Tech Brew Ride Home - Wed. 08/31 – Not Great, Snap!

Episode Date: August 31, 2022

Huge, huge layoffs at Snap. Say hello to Apple Xcode Cloud Subscriptions. Say hello to “can’t be evil” NFT licenses. Forget foldable phones, I have a very interesting foldable laptop to tell you about. And if your crypto exchange fat fingered you $10 million dollars as a mistake, what would you buy? Sponsors: Split.io/techmeme Storyblok.com/ridehome Links: Snap plans to lay off 20 percent of employees (The Verge) Xcode Cloud Subscriptions Now Available for Developers (MacRumors) A16z Wants to Standardize NFTs by Giving You a License for Your Token (CoinDesk) Ticketmaster taps the Flow blockchain to let event organizers issue NFTs tied to tickets (TechCrunch) Comcast and Charter face a grim new reality: actual competition (Fast Company) ASUS ZENBOOK 17 FOLD OLED REVIEW: THE BEST FOLDABLE YET (The Verge) Crypto.com Sues Woman After Sending Her $10 Million by Mistake: Report (Decrypt) 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 Tech meme right home for Wednesday, August 31st, 2022. I'm Brian McCullough today. Huge, huge layoffs at Snap. Say hello to Apple Xcode cloud subscriptions. Say hello to Can't Be Evil NFT licenses. Forget about foldable phones. I have a very interesting foldable laptop to tell you about. And if you're a crypto exchange fat fingered you $10 million as a mistake, what would you buy? Here's what you missed today in the world of tech. Time to break out the not great Bob, Mad Men meme. Snap is laying off around 20% of its more than 6,400 employees beginning today,

including cuts to its hardware group. Snap's stock, you might be aware, is down around 80% this year, quoting Alex Heath at the verge. The layoffs, which Snap has been planning for for the past several weeks, will begin on Wednesday and hit some departments harder than others, the people said. For example, the team working on ways for developers to build mini apps and games inside Snapchat will be severely impacted. Zenly, the social mapping app Snap bought in 2017 and has since run separately, will also

see deep cuts. Another team that will see layoffs is Snap's hardware division, which is responsible for its AR Spectacles, glasses, and the Pixie camera drone that was recently canceled after being on sale for just a few months. The company's ad sales organization is also being restructured with Jeremy Gorman, SNAP's chief business officer departing to run ads for Netflix. Russ Cadditz Peck, a SNAP spokesperson declined to comment on the layoffs. Though the scale of the layoffs is significant, it shouldn't necessarily come as a surprise.

Snap's stock price has lost nearly 80% of its value since the beginning of this year, and the company said in May that it would slow hiring and look for ways to cut costs. It then delivered dismal earnings for the second quarter and said it wouldn't forecast results for the third quarter, end quote. And that's not all. is also canceling its original shows, its in-app games, and several other projects. Layoffs could save around $500 million a year, quoting Alex again, but this time from a different piece this morning, quote, in a company memo on Wednesday, CEO Evan Spiegel wrote that Snap is, quote, restructuring our business to increase focus on our three strategic priorities, community growth, revenue growth,

and augmented reality, end quote. Speagle said the company's revenue growth had re-accelerated to 8% from being flat in late July, suggesting its ad business is starting to rebound. Still, that is a far cry from the more than 40% revenue growth, Snapwood, seeing before Russia invaded Ukraine, which it blamed for a slowdown in marketing spend, and the digital ads market started to contract earlier this year. In a filing with the SEC, Snap said it expects the layoffs, which were first reported by the Verge on Tuesday, to save it $500 million and costs annually. Spiegel said that Snapwood and its original shows that appear in the Discover section of Snapchat, along with its in-app games and HTML miniature applications built by outside developers. The company's self-flying camera drone, Pixie, is being

canned after debuting in only April. Spiegel said the company is also winding down Zenly, a separate app for seeing where your friends are on a map that was acquired in 2017, and Voicy, a TikTok-like music app that Snap bought in 2020. Snap's leadership team is also being shaken up this week. Spegel announced that Jerry Hunter, the company's chief engineering officer, will become chief operating officer overseeing all monetization, growth, partnerships, and engineering. Snap's chief business officer and top ads exec, Jeremy Gorman, announced Tuesday that she was leaving to run Netflix's forthcoming ad-supported tier, end quote. Now, I know that they're at an entirely different scale, maybe an entirely different business,

but people are whispering this morning, is it possible we could see significant layoffs at Meta? sometime soon. Apple has debuted X-Code cloud subscriptions for developers for up to $400 a month, 25 compute hours per month is free until the end of 2023, then it'll run you $15 a month afterwards. Quoting Mac rumors. X-Code Cloud has been available to all developers since June after several months of beta testing, but subscriptions were not able to be purchased until now. There are a total of four-monthly plans that developers can choose from, which vary based on the total number of compute hours needed. 25 compute hours per month is free at the current time, but will later cost $15 per month, 100 compute hours per month is priced at $50 a month, and $1,000 compute hours per month

is priced at $400 per month. Apple says that developers can get started by configuring a workflow in Xcode and will receive 25 computer hours per month at no cost until the end of 2023. As mentioned above, pricing for this plan will be $15 with. the introductory period ends. A compute hour is an hour of time that is used to execute a task in the cloud, like building an app or running tests. Computer hour usage can be tracked in App Store Connect and the Apple Developer app, end quote.

This is interesting. A16Z has released a set of free, can't-be-evil licenses for NFTs, inspired by Creative Commons, and already available on GitHub, quoting CoinDesk. The firm wants to establish some industry standards for how NFTs can be used by offering a lawyer-vetted array of free licensing options in an approach similar to Creative Commons. Confusion abounds around intellectual property rights in these tokens. Some users have already turned to Creative Commons, a nonprofit organization that set up free copyright licensing to help creators share their work. But other NFT efforts have left their status murky. As a wave of no rights-reserved projects have emerged, A16Z argues in urgent.

need for clarity on how owners can use NFTs and give others permission to use them. There is kind of a wildly broad spectrum of approaches that people are taking, said Miles Jennings, General Counsel at A16Z. Greater standardization around the industry will help unleash the economic potential of that sector of the industry, end quote. His firm, as explained in a Wednesday blog post from Jennings and Chris Dixon in Andreessen Horowitz's managing partner, who founded its crypto arm is releasing a set of free public can't be evil licenses designed specifically for NFTs and inspired by the work of Creative Commons. The company hired lawyers to help outline several levels of licensing and the language is provided on GitHub for those who want to adopt it.

While standardized licensing has been attempted in the past, including by Dapper Labs, creator of Cryptokitties, the sector hasn't yet settled into any consistent approach. That's an ongoing source of legal uncertainty that plagues users and investors, including firms such as A16Z, end quote. Speaking of Dapper Labs, Ticketmaster's Live Nation, has partnered with Dapper Labs to release ticket NFTs on the flow blockchain and has expanded its NFL partnership for NFTs to 100 games, quoting TechCrunch. The Live Nation subsidiary said that event organizers can make these NFTs available before,

during, or after the event, and even enable special experiences like loyalty rewards or celebrity meet and greets or simply offer memorabilia in an NFT format. The flow blockchain is known for enabling Web3 experiences related to fantasy sports and gaming such as NBA Topshot. Ticketmaster initially partnered with Ethereum-based blockchain polygon last November to issue virtual ticket stubs to NFL fans throughout the rest of the season. The ticketing giant then elected the Flow blockchain earlier this year to issue digital collectibles to over 70,000 Super Bowl ticket owners. Ticketmaster is also extending its partnership with the NFL to this season, where it plans to issue NFTs to all attendees of 100 select games,

including at least three home games for all 32 teams. The company said it has already minted over 5 million NFTs on flow through various partners after its Super Bowl debut, end quote. Follow up to something that I think is going to be a big trend. In a first, Comcast and Charter, both failed to grow internet subscribers in Q2-2020. First time ever that has happened, and it comes, as T-Mobile and Verizon roll out cheaper home internet powered by 5G as we've discussed. Quoting Fast Company. Comcast's internet subscriber growth was essentially flat last quarter while Charter lost 21,000 spectrum internet subscribers.

For both companies, it's the first time they've failed to grow their home internet businesses in a given quarter. The reason isn't a mystery either. All around the country, T-Mobile and Verizon have been rolling out cheap home internet service powered by their 5G networks at last giving customers. and alternative where none previously existed. In an earnings call, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts pointed to those carriers as a reason its broadband growth has hit a wall. It's a rude awakening for cable companies whose broadband monopolies in many markets have allowed them to raise prices

and, in Comcast's case, enforce data caps. While Comcast and Charter have tried to downplay the threat posed by wireless home internet, experts say the competition is here to stay. Both T-Mobile and Verizon are undercutting cable companies on pricing. T-Mobile, for instance, charges $50 per month for home internet, with typical download speeds ranging from 33 to 182 mbPS. Verizon also charges $50 per month with download speeds ranging from 85 mbPS to 300, according to CNET, and it cuts the price in half for customers who bundle smartphone service. By comparison, Comcast's non-promotional internet prices start at $99 per month, and Spectrum's non-promotional internet service starts at $75 per month.

While the wireless offerings aren't new, T-Mobile and Verizon have both been expanding to more markets, increasing speeds with mid-band 5G and marketing their services more aggressively. T-Mobile even aired a commercial for home internet service during the Super Bowl. Subscriber growth has surged accordingly. T-Mobile now has more than 1 million home internet subscribers and added 560,000 in the last quarter alone. Verizon has 384,000 wireless home internet subscribers, two-thirds of which came in the last quarter. unquote. It's a world we've dreamed of for years, people, actually having a choice of ISPs for your home. The ending of artificial monopolies based on geography. And how about a gadget review real quick? Because maybe this is another trend we can spot. The ASIS Zen Book 17-fold is a foldable

laptop. The Verge says its OLED display comes with a comfortable keyboard and professional look, but $3,500 is expensive, and there are software glitches. Some of the biggest PC manufacturers either have announced that they are or are rumored to be working on 17-inch foldable laptops. But in a move that should come as a surprise to nobody who's familiar with the company and its antics, ASIS looks like it might be first to the punch. I'm typing this on the Zenbook 17-fold OLED, which is the first shelf-ready device of its kind to hit reviewers' hands. It's a 17.3-inch laptop with a screen that folds in half. And people, it works. mostly works. It does not work well enough that I think you should spend a whole $3,40099.99

on it when it ships in, per Aces' estimate, Q4. I ran into enough issues with it that I can't, in good conscience, recommend it as a purchase for that amount of money. But there are lots of great things about it. It's a gorgeous OLED with brilliant colors. The keyboard is full-size and very comfortable, and to repeat, the screen folds in half. The experience is such an improvement from the last foldable I tried, Lenovo's smaller and glitchier think pad X1 fold back in 2020, that it makes me really excited for the foldable devices to come. I really think they're getting there. When fully unfurled, it's a 4x3-17.3-inch tablet. When flipped horizontally and folded at somewhere around a 90-degree angle, it's a 3x2-13-inch notebook. Well, 12.5, but close enough.

Close it up with the keyboard inside. It fits perfectly. And you've got a little book of sorts that's easy to slip into a purse. You can probably see why a device like this would be handy to have around. There are other ways you could use it, of course. You could fold it horizontally and hold it like a book, though you'd probably need to be using some fairly specific apps for that to be ideal. You could use it in what AISS calls extended mode, meaning you fold it into the shape of a regular laptop, setting the top have to be a primary screen, and the bottom have to be a secondary screen. You could just carry it around as a mega-large Netflix viewing machine. But overwhelmingly, there were two ways I found useful to use the

Zenbook 17-fold. When I wanted a big-ass screen, I unfolded the thing, knocked out the built-in kickstand, plonked it on my desk, and used the Bluetooth keyboard on the surface in front of it. When I wanted to use it on my couch or bed, I flipped the screen vertically, folded it into a laptop shape, flattened the kickstand, and snapped the keyboard over to the bottom half. That may sound like a whole thing and a half, but I promise it's very quick, and once the keyboard is on, Windows automatically compresses to the top screen. As of now, AIS tells me there is only one configuration of the Zenbook 17-fold OLED. It includes a core I7-1250U processor, two performance cores, and eight efficiency cores, 16 gigabytes of memory, and one terabyte of storage with a 75-watt

battery and a 65-watt adapter. The main thing to know about the system's performance is that it's fine, but not amazing, and certainly not the reason to buy this. It's far from a workstation and not something you'd want to use for more than a general office workload. If that's understood, though, the experience is generally smooth and not nearly as error-ridden as the thinkpad X1 folds was a year and a half ago. About 95% of the time using the Zenbook 17-fold was like using any other OLED laptop. But 5% of a product's lifespan still adds up to quite a bit of time. I do think the problems I've encountered, combined with the very, very high price makes it difficult for me to recommend this as a daily driver. Still, this product is quite useful and it's

very cool. The fact that it exists and that it mostly works is a great sign for this new category of device. I think a really excellent foldable from AIS is probably on the horizon, end quote. Finally today, crypto.com is suing an Australian woman after erroneously sending her $10.5 million Australian in May of 2021 when she had only requested a $100 refund. The woman allegedly bought a house with the proceeds, quote. Manavell also allegedly transferred 10.1 million dollars into a joint account following the error, the broadcaster said. Seven News added that Crypto.com noticed the mistake during an audit in December 2021. A Crypto.com employee had mistakenly entered an account number in the payment section and sent the money. The company has since taken legal

action and Victoria's Supreme Court has ordered the home to be sold and the money returned according to the report, end quote. Actually, it turns out if something like this happens to you in certain states in the U.S., you can actually be prosecuted for a crime. But it sounds like Crypto.com just basically wants as much of the money back as they can get. Lots of jokes about, you know, code being law for crypto, though, as at Abstract Code tweeted, quote, oh, so now they want transactions to be reversible. Last week, a stray trash can showed up on the sidewalk in front of our house.

No one claimed it, and it wasn't ours, but as I said, it was sitting in front of our house for a week. I didn't want to move it in front of anyone else's house, because that's not fair. but again, it's not ours. So now someone overnight has put it on our stoop. So I guess it's ours now? What else am I going to do?

Put it on someone else's stoop? I guess it's my problem now. And I know this sounds like the plot of a Seinfeld episode, but I guess I'm going to find out the answer to a mystery I've wondered about my entire adult life. How do you get the garbage guys to take an actual trash can away? Like, I'm assuming putting a sign on it is sufficient, or am I stuck with this extra trash can without a lid forever?

Because there's no logical way to throw it out. Insert Seinfeld theme music here. Talk to you tomorrow.