Tech Brew Ride Home - Thu. 07/22 – Downvote This Tweet

Starting point is 00:00:00 On April 4th, 2023, around 2 in the morning, a man was found stabbed multiple times on a sidewalk in downtown San Francisco. Hey, who did this to you? What happened next turned the story into a political firestorm. Reports have identified the victim as Bob Lee, the founder of Cash App. From Bloomberg Podcasts, this is Foundering, the Killing of Bob Lee, beginning April 16. Welcome to the Tech meme right home for Thursday, July 22nd, 2021. I'm Brian McCullough today. Twitter is testing downvotes. Tumblr gets into the subscription game. Google unveils a unified backup service for Android. Is HBO Max leading the pack of followers in the musical chairs streaming wars contest? The FTC is getting serious about right to repair.

Starting point is 00:00:55 And let me introduce you to the Airbnb for backyard swimming pools. Here's what you missed today in the world of tech. If you were in the Twitter space last night, you heard this get brought up at the end of the space. Twitter is testing a way to downvote replies on iOS to understand the types of replies users find relevant to a conversation. Downvotes won't be public, so maybe this won't be useful for trolls. One would hope, quoting 9 to 5 Mac. Twitter confirmed this new test in a tweet posted to the Twitter support account. The company says that some users on iOS will see new upvote and downvote options on tweets. Downvotes will not be shown publicly while upvotes will be shown as likes, the company says,

Starting point is 00:01:43 implying that the feature is only intended for internal metrics. According to Twitter, the goal of this new test is to, quote, understand the types of replies you find relevant in a conversation. The prompt that appears to users in the Twitter for iOS app reads as follows, quote, dislikes aren't public or visible to the author while likes are. They both help us understand what people think is valuable to the conversation, end quote. Twitter is testing multiple different designs for this new feature, including upvote and downvote buttons, likes and dislikes, and pairing the classic heart with a downvote as seen in the image above. Again, the important thing to remember here is that this is a test and none of the information is publicly shown.

Starting point is 00:02:22 The ultimate scope of this test remains to be seen and it's unclear whether Twitter will expand these features beyond the current small subset of users, end quote. Since there was a time when we talked about them endlessly, it's probably worth noting that Clubhouse is no longer invite only and has exited beta and says that the 10 million people currently sitting on its wait list will be added to the app over time. So everyone into the clubhouse pool at long last, quoting the verge. Essentially, millions of users won't be added today, but seemingly if you attempt to sign up anew, you'll be able to do so. Along with the news, Clubhouse showed off a new logo, as well as a new app icon, Justin Meesey Williams, rapper 21 Savage's manager. This change comes only a week after Clubhouse launched its DM product, Back Channel, which the team now says saw 10 million messages sent within the first day of launch, and more than 90 million over the first week, end quote. Although as a sort of shot chaser thing, I do also have these stats from a recent Casey Newton tweet, quote, New Clubhouse stats from Censor Tower, 7.7 million installs in June.

Starting point is 00:03:35 5.85 million of those were in India where it was brand new. That leaves around 1.8 million downloads for the rest of the world. It previously did 2.7 million downloads in the U.S. in March alone. Retention still clearly is its biggest problem, end quote. Ah yes, Clubhouse. The social network people can't stop talking about even when they're talking about how it might be failing. Well, at the very least, now everyone can see what all the fuss has been about and make a call for themselves. I'm going to stick this here because it feels like a theme, these first three segments.

Starting point is 00:04:16 Tumblr has started testing what it is calling Post Plus, which allows users to charge their followers a monthly fee in exchange for access to exclusive content with Tumblr taking a 5% cut, quoting the Wall Street Journal. Tumblr hopes the feature will attract younger users, those for so-called Gen Z and help keep them on a platform that rose to prominence among teenagers and college students in the early 2010s as a place to share memes, photos, and creative writing. More than 48% of its users already fall within the Gen Z demographic, which encompasses people born in the mid-to-late 1990s through to the early 2010s, Tumblr said, though it declined to disclose how many people use the platform daily.

Starting point is 00:04:57 Unlike previous internet generations, people from this younger age group, value and may even expect to be paid to post, said Lance Willett, Tumblr's chief product and technology officer, end quote. As I said, again on the Twitter space last night, I feel like this is 100% the perfect fit for Tumblr. It just maybe came, I don't know, a decade too late for Tumblr. Is it just me or is the move to the creator economy resurrecting the ideas of a whole bunch of different things that somehow couldn't make a go of it when the only business model for social was ads supported. Google is rolling out backup by Google One, a unified Android cloud backup that syncs app data,

Starting point is 00:05:41 messages, photos, more. Backup is intended to replace the Play Services tool, apparently, quoting 9 to5 Google. Android backups currently cover app data, SMS messages, call history, contacts, and device preferences, including Wi-Fi networks and passwords, wallpapers, display settings, brightness and sleep, language, and input settings, and date and data. time. Backup by Google One is billed as being more granular and expansive, as well as Unified. Namely, it can also backup photos, videos, and MMS messages with management and control now directly in Android settings in addition to the existing Google One app or website. With this change,

Starting point is 00:06:20 MMS is now part of the Android backup experience by default. Last year, the company started allowing anyone to backup MMS, but that required installing and using the Google One app. This unified approach is meant to remove any distinction in backups. Today, people are primarily aware of Google One, which most equate with Google Photos media backup, and might not be familiar with what's automatically done in the background. This usually does not come into play until they get a new device and are setting it up. Users will now have less to manage and be actively aware of what is being stored, end quote. Sources are telling Bloomberg that the Chinese government sees DEDY's decision to go public despite regulator pushback as a challenge to its authority and is

Starting point is 00:07:06 considering unprecedented penalties, which, as always, with stories like this, dun, dun, unquote, regulators are weighing a range of potential punishments, including a fine suspension of certain operations or the introduction of a state-owned investor, the people said, also possible is a forced delisting or withdrawal of DEDD's U.S. share. although it's unclear how such an option would play out. Deliberations are at a preliminary phase, and the outcomes are far from certain. Beijing is likely to impose harsher sanctions on D-D than on Ali Baba, which swallowed a record $2.8 billion fine after a months-long antitrust investigation and agreed to initiate measures to protect merchants and customers, the people said.

Starting point is 00:07:50 Quote, it's hard to guess what the penalty will be, but I'm sure it will be substantial, said Minksin Pai, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College. in California. Didi's IPO looked at first like a great success, raising $4.4 billion after several troubled years. It turned co-founder Cheng Wei into a billionaire and rewarded longtime backers, SoftBank, Tiger Global, and Temesic Holdings. But the CAC pounced just days later announcing a cybersecurity review because of the company's data practices and then banning Didi's app from the country's app stores. Its shares quickly plunge below the offering price. China's regulators largely supported the idea of an IPO, but they expressed concerns about DEDD's

Starting point is 00:08:28 data security practices since at least April, the people said. In one example of concern, D.D. had disclosed statistics on taxi trips taken by government officials, one of the people said, although it's not clear whether that specific issue was raised with the company. Regulators urged D.D. to ensure the security of its data before proceeding with the IPO or to shift the location to Hong Kong or mainland China, where disclosure risks would be lower, the people said. Regulators didn't explicitly forbid the company from going public in the U.S., but they felt certain D.D. understant, stood the official instructions, they said. One person involved in the meetings when asked why Didi didn't act on suggestions from regulators referred to a proverb that you can't wake a person

Starting point is 00:09:10 pretending to sleep, end quote. Streaming Wars Watch now is HBO Max quietly moving into poll position behind Netflix and Disney Plus at the head of the pack. During AT&T's earnings yesterday, it was announced that HBO Max and HBO have a combined 67. and a half million subscribers, which is up 12 million subscribers year over year. HBO max subscription revenue grew 39% year over year to $2 billion. So basically they added 2.8 million subs domestically just this last quarter and 5.5 million so far this year. The key to understand here is that at its Game of Thrones hype peak, HBO had 37 million

Starting point is 00:09:57 subscribers. Now they have 48 million. So this has not been a failure. far, which is, I know, sounds like faint praise, but it's not a Disney plus level of success, but surely, comparatively, that's pretty good, right? Quoting variety. Given HBO Max's momentum, AT&T said it now expects 70 to 73 million global HBO Max slash HBO subscribers by the end of the year. Previously, the company forecast 67 to 70 million subscribers worldwide by the end of 2021. HBO Max had another strong quarter and is ahead of plan to be a leading direct-to-consumption.

Starting point is 00:10:33 streaming platform with both subscriber and ad-supported choices. AT&T CEO John Stanky said in announcing the Q2 results. The growth of HBO Max has been boosted by WarnerMedia's controversial strategy of releasing Warner Bros' entire 2021 movie slate day and date in theaters and on the SVOD service. In 2022, WarnerMedia has said it will scale that back to release tent pole pictures in traditional theatrical windows, which could flatten HBO Max's upward trajectory. the Q2 call, Warner Media CEO Jason Kalar, who's expected to exit with the Discovery merger, told analysts that Warner Brothers will premiere 10 movies in 2022 exclusively on HBO Max, while it will shorten theatrical windows for other titles to 45 days, end quote.

Starting point is 00:11:19 So yeah, the big question here is what happens when that day and date release of new titles is moved back to the traditional windowing strategy. I guess it depends on the quality of the movies to a certain extent, right? Or maybe they test that rent it for 30 days. day-of-release thing that Disney did with Black Widow. Also, the performance of that HBO Max with ads version was not disclosed, so there's potentially another shoe to drop there. The FTC has formally pledged to fight unlawful right-to-repair restrictions, saying it will use its power to lower repair costs and support independent repair shops. This comes a day after the White House said something roughly similar, quoting the verge. Wednesday's new right-to-re

Starting point is 00:12:06 repair policy statement commits the FTC to encouraging competition in product repair markets with vigor, according to Chair Lena Kahn. The statement, which was approved unanimously, makes it official FTC policy for the agency to use its existing authorities to support independent repair shops and lower repair costs for consumers. The statement comes just days after the White House endorsed similar rules in an executive order on economic competition. In the order signed by President Joe Biden on July 9th, the White House explicitly calls out smartphone makers that quote, impose restrictions on self and third-party repairs, making repairs more costly and time-consuming, such as by restricting the distribution of parts, diagnostics, and repair tools, end quote.

Starting point is 00:12:46 At Wednesday's meeting, the FTC did not name any specific companies or industries that it could target in the future investigations, but the move was lauded by right to repair advocates like I Fix It. In a statement Wednesday, I Fixit's U.S. policy lead Kerry Sheehan said, quote, the FTC's progress addressing repair restrictions shows how much much momentum right to repair has achieved and how powerful our community can be when we work together, end quote. Finally today on this second to last Thursday of July, I give you the Airbnb of pools. That's right, quoting the Wall Street Journal. Jim Patan's tree-lined swimming pool at his home outside Portland, Oregon, had been sitting untouched since his youngest daughter moved out two years ago. Then in September, he listed it through an online platform for renting private pools.

Starting point is 00:13:42 He booked the pool three times within the first two hours and says he has hosted 2,700 guests in less than a year. Mr. Batten expects to have earned $11,000 by the end of the summer, which would just cover the $110,000 he and his wife spent on the custom-built pool eight years ago. I thought, wow, that's weird, Mr. Batten said, it's nice to feel like we didn't have to spend all $110,000 for nothing. end quote. He is one of 13,000 pool owners in 125 markets across the U.S., including cities like Los Angeles and Austin, Texas, who are cashing in on their underused pool by listing with the company Swimply, which some media reports have dubbed the Airbnb for backyard pools. Swimply said its pool owners have made about 122,000 bookings since the start of 2020. Business began picking up before the COVID-19 pandemic, but it boomed during the health crisis,

Starting point is 00:14:37 public pools closed and people sought to make extra cash or safely gather after months of lockdown. We've seen a lot of families and friends rekindling with Swimply, said Budem Laskin, Swimply, co-founder and chief executive. Hosts on average earn between about $5,000 and $10,000 a month, according to Asher Weinberger, Swimpley co-founder and chief operating officer. Most pool owners charge between $35 and $50 an hour, while Swimpley collects 15% from the hosts and another 10% from the guests. Some of the hosts' earnings help pay for costs related to pool maintenance, which have jumped during the pandemic because lockdowns and business slowdowns disrupted the pool chemical supply chain. Mr. Weinberger said he now spends $85 a week

Starting point is 00:15:18 on chemicals and servicing his pool up from $45 before the pandemic. It's a hunt for chlorine at the best price, said Shannon Zoller, a Swimply host in Oklahoma City, who said he has made $10,000 since he started renting out his pool last June, end quote. You know, I have a backyard pool. Sure, it's a blow-up kitty pool, but it is probably eight feet by 10 feet, so it can comfortably fit four adults sitting or two adults lying flat out. And believe me, on a Saturday afternoon, it's super relaxing to lie back in the pool just floating and watching the clouds go by overhead. It's like a combination, what do you call those things, hyperbolic chamber slash, I don't know, meditation retreat.

Starting point is 00:16:15 And did I mention that the spigot in our backyard somehow puts out heated water? So it's a heated pool. What do you think I could get as a going rate for this here in Brooklyn? Maybe I'm not kidding about that. Maybe I should test it. I don't know. Talk to you tomorrow.

Tech Brew Ride Home - Thu. 07/22 – Downvote This Tweet

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