The Best One Yet - 🎸 “Eras Tour: The Movie” — T-Swift’s windowing strategy. Airbnb’s NYC crackdown. Credit Cards’ swipe tax.

Episode Date: September 6, 2023

Taylor Swift is turning her concert into a movie and it already broke a pre-sale ticket record — But every medium requires a different methodology.Airbnb was just effectively banned in NYC — We’ll tell you why New York is enforcing its Anti-Airbnb position.And credit card companies are about to raise a secret fee charged every time you swipe — Technically the stores pay it, but in reality we all do: So we call it the “Swipe Tax.”$AMEX $MC $V $ABNB $AMCSubscribe to our newsletter: tboypod.com/newsletterWant merch, a shoutout, or got TheBestFactYet? Go to: www.tboypod.comFollow The Best One Yet on Instagram, Twitter, and Tiktok: @tboypodAnd now watch us on Youtube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Wednesday, Cevice Wednesday, September 6th, and today's pod is the best one yet. You know, I ordered Cevice over break. You did? Did you actually do this? I didn't see it. I loved it.

It was great. Tasted nothing like sashimi. You throw in some mango in there, that is a meal, my friend. These Peruvians, they were on to something. These Peruvians, they're making me thirsty. Jack, first story. What do we got for the show, man? The biggest movie of the year isn't the Super Mario movie, and it is.

isn't the Barbie movie? No, it's not. It's the ERAs tour. Get this, Taylor Swift is turning her concert into a movie because media is a multiplayer game. For our second story, credit card companies are about to raise their super secretive transaction fee. Yeties, even though we don't see it, we all end up paying the swipe tax. And our third and final story, America's largest city, effectively banned Airbnb yesterday.

So Jack and I are going to tell you why New York City is enforcing an anti-examine. Airbnb abolition. But yet, is before we hit that fantastic mix of stories. That is a mix of stories, Jack, to eat over Cevice. This is Jack.

This is Nick. And neither of us have tattoos. True story. Jack and I repeat, our skin is inkless. I don't have a mom tat. I don't have a dragon tat. I don't have a tattoo sleeve.

I don't even have Sanskrit written on my stomach in Hena, Jack. Yet. Now, I did once get a tattoo of a cow in fifth grade, and it wreaked havoc. on my body. Jack, whenever I go to Boston, I get nightmares about those Celtics calf tats. They're scary. But yeties, it's not just us. We have some wild numbers about the tattoo industry. And here's

the early takeaway, Yetis. America is a lot cooler than us. Get this, Yetis. 32% of Americans, 32% have a tattoo today. We got to double underline that thing, Jack. A record one out of three Americans is now inked up. And get this, 22% of Americans have more than one tattoo. Now, Jack, we should sprinkle on a little more context here, shouldn't we, my friend. Is our old-school Harley-Davidson tats or a tasteful tramp stamp? No, they are not, because the younger you are, the inkier your skin. Because get this, Yetis, for Americans under 30, 40% of us have a tattoo. That's right, nearly half of Gen Z is inking it like a squid.

Is that a SpongeBob Squarepants I see on your bicep? I'm so glad you asked. No, it's a Billy Isleish crock tattoo. So, Yeties, if you're a Yeti with a tat, we want to be a Spoon. want to see it. If you're a bestie with some ink, we want to see it ASAP. Hit us up with that pick at T-BoyPod ASAP. Bonus points if it's a bowl of saviche. Double bonus if you do it today.

Jack, let's hit the three stories. 15 years before this song, two boys from the Northeast met in the dorm. They had an idea to cause a cultural storm. It's the best one yet, but the best is an norm. Jack Nick, that's it. I don't even think they need to practice. 50% that's a fat tip.

T-boy City on your at list. If you know, you know, because we're ready to go. We can't wait no more, so just start the show. Start the show. For our first story, the most anticipated film coming to theaters this fall, it's The Eristore. Taylor Swift's concert is becoming a movie, and it's already broken records. By yeties, before we get into it, before we jump into that, we know you may be feeling some fomo because you probably couldn't even secure tickets to this ERIS tour.

I haven't gone. I wish I could have. Maybe it's because we don't have tattoos, Jack. Well, good news. Good news. There's still 88 shows to go on the ERIS Tour. That's right. The ERIS Tour is only halfway done right now.

The final concert is in November of next year. Who knows how old will be then, Jack? Our kids will have kids. But even if you can't make it in the next 88 shows, you can still kind of make it. Here's the news. Taylor Swift just announced that she's turning her ERIS Tour concert into a blockbuster film. And it's coming to theaters on October 13th. If you're wondering, it's kind of like what they did with Hamilton, the musical.

They turned that into a film, and now they're turning Taylor's Ares tour into a film. First, T. Swift's concert tour broke Ticketmaster. Now it's breaking AMC, Regal, and Cinema. Jack, can you whip up the numbers for us over there, my friend? In the first 24 hours of pre-sales to this movie, 26 million dollars worth of movie tickets were sold. Jack, those are some high numbers, but can you whip up some context for us? over there.

Sure, Nick. Singer-songwriter Taylor Swift just broke the pre-sales movie record that was previously held by Marvel and Star Wars movies. Eat your heart out, Luke Skywalker. And we crunch some numbers, assuming $18 per ticket to a movie. On $26 million worth of movie sales? That's nearly two million Swifties who bought a ticket. That is over two San Francisco's worth of Swifties who have already bought the movie tickets.

And that was just for AMC movie theaters. Yes, it was. And just in the first 24 hours of pre-sales. And that's caused AMC stock to search 20%. Now, Nick and I know what's going on here, actually. What she's doing is a tried and true strategy from the media industry called windowing. Windowing. It's actually like a classic media strategy.

Let's break it down, Jack. Windowing is when a creative work is published on different media at different times. This actually happens all the time. You just don't realize it. Like, Jack, let's take as an example. A classic example of cinematography history. Dumb and Dumber. Dumb and Dumber.

Dumb and Dumber. Its first window in the media industry was as a movie in movie theaters back in 1994. A year later, Dumb and Dumber's second window was movie rentals and eventually movie VHS sales. Well, two years later, they got another window. Dumb and Dumber went to cable TV where you could watch it there. And a couple decades later, today, Dumb and Dumber has licensed to the streaming platforms. That's windowing yet. windowing, it's when you spread out the availability of a creative work to maximize revenue.

Those windows are close enough to still be relevant, but they're far enough apart to drive demand. Exactly. And Taylor's first window was music sales. And then her next window was the concert tour. And her newest window is the concert turned into a movie. In fairness, Beyonce did this a few years ago. She put her Coachella performance, which was incredible on Netflix. The Queen Bee knows about the windows. So Jack, Jack, What's the takeaway for our buddy, Taylor Swift? Every medium requires a new methodology. Yes, it does.

Yet is this concert film, it isn't just like a camera that's pointed on the stage from the perspective of a concert goer? No, if it was just that, then this movie wouldn't work. Jack and I know this because we've tried it before. Like, we have simply turned on our video cameras and then tried posting the podcast clip to TikTok. It didn't work because TikTok's a video platform. You can't just put a podcast in there. What we had to do was edit it further and then repackage that podcast clip specifically for TikTok.

Because each medium of media requires its own methodology. Well, Taylor knows that already. That's why she hired a Grammy-nominated and Emmy-winning director. This film director will add additional production effects and transform this concert into a film. For this concert to become a movie, it can't just be a concert. It must be redesigned as a movie. Because every medium requires a movie. its own new methodology.

For our second story, there is a secret credit card fee that is about to go up. It's called the swipe tax. Actually, we call it the swipe tax. We never see it. We aren't even charged it, but we all end up paying it. Jack, to kick off this story, I am going to need a visual. You are walking into an urban outfitters. You don't have a tattoo, which is kind of lame.

But you really want a cute top. Love me a cute top. So I grabbed this lamb and salmon variety, size medium, walk up to the cashier. Then you swipe your card, you sign your signature, and you print out a paper receipt for yourself. The receipt shows the subtotal, the sales tax, and then the final price I have to pay.

But here's the thing, Yetis. There's actually one more hidden charge not on your receipt. And what is that charge, Jack? That charge is the interchange fee. Oh, the interchange fee, a.k.k.a. the swipe fee. The swipe fee is charged for every credit card transaction. and it's one to three percent of the total cost.

Yeah, so like, for example, urban outfiters pays that fee, and that fee goes to the credit card company and the bank that issued the card. And since so many of us are buying so many things with the credit card, this is the other sales tax of this economy. It's the other sales tax. It's the fee we don't see, the fee we don't pay, the fee, frankly, none of us really care about. And according to the Wall Street Journal, Visa and MasterCard,

the two dominators of this credit card industry, are about to raise that fee that merchants have to pay. pay. And that is why your local bodega prefers you just pay in cash. Yeties, Nick and I jumped in T-boy style. The swipe fee is huge. Yeah, there's an entire economy here that is hidden from us shoppers and it's all about the swipe fee. Okay, that $50 top I bought to cover my tattoo that doesn't exist. So cute. It resulted in a $1 interchange fee. Tiny, but that $1 adds up. Because Visa and MasterCard made nearly $100 billion in swipe fees from store. stores just last year. Stores like Urban Outfitters have paid three times more swipe fees in just the last decade to Visa and MasterCard.

And guess what? Here in the United States, we happen to have the biggest swipe fee on Earth. I'm not shocked at all about this. This was shocking, though. But I am shocked by the amount. The 1 to 3% swipe fee in the U.S. is nine times higher than the swipe fees in the European Union. Now, yeties, we know what you're thinking here. If you're a credit card company, you must be proud about this, right? Like, this is something. to brag about to talk about, right, Jack? You're bringing in $100 billion by doing nothing. Just Americans are swiping their cards and you're making money. But Jack, what's the reality for the credit card companies?

The credit card companies don't seem proud at all. They seem kind of ashamed by these swipe fees. Yeah, like they're actually kind of embarrassed about this. Get this. Jack and I jumped in T-boy style to the earnings reports of Visa and MasterCard. There were very few mentions of interchange fees. They only really mentioned this swipe fee in their first. footnot so you barely even saw the thing. Nick, remember last year oil companies, we said they

didn't celebrate record profits. They whispered them. Exactly. It's similar with the credit card companies and their interchange fees. Yeah, they're keeping those profits on the download. They're not talking about them, but they're wink, wink at shareholders. And that is why both Visa and MasterCard stocks have 10xed in the last 10 years. They're not bragging about these interchange fees, but their stock prices are. But the worst part, it's our takeaways. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over in the credit card industry. The swipe fee is actually a secret sales tax on all of us. Yes, here's the worst part about this higher swipe fee coming our way.

We're all going to end up paying it. Stores like Urban Outfitters know about this fee, and they know that it's rising, so they pass it on to us with higher prices for those cute tops. Jack and I were curious, so we jumped in T-boy style, and we found proof, didn't we, Jack? According to the Federal Reserve, a majority of merchants pass on higher interchange fees as higher prices for consumers. They pass on that swipe fee to us buyers. And that's why Congress is looking into regulation of them. They think that only government should levy taxes on us.

Yeties, these interchange fees, they are the hidden swipe fee paid by merchants. But in reality, they're the secret sales tax paid by us. For our third and final story, Airbnb's biggest market, just effectively banned Airbnb. New York City's Airbnb crackdown will eliminate over half of New York City's Airbnb listings. Now, yeah, ladies, we got to sprinkle on more context here to kick things off. First of all, New York City is Airbnb City. 47,000 Airbnb listings across the Fiburah. Get this, New York City's Airbnbs generate $85 million in revenue every year just for Airbnb. And the hosts are taking home way more revenue than that.

Beat that, Marriott. But the New York City City Council just showed us something called Local Law 18. Oh, little Local Law 18 just came into effect yesterday, and the implications of this are huge. Local Law 18 is a short-term rental law intended to crack down hard on Airbnbs across New York City. And this little Local Law 18 requires two things. What are they, Jack? First, anybody in New York City that wants to host somebody on Airbnb must first register their property with the mayor's office and get it approved. Second, Airbnb, Verbo, and any other rental company must confirm their New York City properties are approved before they let you book the room.

Hosts who violate these rules could face fines up to $5,000. Now, Yeties, there is more to this story because what Jack and I just described, that was just the enforcement of this new anti-air Airbnb law. Here's the rules to get your Airbnb listing in New York approved by the mayor's office. First, you can't rent to someone for less than 30 days unless, unless something really awkward happens. Unless the owner of the property is there with you, like in the bedroom next door. If you want to spend a weekend on the Lower East Side at an Airbnb, then Landlord Larry must be in the next room by law. And if you're cool with that and you rent Landlord Larry's extra bedroom, you can only have two guests there. That's the law.

So even if you don't mind landlord Larry as a roommate, you can't travel with more than a couple buddies. Now, those laws were already on the books in New York City, but everyone was ignoring those laws. Well, now, for the first time, this anti-airbnB law has enforcement. It's not just the $5,000 to host to violate. Airbnb gets fined $1,500 for each illegal booking that takes place. And get this, because of this law, half of New York City's Airbnbs are expected to disappear. disappear from Airbnb, but they'll show up somewhere else. Somewhere else in our takeaway. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Airbnb?

The biggest winner here is hotels. Yet is Nick. And I got to share with you that my co-host, Jack over there, one state and a New York City Airbnb, and then he got evicted in the middle of the night. He called me up. A few hours after my arrival, the landlord of the building knocked on the door and said, are you booking this place on Airbnb? And I honestly replied, yes.

Yeah, and then Jack. And then he said he's calling the police. Yeah, he did. Because this isn't a legal Airbnb. Like NYPD came and Jack had to pack up his cute little toothbrush and bounce out of there. That place I stayed at was clearly a full-time Airbnb. Nobody ever lived there. And then Jack had to schlep over to a hotel.

Now this law that just passed is going to put that Airbnb back into the long-term rental market so a New Yorker can live there. Not Jack for just a weekend. But the real reason this law got passed is because New Yorker New York City is America's hotel capital. New York City has 130,000 hotel rooms. And without Airbnb's to stay in, tourists will have to stay in hotels now. Well, that is why the Hotel Trades Council, a lobbying group, pushed really hard for this law.

Airbnb lost in New York City. Hotels won. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us for Cevice Wednesday? Taylor Swift's Erez Tour is a movie now that premieres on October 13th. And it's got a film director. because every medium requires a new methodology. For our second story, credit card companies are about to jack up interchange fees, which were already nine times higher than in Europe.

The swipe fee. It is actually a secret sales tax on all of us. And our third and final story is Airbnb. It's now effectively banned in New York City. The real winner here, it was hotels. But yeties, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today. First, on July 21st, Lienel Messi played his...

very first game in Major League soccer. On that very day, Apple added 110,000 subscribers to the MLS season pass. And second, Bumble, the dating app, has a new anti-ghosting policy everyone should know about. If you don't show up for a date, like a first date on Bumble, Bumble considers that bullying and could kick you off the app. And finally, after those horrible Maui forest fires, Hawaii is now losing $9 million a day without tourists. Which is why Maui and the state of Hawaii have a new message. Tourists, please come back.

I would love to go there, Jack. It's still on my bucket list. Now, time for the best fact yet. This one sent in by Mike and Cassie Grisades from lovely St. Louis, Missouri. The Great Pyramids of Egypt. Another thing on my bucket list. Yes, Jack. They were built nearly 5,000 years ago.

Nick, that's 2,400 BC. But get this, Yeties. While the Egyptians were building those pyramids and, Egypt, woolly mammoths were roaming Siberia. That's right. Woolly mammoths were alive at the same time that humans were building the pyramids. Head cannot compute. That does not seem to work. I thought woolly mammoths were like Jurassic Park era. I thought they were like a couple years post-Turanosaurus Rex, Jack. I wonder if any woolly mammoths were kept as pets. Woolly mammoths and humans overlapped during the Great Pyramids. Yiddies, you look fantastic over there. Jack, you're looking amazing.

can I see your calf, please? No. I'm going to need to inspect a bicep. Yetis, if you've got a tattoo, hit us up at T-boy Pot. We want to see this thing, Jack, and I need some inspiration. Remember, though, this is a family-friendly show. Tasteful Tats, H-Y-H-T-B-O-I. Nick and I, we'll see you tomorrow.

If you know, you know. And before we go, a happy birthday and anniversary date to Len and Naomi, a couple with the same birthday and the same anniversary date. Wait, they got married on their mutual. birthday? Yeah, they even found each other on their mutual birthdays over in Canada. And happy birthday to Hyshaun-Jew, Washington. And a happy birthday to Erica Schumann over in Overland Park, Kansas. Congratulations to Caitlin Lubbati, who got a new job down in Bentonville, Arkansas.

And Jake Napier is graduating Summa Kamlaude from Business School Not Too Shabby, Jake. And congratulations to Kathy and Cam, who just got married out in California. Kathy and Cam, we got to see some picks. Hit us up. Congratulations. And to anyone else who's celebrating something today, make it a T-boy. Celebrate the wins.

This is Jack, Nick and I both on stock of Airbnb and Apple. I did a really professional job. They did. It is really nice. It's funny because I'm seeing it backwards, too. And just to see it. That's funny because I'm reading T-boy front words on my side. That's funny.

Yeah. Well, I'm backwards for me, too. So. Oh, really? Yeah. Something's going on here. Dude, everything is right ways for me. This is really weird.

But I hear you talking backwards.