are chasing hard-to-find gifts such as Gabby's dollhouse playset from Spin Master, Crackle Barrel, old country stores, LED, blow-mold nostalgic boy reindeer, and playmates, toys, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,

original party wagon. Video game consoles, trading cards, and computer graphics cards are also hot. Many people see Bodding as a market distortion, especially ahead of Black Friday, a day many consumers wait to do their holiday shopping in anticipation of discounts. One group of lawmakers tried to outlaw the practice through the Stopping GrinchBots Act in 2019, but it failed to pass Congress. Bot activity has since surged. Monthly bot attacks on retail sites have increased more than eightfold over the past two years, according to estimates from Imperva Incorporated. Peter Clemack, Director of Technology at the cybersecurity firm, attributed the growth largely to the pandemic's social distancing restrictions and the global supply chain crunch, and quote.

Finally today, news that Erickson is buying cloud communications company Vonage for 6.2 billion dollars and expects the deal to close in the first half of 2022, quoting Reuters. U.S.-based Vantage makes application programming interfaces, which help different software communicate with each other. Vonage is complementary to what we have built in enterprise so far. Cradle Point, another recent acquisition by Erickson, was one of the big stepping stones as well in building an enterprise presence. Erickson's CEO Carl Melander told Reuters, Erickson will pay $21 for each outstanding Vantage share, a 28% premium to Friday's closing price, and a 34% premium to the average of the last three months, a price analyst said was high, end quote.

Yes, but I remember Vonage as the only company that basically still advertised online after the dot-com bubble burst. Back when ditching your landline for something digital was the height of digital disruption, Vonage was a big player. Remember Vonage? Remember Skype? Remember Ring Central? Quick bit of housekeeping here. The show will drop about an hour or two later than normal. tomorrow as I will be traveling. I will write and record what I can before I leave, but then we'll polish up the rest as soon as I get to Florida. So if you notice a small audio difference, by the way, that will be why and also why the show will be a tiny bit late, but not too late. Talk to you tomorrow.