Tech Brew Ride Home - Tue. 03/28 – Rise Of The Blue Checks

Episode Date: March 28, 2023

I titled an episode last week “Twilight Of The Blue Checks.” Well, today is the sequel, “Rise Of The Blue Checks” cause starting April 15, you’ll have to be a blue check to appear on Twitter’s For You tab. Also: the feds go after Binance. Disney cuts its entire metaverse unit. And the UK cancels its NFT. Sponsors: Miro.com/podcast Notion.com/ride Links: Elon Musk says Twitter’s For You page will only recommend verified accounts (The Verge) The secret list of Twitter VIPs getting boosted over everyone else (Platformer) Binance and founder Changpeng Zhao violated compliance rules to attract U.S. users, CFTC alleges (CNBC) Disney Eliminates Its Metaverse Division as Part of Company’s Layoffs Plan (WSJ) NFT: Plans for Royal Mint produced token dropped (BBC News) Lyft CEO and president to step down, former Amazon exec David Risher named as replacement (CNBC) Amazon just opened up its Sidewalk network for anyone to build connected gadgets on (The Verge) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 TechMame Right Home for Tuesday, March 28th, 2023. I'm Brian McCullough today. I titled an episode last week, Twilight of the Blue Checks. Well, today is the sequel Rise of the Blue Checks because starting April 15th, you'll have to be a blue check to appear on Twitter's for U-Tab. Also, the feds go after Binance, Disney cuts its entire Metaverse unit, and the UK cancels its NFT plans. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. Well, here we go again. Elon Musk. Musk says starting April 15th, only verified accounts will be recommended in Twitter's for U-Tab, and also will be the only ones able to vote in polls.

He says this is to address what he calls AI bot swarms. So basically, if you're a fan of the algorithmic Twitter feed, you better hope your favorite follows pay up for the blue check, because otherwise you're not going to see them there. Conversely, if you tend not to like folks who would have the tendency to be willing to pay Elon for a blue check, the 4U feed is about to become a lot more annoying, potentially. Quoting the verge. Musk claims the move is, quote, the only realistic way to address advanced AI bot swarms

taking over, end quote. Verified users are also going to become the only accounts that can vote in polls for, quote, the same reason, Musk says. It's worth taking this announcement with a big grain of salt, as Musk's tweets haven't always turned into enforced policy or features. perhaps the biggest example of this is his promise from February that the company was going to start sharing ad revenue with blue subscribers, something that's still missing in action almost two months later. That same month, he also promised to open source the company's algorithm by March 5th, which hasn't happened

yet, though now he says it'll happen on March 31st without acknowledging the previous missed deadline, end quote. That was from The Verge, by the way, in case I forgot to mention that. Lots of people are making the point I'm about to make, but I think we can see the logical end point of this, what odds would you give me that the chronological feed survives the year? Basically, it looks like we're heading for a day where you either pay up to use Twitter at all, or you only see what Twitter wants you to see. Why don't we just cut to the end point where you either pay to use Twitter or you can't even log in? According our friendly neighborhood co-host, Chris Messina, premium social becomes the default. So much for taking power from the lords and

distributing it to the plebs. This is a friendly neighborhood co-hosts. This is a very social social. It's pure pay to play is the only way to defeat advertising on the web to turn everyone into an advertiser, end quote. He's referring to previous comments from Elon about wanting to democratize Twitter, and quoting Will Aramis, who's excited for a Twitter feed populated entirely by the sort of people who pay $8 a month to get a blue check next to their name, end quote. Also, if you were thinking, well, maybe it would be worth paying up so that I can be one of the folks with that extra reach. well, quoting Derek Guy. I can tell you from experience that $8 a month will get you thousands of daily messages like, why are you showing up in my timeline? You suck. Who effing cares? Insert a total

misreading of what you wrote. You should hate yourself. I can't stand you. On and on and on. Lots of curse words in this quote, end quote. P.S. According to documents seen by platformer, Twitter has a list of around 35 accounts which it monitors and offers increased visibility to already, including AOC, President Biden, Mark Andresen, Musk himself, and folks like at CatTurd 2. Quote, last week, Twitter began notifying users who were verified under the company's previous regime that their blue check marks will be taken away unless they become paid subscribers for $8 a month. It's about treating everyone equally. CEO Elon Musk tweeted in response to a critical William Shatner, quote, there shouldn't

be a different standard for celebrities, in my opinion, end quote. But Twitter does have a. a different standard for celebrities, including Musk himself. For months, the platform has maintained a list of around 35 VIP users whose accounts it monitors and offers increased visibility alongside Elon Musk, according to documents obtained by platformer. The list, which spans the political gamut and also includes several journalists and celebrities, includes NBA All-Star, LeBron James, Daily Wire founder and conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, pseudonymous conservative commentator Katterd 2, Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez,

President Joe Biden, YouTube star Mr. Beast, venture capitalist and Twitter investor Mark Andresen, Weird Twitter Pioneer at Drill, comedian Jabuki Young White, Tesla community account at Tesla owner SSV, journalists Matt Iglesias, Glenn Greenwald, Noah Smith, and Adrian Wajanowski. This is not the same as the boost that Musk gave his own account, after he complained his tweets were not being seen widely enough after the Super Bowl, but it has the practical effect of ensuring that tweets from these accounts are more widely seen than other users. For example, the core Twitter ranking algorithm is designed not to recommend too many tweets from one account. Being on the VIP list exempts those accounts from that rule, ensuring that more people see what they have posted,

end quote. So I just want to point this out. In my opinion, in the realm of what made Twitter great originally, there's this angle to consider, and it's somewhat contradictory. On the one hand, the idea that you could interact with LeBron James in real time, the fact that you were somehow in the same room, virtually at least, as a celebrity, is what brought a lot of folks to Twitter in the first place. The earliest days of Twitter, for me, it was a thrill to have conversations with Mark Andreessen. I first became friendly with Noah Smith, simply by interacting with him late one night on Twitter about the Holy Roman Empire of all things. But at the same time, people stuck around on Twitter, because there was also the promise that maybe you too could broadcast your own views

on the exact same platform as, say, LeBron James. There was this sense that you could build a following, in quotes, that if you just said smart things, maybe people would listen. Maybe LeBron James would listen. That whole idea began with Twitter. That was its first major challenge to Facebook, and it bequeathed that insight to Instagram, to TikTok at all. So can you see how these changes potentially break both sides of what I would say is Twitter's secret sauce? If it only becomes a place where only the rich and famous have reach, and you do not, or else the only people willing to pay to have reach do so, then what becomes the value of Twitter's velvet rope of its secret sauce?

Yesterday, the Commodity Futures and Trading Commission sued Binance, its CEO CZ, and a former chief compliance officer calling the company's compliance efforts, quote, a sham and its structure, quote, intentionally opaque, quoting CNBC. The filing has the potential to upend the exchange's operations and is potentially just the first salvo in a regulatory crackdown on the world's largest crypto exchange. Beyond disgorgement and any monetary costs, the CFTC filing asked the court to impose further relief, including trading and registration bans. The regulator alleged that Binance, CZ, and the former compliance officer violated eight core provisions of the Commodity Exchange Act, including laws that require controls, quote, designed to prevent and detect money laundering and

terrorism financing, end quote. Just days prior to the CFTC filing, CNBC reported on how finance employees work to subvert the exchange's compliance controls in China using some of the same techniques that the CFTC alleges Binance used to solicit U.S. users. Zhao, otherwise known as CZ and Lim, the compliance officer, alleged, quote, actively cultivated lucrative and commercially important VIP customers, including institutional customers located in the United States, the complaint said. Binance and Zhao took steps to purposefully obscure where the exchange's subsidiaries were located, the regulator said. This was part of a larger strategy that Zhao said was an effort to,

quote, keep countries clean, the regulator alleged in the filing. A key part of Binance's alleged effort to generate fees and solicit U.S. users was the exchange's VIP program for high net worth individuals, the CFTC filing said. end quote. In his newsletter, analyzing this yesterday, Bloomberg's Matt Levine underlined the idea that the CFTC's case versus Binance is mainly about U.S. clients like high-frequency trading firms in New York City and Chicago using an unregistered crypto derivatives exchange. For its part, Binance and CZ say the CFTC's complaint contains, quote, incomplete recitation of facts and Binance does not agree with, quote, characterization of many of the issues alleged, end quote.

sources are telling the Wall Street Journal that Disney plans to eliminate its entire Metaverse unit, cutting around 50 jobs, and also plans to cease work on an Amazon Prime-like program integrating Disney Plus and other Disney platforms. Quote, Walt Disney has eliminated its next-generation storytelling and consumer experiences unit, the small division that was developing Metaverse strategies, according to people familiar with this situation, as part of a broader restructuring that is expected to reduce headcount by around 7,000 across the company over the next two months. Headed by Mike White, a former Disney Consumer Products Executive, the division was tasked with finding ways to tell interactive stories and new technological formats using Disney's extensive

library of intellectual property. The people said, all of the teams roughly 50 members have lost their jobs. The people said, Mr. White remains at the company, although what his new role will be is unclear. Disney's former chief executive, Bob Chapeck, hired Mr. White in February 2020 telling employees in an internal memo at the time that the goal was to, quote, create an entirely new paradigm for how audiences experience and engage with our stories, end quote. Mr. Chepeck, who was succeeded as CEO by Robert Eager in November, had described the metaverse as, quote, the next great storytelling frontier, end quote. Mr. White was also involved in an effort last year to design a membership initiative that in some

ways resembled Amazon's prime program, which would integrate customer data across multiple Disney platforms including streaming service Disney Plus, online retail operations, and smartphone apps that visitors to Disney theme parks used to purchase food, merchandise, and other products. That effort has also been abandoned, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Iger has been bullish about the Metaverse. Last year, he invested in and joined the board of Genies, a technology startup that sells tools, allowing users to create elaborate online avatars for use in the Metaverse. But Disney is under pressure from investors to make deep cuts to non-essential businesses. Last year, the company hired consultants from McKinsey to help find

cost-cutting opportunities, a move that angered some top content executives, end quote. Maybe I Need a New File, titled something like, from the formerly hyped tech initiatives file, the United Kingdom has canceled plans to launch an NFT, proposed in 2022 by Rishi Sunak, in a bid to make the UK a crypto hub. And it says it will keep the proposed. will under review, but it looks like there will be no Royal NFT, I guess, quoting the BBC. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak ordered the creation of a NFT for Britain that could be traded online while Chancellor in April 2022. NFTs are assets in the digital world that can be bought and sold, but which have no physical form of their own. The Treasury announced it was not proceeding

with the launch following a consultation with the Royal Mint. Responding to the announcement, Harriet Baldwin, Chair of the Treasury Select Committee, said, quote, we have not yet seen a lot of evidence that our constituents should be putting their money in these speculative tokens unless they are prepared to lose all their money. So perhaps that is why the Royal Mint has made this decision in conjunction with the Treasury, end quote. In April 2022, then Chancellor Mr. Sunak said, quote, we want to see the cryptocurrency business of tomorrow and the jobs they create here in the UK, and by regulating effectively, we can give them the confidence they need to think and invest long term, end quote. Maybe this is from the same file. Lift co-founders

Logan Green and John Zimmer plan to step down as CEO on April 17th and president on June 30th, respectively, ex-Amazon executive David Risher, is set to be the new Lyft CEO, quoting CNBC. Lyft shares rose around 5% after hours on the news. Green and Zimmer founded Lyft in 2012 and took the company public in 2019. Lyft shares have fallen more than 70% in the last year. I am honored to step into the CEO role at such an important moment in the company's history and am prepared to take this business to new levels of success, Risher said in a statement. Risher joined Amazon in 1997 as its first vice president of product and store development. He was a top lieutenant of Amazon founder and executive chairman Jeff Bezos and went on to serve as

senior vice president of marketing and merchandising before exiting the company in 2002. Risher has been on Liff's board since 2021, end quote. I will just note here what others have noted online when you see X Amazon executives brought in to lead a company, there's often basically only one playbook, deep and massive reorganization to squeeze whatever value might still be there in a declining operation. Finally today, heads-up developers, Amazon has opened up its sidewalk network to you, providing SDKs and hardware development kits, and claims over 90% of the U.S. population can now access the public network.

Quoting the verge, it turns out that I have a low-power, low-bandwidth, long-range IOT network all around me, ready and waiting for my smart gadgets to jump on. Today, Amazon revealed just how far its sidewalk Internet of Things network penetrates the average American neighborhood, and it's deep. The company's first sidewalk coverage map claims that over 90% of the U.S. population can access the now public network. It's limited to the U.S. only. Using a sidewalk developer test kit supplied by Amazon, I drove around my town to confirm this data, and over three days of traveling more than 40 miles found that the connectivity was surprisingly strong in my corner of South Carolina, even in the wilds of a national forest. Amazon has released this data in conjunction with the

official opening of Sidewalk to developers. First announced in 2019, Amazon Sidewalk is a new low-power, wide-area network that Amazon believes will help enable the next wave of connected devices. It's not designed to replace cellular data for high-bandwidth devices, but to be used instead of expensive LTE or 5G connectivity on gadgets that don't need that much data. and we're paying $10 or more a month for data is excessive. Currently, sidewalk mainly exists to help ring cameras send motion notifications even when they're offline and allow level smart locks to connect to the internet without the need for battery sapping Wi-Fi radios.

Amazon has also developed a few early partnerships, including with Care Band, which developed a wearable health tracker. Now Amazon wants others to build devices that use the free network. All you need to do is request a test kit, a small gray wireless device with ring branding on it. Gage if the connectivity in the area you want to deploy your product is sufficient and you can start building. Nordic, Silicon Labs, and other Silicon companies have SDKs and HDKs available now, and AWS Internet of Things Core for Sidewalk provides a one-stop shop for connecting devices. What type of consumer IoT devices could benefit from sidewalk?

Think dog trackers, package trackers, soil moisture sensors, weather stations, leak sensors, mailbox sensors, pill bottles, solar panel controllers, garage door controllers, and anything else that doesn't always live somewhere where Wi-Fi is a given. I want someone to build me a long-range connected meat thermometer. Dave Limp, Senior Vice President of Devices and Services at Amazon tells me, I've had so many things fail. You know, you're in South Carolina. Overcooked pork butt is not what you want, end quote. As someone who has indeed tried to smoke pork on a connected cooker in my backyard, I can empathize with the frustrations of trying to cling to one bar of Wi-Fi while enjoying the outdoors. There are many use cases in the smart home where a network like this makes sense,

but the biggest benefit will likely be from the dynamic coverage sidewalk can offer, end quote. Nothing for you today. I'm rushing just slightly because I'm scheduled to record an episode of the A16Z podcast in about an hour. I'll let you know when they post that, hopefully next week or maybe later this week. Anyway, got to go do that. Talk to you tomorrow.